Woman's Discovery About Mother-in-Law Leaves Internet in Tears

A video on TikTok has sparked discussions about multilingual relationships and the value of cultural understanding.

TikTok user Valentina posted the video, under the account @valentudorc, which shows her reaction to finding a Spanish-language workbook that her mother-in-law was presumably using to secretly learn Spanish.

In the video's caption, Valentina wrote in Spanish: "My mother-in-law is a foreigner, she doesn't speak any Spanish, and I just found this on the patio table."

Valentina is visibly touched by the gesture, putting her hand to her heart. The workbook included the English and Spanish names for household objects.

Viewers were moved by the video—which has been seen 261,000 times—and shared their own stories, in Spanish, of loved ones making efforts toward linguistic and cultural understanding. Many commenters said their mothers-in-law had made similar efforts to learn Spanish or had offered resources for their daughters-in-law to learn English.

The comments below have been translated from Spanish.

"When I arrived in the USA, my mother-in-law bought me little books for kindergarten children so I could learn English. For me, it was a beautiful act of love," one user wrote.

"I am blessed to have a wonderful mother-in-law," another added. "She is also a gringa and still tried to communicate with my mother. It's a gift from heaven."

"My husband's entire family started taking Spanish classes the moment I got married," a commenter said. "They didn't know a word in Spanish."

Other viewers said Valentina's mother-in-law performed an act of love that transcends language and cultural differences to emphasize the importance of familial values.

"How beautiful she wants to understand you, she accepts you as you are and doesn't care about the language barrier," one user commented. "She just wants to help you in everything she can."

How Do Language Barriers Affect Couples?

The TikTok video prompts questions about how multilingual families connect despite differences in their mother tongues.

A study conducted in 2016 by researchers at Birkbeck, University of London, investigated these dynamics to discover whether language and cultural differences within cross-cultural couples made communication—particularly about emotions—more difficult.

One-third of the 429 participants, who were in romantic relationships with speakers of a different language, reported no difficulty. However, one-half mentioned the constraints of operating in different languages, noting a lack of "emotional resonance" in the language foreign to them.

For three-quarters of participants, these obstacles faded in a matter of months, proving the limitations surmountable.

Overall, the researchers found that communication difficulties in multilingual relationships were not as common as people may think. Furthermore, they seem to play neither a positive nor negative role in the development of a relationship.

The gesture made by Valentina's mother-in-law proved deeply meaningful to Valentina and Spanish-speaking TikTok users in similar situations. For many, family members making this extra effort means the world.

"Love: universal language," one user wrote.