Families with Children: Languages in the Home

[Cacerez 19]

We won't be having kids for another couple of years, but we do plan on teaching them both Spanish and English. We will probably speak mostly Spanish in the home as with my family, church, eventually school, they will hear English a lot. As someone else mentioned, a lot of times there will be a mixture, where Josue says something to me in Spanish and I respond in English, but as he continues learning English we will need to help him out as well. Also, since I teach, it is likely that we will be spending a lot of time during the summer in Guatemala so the kids will be with Josue's side of the family and will be able to speak Spanish better than me in no time. Either way, our kids will DEFINITELY be bilingual - no questions.

[Mrs. Diaz 1]

We do not have kids yet, but I've been thinking about this a lot lately....(I want to have babies soon!) ;-)

We will probable speak English and Spanish at home when the kids are little. But I will try to teach them Swedish as soon as they are bi-lingual. Don't want to confuse them too much! (I will definitely not speak English all the time... so I'm they will sure know how to say simple words and sentences in Swedish at a young age.)

[MrsAmera 41]

We have 2 sons who are 5 and 2. Our oldest goes to an Islamic Preschool and learns Arabic daily, our youngest is cared for by a Moroccan lady (our oldest son also goes to her house after school.) My husband speaks to them both in Arabic (I in a half #### Arabic/English). Next year our oldest will go to Public school but take Arabic classes in weekend school. Also our youngest son will be spending the summer with his Moroccan grandparents in Morocco and next year we plan to go with both of them for the summer. Our ultimate plan is to move back to Morocco before our oldest is 10, but we will see what happens with that.

To me it was incredibly important for them to learn Arabic so that they can speak with my husbands family, cousins etc. It's a shame IMO that so many children don't learn their parents native languages!

[Kopa 3]

I would say that the most important language will be english. If they do not learn English very well they will be held back in their life in the US. Of course you will want the second language to be taught alos but the focus should be on the language that will benefit the child the most.

Kopa, Is that right - your AOS took 1341 days? Thats insane!

Yup AOS really took that long... Gotta love the FBI name check!!

[-B&T- 1]

I have a son he is 8 months old so obviously he can't talk that much yet just 'mama' and 'dada' just sharing....

Anyway,we will be speaking English around the house so he won't be confuse and my Filipino language I don't know if he will get interested to it but maybe I will try to teach him and my husband will be teaching him spanish too when he gets older.

[MrsAmera 41]

I think you should encourage him - kids don't confuse the two languages, they compartmentalize them and learn to speak them both natively. I have a co-worker who's Phillipino but his mom never spoke the language with him - he really regrets that she didn't!

[ya falaha! 0]

When my children were young my ex and I only spoke English to them. Because my ex was always busy and not home much I was the primary caregiver therefore they really only heard English spoken. When they were 7 and 9 they spent a few months in their father's home country so they came home being somewhat fluent in Arabic. Their father then spoke mostly Arabic to them. Now that their stepmother is here (also from Yemen), Arabic is the only language spoken in their father's household. Because my current husband speaks with a very different dialect he does not speak to the boys in Arabic. We only speak English in my household. I love that the boys are bilingual and I appreciate their step mother's presence. Because she speaks very little English they are basically forced to only speak Arabic.

[blue123 0]

We speak English most of the time, but I do try and get them to say some words in Swiss German, to impress gandma on the phone We also sing lullabys in Swiss German, and I do plan on teaching them German as a second language, and possibly Irish later on (we will probably homeschool at least for elementary school).

My son is 12 and speaks fluent English and German I am hoping there are other native German speakers in southern Missouri, I am worried he will lose his German if he doesnt get a chance to use when we move. I speak some German but not enough, he always speaks English with me and his stepfather.

[lucyrich 20]

Our baby will be three years old in June. She's at the age where she's acquiring a lot of language, new words almost daily.

At home, we speak a mixture of Spanish and English. And our baby speaks this mixture as well. She understands either language perfectly. But when she speaks, she often mixes words from the two different languages in the same sentence. That's no surprise; that's what she hears at home. Shame on us. So her speech is perfectly understandable to us, but sometimes we have to translate a word or two (or remind her to translate) when she speaks to monolingual friends. She'll sort it all out. She has friends who are monolingual Spanish as well as monolingual English, so she gets to exercise both languages outside the home. But when she gets to school, the teachers will insist on English.

We have her listen to TV and Radio in Spanish mostly.

Some funny observations: At around her second birthday, I taught her to count to ten in both English and Spanish. Her cousin taught her to count all the way to twenty, but only in English, since her cousin doesn't know Spanish. So one day, I heard her counting uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis, siete, ocho nueve, diez, ... pause for a second ... eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, etc. I was amazed, because it tells me that she understood that both sequences were describing the same thing.

One day when she wanted to get out of her stroller and start walking she said "wanna walkinando". "Walkinando" is her own word which she constructed by taking the English root "walk" and attaching the Spanish suffix "-ando", which is essentially equivalent to "-ing". Although we mix Spanish words with English words in the same sentence, we NEVER mix English roots with Spanish suffixes. We would say "caminando" or "walking". Even though her constructed word was something neither of us would ever say, we both understood it perfectly. It's taken us a couple of months to rid her of the habit of using that word, though. Now we've got her saying "caminando" or "walking".

Neither of us started learning a second language until our teens. Even though our baby may have some minor linguistic confusion, and may eventually lose some Spanish when in an English-only school, I'm confident she'll grow up to be more fluently bilingual than either of us. It's fun to watch.

[-B&T- 1]

I think you should encourage him - kids don't confuse the two languages, they compartmentalize them and learn to speak them both natively. I have a co-worker who's Phillipino but his mom never spoke the language with him - he really regrets that she didn't!

Hi,

Thanks for the great advice.I really thought about it and my relatives were saying the same thing so I guess I'll be doing it.Thanks!

[trinket 30]

I think you should encourage him - kids don't confuse the two languages, they compartmentalize them and learn to speak them both natively. I have a co-worker who's Phillipino but his mom never spoke the language with him - he really regrets that she didn't!

Hi,

Thanks for the great advice.I really thought about it and my relatives were saying the same thing so I guess I'll be doing it.Thanks!

You should encourage your kid. I can speak 4 languages, 3 of them I learnt from the very begining and I never had problem knowing when to use which lingo.

[Krissy! 0]

No children yet, but we have briefly discussed that when we do have kids -- we'll be using all 3 languages we know: ASL, English, and Arabic.

ASL is a priority (for me), as I wouldn't be happy if I can't efficiently communicate with my own kids. English is natural. And Arabic, so our kids can efficiently communicate with hubby's family and friends.

We most likely will be sending to regular school. We'll see how things are with education years down the road. I definitely don't mind home-schooling for part of their lives (with travelling taking place). I also plan to purchase Arabic children book and read it using ASL. Confusing? Hopefully not in practice.