| Puslapiai temoje: < [1 2] | How do you talk to your kid at the playground? Gijos autorius: Elizabeth Adams
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Tatiana Nero (X) 
Local time: 22:18
rusų
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| it might depend on the situation which language to use | Jun 17, 2004 |
Hello Elizabeth
My family has directly opposite ML/ml -
Me - Russian, Dad - English.
I believe, at the "mature" age of 6 months you can speak only your native language to your son at the playground since it will not interfere with his interaction with other children.
When he grows older and starts to get out and about, you might consider another pattern.
I speak Russian to my son Sasha (3 years old) at the playground when nobody is aroun... See more Hello Elizabeth
My family has directly opposite ML/ml -
Me - Russian, Dad - English.
I believe, at the "mature" age of 6 months you can speak only your native language to your son at the playground since it will not interfere with his interaction with other children.
When he grows older and starts to get out and about, you might consider another pattern.
I speak Russian to my son Sasha (3 years old) at the playground when nobody is around and English when he's participating in activities with other children. At home there is a strict division - sisters and I speak only Russian to him and Dad - only English (well, he does not know Russian...) I might speak English to him, though, if we are discussing something together with my husband. It can be funny when he does something wrong and Dad and I react at the same time in two different languages - and the little beast understands both, of course.
In fact, the child knows somehow how to answer each parent in his own language..
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Also, please, consider a support group for multilingual families:
www.multilingualmunchkins.com,
there are bi-, tri- and multilingual families there from around the world sharing similar problems.
Good luck!
Tatiana Neroni
USA ▲ Collapse
| | | | Elizabeth Adams
Jungtinės Amerikos Valstijos
Local time: 19:18
Narys (2002)
iš rusų į anglų
TEMOS KŪRĖJA(S) | so many different paths... | Jun 21, 2004 |
Everyone seems to choose the path that is right for their family. I guess my main worry is that I move back and forth very easily between two languages, but switching back and forth between cultures is much harder. I want my son to understand the differences and feel at home in both cultures, which would mean speaking Russian to him on the street/playground and at his Russian grandmother's house and speaking English to him at home or at my parents' house. But I do have a desire to speak English ... See more Everyone seems to choose the path that is right for their family. I guess my main worry is that I move back and forth very easily between two languages, but switching back and forth between cultures is much harder. I want my son to understand the differences and feel at home in both cultures, which would mean speaking Russian to him on the street/playground and at his Russian grandmother's house and speaking English to him at home or at my parents' house. But I do have a desire to speak English to him all the time, no matter where we are. Maybe I'm getting grumpier as I get older , but I'm tired of always putting on my Russian face when we leave the house and would like to just relax and take my Texas with me. I'm starting to see that this has more to do with me than with my son
Well, I guess we keep growing up with our children... ▲ Collapse
| | | | Michael Roberts
Jungtinės Amerikos Valstijos
Local time: 22:18
Narys (2002)
iš vokiečių į anglų
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| However I want | Jul 3, 2004 |
Oh, man, what a confusing question. In the spirit of the forum, I\'ll just say what *I* do. (Two kids, 5 and 10, me EN-US, mom HU, with DE thrown in for laughs even though the kids aren\'t interested.)
I don\'t personally consider it rude to speak a foreign language where there\'s a danger of being overheard. Sure, if you\'re making jokes about somebody to their face, that\'s rude, but that would be rude regardless of language. People who consider it rude to be different are, to... See more Oh, man, what a confusing question. In the spirit of the forum, I\'ll just say what *I* do. (Two kids, 5 and 10, me EN-US, mom HU, with DE thrown in for laughs even though the kids aren\'t interested.)
I don\'t personally consider it rude to speak a foreign language where there\'s a danger of being overheard. Sure, if you\'re making jokes about somebody to their face, that\'s rude, but that would be rude regardless of language. People who consider it rude to be different are, to my taste, racists unworthy of my respect to start with.
I speak Hungarian with my 5-year-old, mostly, and English with my 10-year-old, mostly, and I do that whether we\'re in the US or in Hungary. In the US, I get odd looks and the occasional question as to what the heck that language is supposed to be anyway (most people can tell it\'s not Spanish). But a typical conversation in public if my wife is there might be something like this: \"Ori, hadd abba es gyere onnan le, also Agi, was haben wir denn fuer Abendessen gedacht, yeah, Vivi, we said that rhyme when I was in school, too.\" Most people boggle a little, but once they realize that they\'ll be able to speak their language of choice, they relax.
The strategy of simply making a comment in the local language to the other parents is a good way to break the ice -- I don\'t think most people hang back because they think you\'re being rude in speaking another language; they simply feel awkward because they have no scripts to start conversations if the other person isn\'t going to understand them.
As to not wanting to put on your Russian face but wanting to take your Texas with you -- I heard that, sister. I tried, I really did, just to speak Hungarian to the kids when they were little, and it did wonders for my Hungarian (although I think it warped theirs a little) -- but when my daughter went to school, I realized I was going to miss out on a lot of cultural transfer if I persisted in speaking a different language. So I switched to English with her when she was about 7. ▲ Collapse
| | | | machy
Local time: 22:18
iš ispanų į rusų
| The same happens to me in England! | Aug 9, 2004 |
I live in England, speak to my child in spanish and my husband speaks to him in russian...so nobody would come near us in the playground..my little baby is very social and smiles to everybody...but as soon as people notice that we speak to him in different languages they just don't come close to play with him...I just hope that that changes once he starts going to school.
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machy
Local time: 22:18
iš ispanų į rusų
| Same happens to me in England | Aug 12, 2004 |
Living in England and speaking to my child in Spanish doesn't help him to be considered by other little kids and in special by their parents as equal.
Sometimes is really anoying to see people's reaction when they heardme speaking Spanish and my husband Russian to our little one, make us feel worried about his future social live.
It would be really nice if there were a club for multilingual kids to play together, isn't it?
| | | | Jeff Allen
Prancūzija
Local time: 04:18
daug kalbų
+ ...
| language choice on the playground | Oct 10, 2004 |
I am native Amer English speaker, and wife is French. We are both fully bilingual. I have lived all of the past 15 years in France except 5 consecutive years when we lived in the US. We have always spoken French together.
To add to this, I have several (post)graduate degrees in theoretical and socio-linguistics. I used to teach courses on first and second-language acquisition, both theoretical and practical courses.
Yet my wife and I always talked about which language ... See more I am native Amer English speaker, and wife is French. We are both fully bilingual. I have lived all of the past 15 years in France except 5 consecutive years when we lived in the US. We have always spoken French together.
To add to this, I have several (post)graduate degrees in theoretical and socio-linguistics. I used to teach courses on first and second-language acquisition, both theoretical and practical courses.
Yet my wife and I always talked about which language which language(s) to use with our children and realized that it would really depend on where we were living.
A year ago we adopted our first child. He arrived at age 13 months having lived in a French-speaking orphinage. He gets nearly all input in French all day long, except English from me in the evenings when I get home from work and on the weekends. So his English input is significantly less than French input. Since my wife understands and speaks English very well, it does not bother her than I always speak English to our son, although French is the language used at home. She talks with him in French. I talked to him in English. We talk to together in French.
I also decided to speak to our son in English outside the home. This includes at our church (French speaking attendees), in town, in the shops/stores, and at the playground. Yet since we are often together as a family, people hear that I speak in French with my wife and in English with our son. It is only in the case when I am alone with him at the playground that this issues comes up. Yet I will talk to him in English, but talk to the other children in French, so this relieves the isolation issue. The parents ask why I speak to him in English, and I tell them. They usually understand.
It does require a lot of linguistic gymnastics in the mind, but now that I've been doing it for about a year, I naturally talk to my son in English and can flip back and forth between English and French at home without even thinking about it.
On the other hand, my wife and I do find it difficult and bizarre to speak to each other in English, because French has always been the language of communication between the two of us.
Jeff
Elizabeth Adams wrote:
I'm trying to do the OPOL thing because my stepmother, who is a linguist, says that it is best. And my husband was raised bilingually in a family that DIDN'T do OPOL and he never learned the ML.
We live in Moscow, and when I speak English to my son at the playground I feel like we're missing out on the whole social experience that goes on.
[Edited at 2004-10-12 12:38]
[Edited at 2004-12-29 13:02] ▲ Collapse
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