"My SIL's husband tells me at every family gathering how he wished he spoke English as well as I spoke French.  It's his way of letting me know that I'll never be "one of them".

It was sort of freeing when i finally gave up and stopped trying. I'm still friendly and polite, but due to both cultural differences (I was told from the beginning that mothers from their culture routinely cry when their sons bring home an American) and BM2 still hanging around, it just won't happen. They don't want to get to know me or be my friend. Their loss. 

I do know just enough Arabic to pick up on some elements of conversation.

Having lived and worked in the MENA region for half of my life has given me just enough to be dangerous, or polite depending on the situation. During my childhood the push was for everyone to learn English so getting Arabs to speak Arabic was a challenge.

During my career I was in a meeting with my Exec team and the client's Exec team and heard someone basically call my pompous jackass of a boss a shit for brains.  I smirked and chuckled, their CEO then told the rest of their team that I understood and the rest of the meetings were all in English.

After that, every meeting would start with someone on the client team telling others that I could understand.

Which I really can't at any significant level.  Just enough to get the gist of some comments.

On the topic of "dialect", I am assuming you are referring to Flemish.  I led some projects in Leuven in the 90s and had several lessons on how those who speak dialect usually can understand others speaking French but many who speak French do not understand dialect.  Fortunately, just about everyone spoke English so I could function decently during those assignments.

I am told that my pronunciation in Arabic is excellent though tribal.  I have always held that someday I will actually learn the language though so far that has not happened.  I have been laughed at while living in Qatar because I "speak like a Saudi bedouin".  Interestingly, the royal family of Qatar originates in the Najd region of Saudi Arabia which is also where the Saud family originates.  We moved to Saudi when I was 4yo and that is where I was mostly raised.  My mom and dad met there as kids when both of their families were there after WW2 building the O&G infrastructure.  My dad's parents were there for nearly 30 years. Mom's were there for 3.  My parents made most of their career years there.

Language is powerful.  Sadly many Americans fail to realize that.

Winterglow, your post has really sparked my curiosity. I'm guessing that your DH is Syrian (tabouleh and the fact that French is spoken in Syria). You wrote, 'With a nice smile, I asked Dad, in dialect...' which confuses me, since there is no English dialect, only differing accents. ??? If responding to my question compromises your anonymity, please ignore.

I was married to a European and our clash of cultures (I'm an independent woman, my ex was rather misogynistic, by North American standards) was behind much of our marital conflict. 

Marriage is difficult enough when one partner has previous baggage; throw in a societal mismatch and the resultant incompatibility becomes almost impossible to overcome. Based on the fact that your DH actually cooks, sounds like you’re managing quite nicely. Well done!

ETA: Oops! I posted my comments before reading the above, Winterglow! All is now understood....