Families with Children: Languages in the Home

[chili74 0]

Let's start a discussion about this! Thanks!

[trinket 30]

We don't have any kids and won't have for another 4 years or so, but whenever we do have kids, I plan to teach them Hindi and Bangla at home. They will learn English from their friends and their dad (my husband that is ) but personally I would like for them to know my part of the world too.

My husband is picking up a lot of Hindi words and that's a good sign.

[caybee 21]

My side of the family and I will speak English to the baby. My husband will try to speak to him almost exclusively in Darija (Moroccan Arabic) and would like to teach him some of his parents' Amazigh language as well. He'll be able to talk to hubby's family on the webcam -- we want him to feel as close to them as possible. I'll be learning along with him so I can interpret his wants and needs if he expresses them in Darija when hubby isn't around. We may send him to a weekly Arabic school when he is old enough so he can learn to read and write in the standard language. We also hope to teach him a little sign language while he is preverbal -- some parents I've known have found that very helpful and reassuring to the child who can express what he needs before he is able to form the words. It all looks a little ambitious when I read back, but we're going to give it a good try, anyway.

Edited April 5, 2009 by caybee

[ricebird 0]

My baby is just learning to talk; her dad talk to her in English and few German words, I talk Tagalog, Spanish and one or two Filipino dialects. I hope she will not get confused in the process .

[bora bora 1]

We don't have any children yet, but when we do we plan on speaking both English and Portuguese at home. I think that if we're living in the U.S. in the future then our children will take Portuguese classes. Otherwise, if we're in Brazil I will probably educate them at home in English - teaching them to read/write.

I'm an ESL teacher so it'd make sense that I'd take control of my kids' education, but I don't see my husband giving Portuguese classes to anyone . He'll speak to our children in Portuguese though.

[Kenza 1]

Inchallah my children will know English, French, Arabic, and to speak the Moroccan dialect

[Penguin_ie 5,996]

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).

[BabyBlueSusie 1]

We don't have any children yet, but they will most definitely know English and Albanian. If we live in the US, I think it would be nice to send them to Albanian lessons, but that would probably only be possible if we lived in NY, Chicago or Detroit. I have thought of starting up my own Albanian school once I learn to speak the language well enough to teach it.

My husband will definitely speak to our children in Albanian, and I will speak to them in English and Italian as much as possible. I hope that they will know all three languages, but if Adriano keeps learning English so quickly, Italian might be phased out, and we will communicate with one another solely in English. That will be a very happy and also a very sad day, because I won't be getting my practice anymore.

[Nessa 23]

I'll speak portuguese to our son. Charlers will speak english, outside our house everybody will speak english. We want him to be bi-lingual, but i know his portuguese won't be as good, since he won't be speaking portuguese with me that much.

[Dr. Obvious 49]

It's weird.

My husband speaks German most of the time to our daughter. Maybe 90/10. I speak English most of the time, probably more like 95/5. In our house, there will often be half azzed conversations where husband speaks German to me and I'll answer back in English or visa versa. I reinforce German vocabulary. We try to reinforce German with German television shows and webcam/Skype conversations.

But it isn't easy when you or your SO is the only person who is a native speaker of the language and there are few, if any, other native speakers around to converse with. Reinforcement must be constant. Don't believe the nonsense that this is some magic process. It also requires your child's cooperation and motivation. It's easy for your child to become lazy about this when the other language seems to have little relevance in day to day life.

Edited April 6, 2009 by Wacken

[chili74 0]

Thanks for the replies, keep them coming! I think VJ is the perfect place to collect data and discuss strategies since there will be so many multilingual couples becoming parents. I really hope there'll be more traffic to this post. Wacken, yes -- my reading has disabused me of the myths that this process is easy when we are in America and English is by far the dominant language. Some people think our kids will automatically be bilingual + I am pretty sure it'll require effort (on the parents' part initially) and who knows what else. That is why I am trying to learn as much as I can, preferably from people who are doing it or have been through it. I guess parents have different goals, too. Stages: It seems that there is the stage before the child makes her own decisions when you can provide the "minority" language and then the stage where it'll require some "formal" study, or peer-groups of some kind with some instruction (fun as it may be) and for that, the child must have a desire to do so.

[Kopa 3]

Chili,

Congrats on you guys starting a family!! We try to speak only Russian (both of us) at home with our daughter as she is in constant contact with English through my family, church, etc. She clearly understands when we make "commands" in Russian to her plus she is now talking a bit and is using Russian words. In English she doesn't really comprehend what people are asking poor thing I know she will catch on though. I think it will become more of a struggle as she gets older as I know a lot of people who were bilingual growing up but now they can only understand the language and not speak it since they lost interest during the teen years. We have bought a lot of children books in Russian and plan on attempting to teach her their alphabet first. We will see how it goes!

[fozzie 41]

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!

Edited April 6, 2009 by fozzie

[shirleyjeremy 0]

We speak mostly Spanish to our three children because we want them to understand the language and be able to speak it. I think having them just hear mom and no one else would make it hard for them to truly learn the second language completly. Besides its good practice for me while we are in the states.

[Marina-Del 10]

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.

I agree with your statement in that it will be very important for the children to be able to speak English very well and read and write, and all of that so that they will not be held back in their lives in the US; but I think that even if the child is speaking primarily the second language at home that their English will not suffer later on. For example, I don't have children yet either but when I do we plan on dad speaking in Portuguese to the kids and me speaking in English to the kids. But as others have said, as we go we might make changes to this! I don't want to lose my Portuguese either, so we may start speaking soley Portuguese in the house (but not out of it for the benefit of others). However, every other person that the child will interact with, will speak English. For example, my parents, my brothers (my brothers future wives and children), my friends, my childrens friends, ect... they will all speak only English and therefore the child WILL be exposed to a lot of English even if we do not speak any at home.

Most of our children will go to English speaking schools as well. And while it is very important for our kids to have a very good grasp of English before they enter school, they will learn so much in school. They will be constantly surrounded by English speakers and no one else! But again, this is not to say that my children will not speak English before they go to school. Of course they will. English is my native language and I'll have to speak in English to them sometimes or I would go crazy. Plus, my mom would kill me if she couldn't talk to them!