Time to learn each other’s language

Dear Annie: My husband and I have been married for five years.

We both are immigrants, although we came from different countries. Since we are not fluent in each other’s native tongue, we speak English at home.

Recently, my husband’s college friends and their wives came for dinner. All of them are fluent in English, but during dinner, they chatted in my husband’s native language. Of course, I was clueless about the discussion and sat there like a fool.

It’s not the first time this has happened.

The next day, I brought it up to my husband and begged him, as a compromise, to at least translate some of the conversation. I’d like to get to know his friends better. Instead, my husband said he wouldn’t do this, so he will no longer invite them over. This makes me sad. Is it appropriate for my husband to exclude me? He says I am making a big fuss over nothing.

Am I? Hurt and Upset

Dear Hurt: It is extremely rude to carry on a conversation in any language when one of those present cannot understand what is being said.

This is particularly true when it is a social event and all of the guests are capable of speaking a common second language.

However, you have been married to this guy for five years.

Don’t you think it’s time both of you made the effort to learn each other’s native tongue, so you are part of each other’s culture and neither of you is left out of these conversations? Dear Annie: I urge all your male readers age 40 and older to have a yearly PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) test.

I was considering donating a kidney to a family member, and one of the tests I was given was a PSA. The results were high, and a followup biopsy showed prostate cancer.

My cancer was caught in time and, after a radical prostatectomy, I am on my way to recovery.

After my diagnosis, my older cousin immediately went for a PSA test, and he, too, found out he has prostate cancer.

A grade-school friend did the same but was not so lucky.

His cancer has spread to the bones and lymph nodes.

I never thought I could have cancer, but now I am. A Survivor in Germany

Dear Survivor: Thank you for the warning.

Readers, if you or someone you love is due for a PSA test, please schedule one today. Annie’s Mailbox is written by Kathy Mitchell and Marcy Sugar, longtime editors of the Ann Landers column.