i long-distance dated a girl when we were high school aged who lived in myanmar. (i sadly lost contact with her years ago when i made new social media accs)

she learned english as a little girl and only spoke burmese with her family and at school. however im assuming she didn’t read or write in it that much and most of the time, spoke to me and her online friends (which would be in english).

i remember google translating “hello, how are you?” or something like that and she told me to please not type in Burmese because she couldn’t read it without using Google translate to find out what i wrote in english.

while she can understand spoken burmese as well as speak it herself (she kinda has to living in myanmar), she can’t read it and told me she struggled in school for that reason.

naturally, she preferred english. i also know of people who speak 2 languages but either can’t read/write the one language and only speaks it or has trouble spelling words.

i think i knew a spanish speaker in the us who spelled words like “como te llamas” as “como te yamas” (not as a slang spelling, he was just trying to spell it)