NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/misc/kids/31373

Text File | 1993-01-02 | 5.6 KB | 111 lines

Newsgroups: misc.kids
Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!agate!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!ukma!news
From: [e-mail] (Stephanie Edelmann)
Subject: Re: how to raise a bilingual kid
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
    <[e-mail]>
Nntp-Posting-Host: ukcc.uky.edu
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Organization: University of Kentucky
Sender: [e-mail] (USENET News System)
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 23:08:36 GMT
Lines: 97

In article <[e-mail]>
[e-mail] (brian.bebeau) writes:

>
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Nina Rosson) writes:
>>
>>I very rarely have the opportunity to speak any Swedish, my husband doesn't
>>speak/understand the language at all - and in addition to it being hard to
>>carry on a monologue with a small baby, I feel funny speaking to her in a
>>language that my husband doesn't understand at all.
>
>Don't let it bother you. My wife speaks to our children (all three of them
>including the six month old) in French. I don't speak French.
>
It is hard, though.  I am German and my husband speaks hardly any German
at all.  In the beginning I started out speaking only German to my daughter
but gave up about the time she started responding in English.  At the time
it seemed more important to show her that I understood what she was saying
than to teach her a second language.

>>  -  A friend of mine
>>suggested recently that I could say everything in English, and then right
>>after repeat it in Swedish.  Any opinions on this?  (It may actually have
>>a nice side benefit of my husband learning it at the same time!)
>>
>NO!NO!NO! This is NOT the way to do it. My wife, the French immersion
>teacher, would feel like slapping your hand for even suggesting it.
>This is bilingual teaching, immersion is much better. Why should the
>child even bother to listen to the Swedish if he/she knows it will be
>said in English?
>
Unfortunately I have to do some of this.  I now speak only German to my
daughter - she's 29 mo - but because I quit doing that for a long time
she understands most everything but not everything.  When she doesn't
she looks at me real funny and asks: "What?..." Then I will repeat the
sentence in English and once more in German.  Usually she understands
the next time I use the sentence.

I also make use of the phrase: What does Mommy (Daddy) call this? to
get across to her that there are 2 ways to say everything.
And I do have a rather funny story to go with this:  She must have
been about 2 when she saw a hippopotamus in a coloring book.  She pointed
to it and said "pig".  I explained to her that it looked like a pig but
was not one (In German), instead this thing was called "Nilpferd".
She never believes me anyway and replied that, no, this was a pig.
I turned to Daddy and asked him to explain to her that this was not a pig.
He proceeded to explain that this was a hippo. "Not a Nilpferd" - she
asks.  "Well, he explains to her," Daddy calls this a hippo and Mommy
calls this a Nilpferd" She looks at him, things for a while and then
replies: "Daddy call this hippo, Mommy call this Nilpferd, Tati call
this PIG!"

>When my wife is speaking directly to our kids, she speaks French.
>When she speaks to me, she speaks English. If she speaks French to the
>kids and I don't understand what she said, I ask for a translation,
>and she provides it (taking care to speak directly to me even though
>what she said was to the kids). The key is consistency. If you speak
>to them in Swedish, *always* do it. Let Dad be the English teacher.
>Don't expect them to talk back in Sewdish too soon either. After all,
>you're probably the only one doing it, and *everyone* else is talking
>English. Our kids always reply to my wife in English, but they do
>understand well enough that could function in a French speaking country.
>They also take delight in being able to understand (and sing along with)
>the occasional French song on their Raffi tapes. The oldest is starting
>to use French more, but that's after being in my wife's school, where
>all her instruction is in French, and she's expected to use it more.
>
After posting in SOC.CULTURE.GERMAN, somebody told me that they will ask
their children to repeat in German whet they just said when they speak
English to them (If I recall correctly, only German was spoken in their
house).  I now do some of that with my daughter.  For example, I won't
react if she asks me for soemthing in English.  At the very least, she has
say "bitte" instead of "please".  To be safe, she now says both, so every
request is ended with "please, ....(grin) .... bitte" - but I figure
she needs the practice.

>And yes, your husband will probably pick up a bit too. I don't speak
>French (never had any courses in it), but after seven years of listening
>to my wife speak to our children I have a fairly large passive vocabulary.
>I know a lot of nouns, but can't conjugate enough verbs to actually
>put together a sentence.
>
My husband doesn't know much, but he knows key-words like "change diapers"..

>It's worth it.
>
Yes, it's worth it.  In my case, my life could depend on it, because I
have no idea what my mom would do to me if she figures out that my child
doesn't speak German and that she has no way to communicate with her
grandchild (she doesn't speak English).
>--
>=====================================================================
>Brian Bebeau                    Interactive Systems at AT&T-Columbus
>[e-mail]   or   [e-mail]
>=====================================================================
Stephanie Edelmann