You would think two people really invested in learning this language would talk with each other in Portuguese. We would if we could but we can't. Technically, we have enough of the language to communicate but we can only stick with it for about 5 minutes. The second we indulge a moment of mindlessness we find ourselves back in English. It is our baseline. A Brazilian married to an American who is fluent in Portuguese explained that they speak together in English because that is how they know each other. A young polyglot from Germany told us that his relationships with other polyglots tend to stay in whatever language they start in, even if they later learned that they were both more comfortable in another language. Weird, but presumably true. For Carol and I, our relationship is in English and so are many of our goofy sweetnesses. I couldn't imagine calling her "dumplin cups'" in any language other than ours and "bunny muffin" doesn't sound right at all in Portuguese.
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