|
 |
Baby growing up in multilingual home... | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| Lianne Senior Member Canada thetoweringpile.blog Joined 5118 days ago 284 posts - 410 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, Toki Pona, German, French | Message 33 of 43 13 June 2011 at 7:46pm | IP Logged | ||
|
When I have a kid I'd love to raise him/her bilingually, but my partner and I are both monolingual, so it could be tough. Maybe by then I'll be sufficiently fluent in Esperanto. In any case, my plan is to have my dad's family (who are all French) speak only French to the kid. French immersion school is also something I'm considering. I'll be optimistic and assume that by then I'll have a sufficient command of French that I'll at least be able to understand if my child speaks French to me.
Another thing I'm interested in pursuing is using sign language with my baby, while speaking English. I don't know ASL, other than the alphabet and a couple of basic signs, but I've still got a few years of learning time before I plan to have a baby. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Torbyrne Super Polyglot Senior Member Macedonia SpeakingFluently.com Joined 6098 days ago 126 posts - 721 votes Speaks: French, English*, German, Spanish, Dutch, Macedonian, Portuguese, Italian, Swedish, Czech, Catalan, Welsh, Serbo-Croatian Studies: Sign Language, Toki Pona, Albanian, Polish, Bulgarian, TurkishA1, Esperanto, Romanian, Danish, Mandarin, Icelandic, Modern Hebrew, Greek, Latvian, Estonian | Message 34 of 43 17 October 2011 at 11:34pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Time for my yearly update on this thread...
What a difference a year makes! I have been reading about and hearing stories of multilingual children who stop speak all but one of their languages. This thought is quite concerning to anyone wishing to bring up a child with multiple languages. Sadly it is quite common for children to reject languages and only speak one of them. They simply cannot understand our adult reasoning behind bringing them up multilingual. They cannot be expected fully appreciate the advantages this can bring in later life. This seems to be most common in monolingual countries and many parents do bite the bullet and drop a language or two. Fortunately for me, I have not had these issues with my daughter so far. She has questioned the use of languages, of course. But there have been no revolts. In fact since my last update the issue has been the opposite. I have had to keep her focussed on the languages she has and not diversify too much whilst she is still so young. I feel that helping her to attain a good level in her first three languages is paramount. To ensure she develops language at the same rate as monolinguals, time needs to be given to develop vocabulary and grammatical structures, as well as idioms and regional variants. After all it is important that she has the necessary tools to adapt to and fit into life in both the UK and Macedonia in the first instance. I hope to cover the bases required for my daughter to be able to fit in culturally wherever she chooses to call home. This is not an easy thing to address, given the stark cultural differences between The Balkans and The British Isles! ;) The language development over the last 12 months A native English speaker and a native Macedonian speaker would not be able to tell that my daughter is any different to any other monolingual child of her age. Her vocabulary, grammar and ability to express her thoughts, ideas and emotions in both languages are excellent for her age. These languages have simply continued to develop as before. The big change has been in her French. French was a less prominent language, but since the interactions at school with teachers and other French speakers, she is now able to communicate in that language too. In fact she now regularly asks me to speak in French, as we did in the UK, just to play around with the language and have a change. She is able to manipulate the grammar of the language to change person and tense and to make the language her own. The thing that has pleased me most this year is the growth in her pride at speaking multiple languages. She takes great pleasure in her Spanish and German time and in telling people that she can speak them. Her ability to produce flowing conversations in German and Spanish is not at the level of her other three languages, but she can understand them without any problem and she is able to ask for meanings of words she is not clear on. She enjoys listening to stories in German and Spanish too and can ask meaningful questions about them, albeit in one of her first three languages if the words fail her in German or Spanish. Why is she able to do this? This is quite normal in some countries of the world, where multiple languages are spoken by the majority on a daily basis. Living in a multilingual country therefore helps a lot. In addition to that, she has multilingual friends and she sees daddy using a variety of languages too. All of this make her experience normal. My daughter is aware of other languages spoken around, which she does not speak. She also asks about learning Albanian, as it is another language spoken by a lot of children in Skopje. I had hoped to explore that with her as she would be able to use it here quite often, when playing with other children. After some thought I decided this can wait until next year. She needs this year to focus on her other languages more as well as to build other general skills she is developing, such as maths. I try not to suffocate my daughter with crazy goals for her. After all she is not me and later on she must choose what is right for her. My goal as a parent is to equip her with the knowledge she needs to make the most of life. The languages she is learning now will help her to do that and five languages are plenty for her at this stage. I prefer to let her develop at her own pace and to encourage her when I see that she is keen to learn. At the moment my role is to support her learning in general and I help her to activate her knowledge of Spanish and German. In play she will also still refer back to words and phrases in a number of other languages, which she does not speak. She seems to enjoy repeating the sounds in foreign languages and seeing the reaction she gets from doing it. If she does decide to study more languages, then I will support her. Though this for me is secondary now to developing other skills in addition to the languages she already has. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7018 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 35 of 43 21 October 2011 at 11:47pm | IP Logged | ||
In my opinion, this is the best thing a parent can do for their child. Congratulations on your continued success. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5337 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 36 of 43 07 November 2011 at 7:33pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I love what you are doing, and both you and your daughter are very fortunate.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Torbyrne Super Polyglot Senior Member Macedonia SpeakingFluently.com Joined 6098 days ago 126 posts - 721 votes Speaks: French, English*, German, Spanish, Dutch, Macedonian, Portuguese, Italian, Swedish, Czech, Catalan, Welsh, Serbo-Croatian Studies: Sign Language, Toki Pona, Albanian, Polish, Bulgarian, TurkishA1, Esperanto, Romanian, Danish, Mandarin, Icelandic, Modern Hebrew, Greek, Latvian, Estonian | Message 37 of 43 19 January 2013 at 5:54pm | IP Logged | ||
|
My daughter is now in her first year of formal education. She is studying in the French system (CP), so her
day is in French and she is making great progress in her writing, reading and speaking. Her vocabulary continues to expand in English, Macedonian and French and she can express herself in all three languages without any problem. We continue with Spanish and German in the same informal manner as before and she enjoys the odd story and song in them. She tries to speak them, but will use French, English or Macedonian where she cannot think of the word or phrase in German or Spanish. She sees more of the relevance of Spanish because of a Spanish family here now with a young girl at her school. That gave her active Spanish a huge kick last year in particular. Where s replies in other languages, I simply reply in the target language and she is maintaining a good understanding of both languages for future use in a more formal setting. Last year she got her wish to start Mandarin. She does it just once a week in a classroom environment, but she likes to practice what she learns at home. I am pleased to see her enjoying the learning process and my own studies are providing a useful support to help her move forward too. I have say that her desire to learn is motivating me too! :) She continues to show interest in other languages she doesn't know, especially Albanian because many use it here on a daily basis. We are holding back to give her chance with what she already has and try to content her with some basic vocabulary for now. I am unsure whether much of this strong desire to learn more languages comes from seeing me use a range of them, often around her. My focus now is to help her with her reading in English and to support her school work in all subjects (conducted in French). She is also learning to read Cyrillic for Macedonian and has not had too many problems confusing the letters. The good thing is that there is plenty of practice all around the city, which helps her to connect the reason for doing it to the learning process. One thing I love is the positive way the children talk about languages. They are all keen to learn more. This environment really supports my daughter's learning most of all. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| liammcg Senior Member Ireland Joined 4607 days ago 269 posts - 397 votes Speaks: English* | Message 38 of 43 19 January 2013 at 6:40pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Richard, I cannot add anything to your excellent and insightful information above. I just
want to say that what you are doing is simply remarkable. As a trainee Primary School teacher, I am constantly amazed by the capabilities of the child. Seeing the human mind at work, as a person assimilates and puts into practice endless amounts of information is truly beautiful. You daughter is very lucky to be given this gift at such a young age, and she is very lucky to have yourself as a dad. I'm sure that you are rightfully proud. :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4625 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 39 of 43 20 January 2013 at 11:39am | IP Logged | ||
|
I know a couple in the UK where the mother is German and the father British. Mum speaks German with the
kids when they are alone together but English when Dad is present (he knows only basic German). Dad speaks English exclusively with the children. (He doesn't dislike German, he's just not interested in language learning). Obviously the children are schooled in English and speak only English with their friends. They are still young and haven't "rebelled" against German yet. The point I am trying to make is. The kids are learning German from birth, it is quite literally their mothertongue. But the only source of German input is from Mum and occasional visits to Germany. Does this mean they grow up with an incomplete vocabulary? I don't know if they are encouraged to read German books or if they watch German TV but there can be no substitute for daily spoken interaction with a wide range of people. So perhaps they go to Germany as young adults, they have excellent structural knowledge of the language and a convincing accent, some idiomatic phrases thrown in for good measure, but they suddenly get stumped on a word that everyone else around them knows? Edited by beano on 20 January 2013 at 11:43am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Masked Avenger Triglot Senior Member Antarctica Joined 6137 days ago 145 posts - 151 votes Speaks: English, French*, Danish Studies: Finnish, Latin | Message 40 of 43 29 June 2013 at 8:37pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I am the one who wrote the OP so maybe I can give an update?
I have two kids, one still a baby at 9 months, can't speak obviously, but does understand a few things in both languages (milk, don't bite!). I have an older 3 1/2.year-old, that one is very advanced in Danish and can speak in many nuances (with some childish mistakes), but her French is so-so. She understands most of what I say, but is more limited in her speaking ability and is shy about it. She's inquisitive about how things are said in the language, she's making slow progress, but I'd say her level is more like 2 or 2 1/2 year old. I'm not really surprised by this difference. Her mom and my in-laws speak Danish, she goes to Danish daycare, watches Danish TV shows while her dad, me, is not the chatty type. I do speak to her in French exclusively, but perhaps I let her reply to me in Danish too much. Trying to fix that! 2 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
