Re: Raising a bilingual child (long)
- From: cjra96@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: 28 Jul 2005 14:46:08 -0700
tedneeley@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> We speak a language different from English at home. DD (2yo) goes to
> full time daycare. She's going to this daycare for about 5 months now.
> She's very fluent in our mother tongue (MT for brevity's sake). She's
> only partially fluent in English. These days at home she's speaking
> gibberish consisting of mostly English. Before she went to this day
> care she was going to a family care that speaks our MT and she was
> speaking MT at home and everywhere. Intially when we switched her to
> this new daycare she had problem communicating since she didn't know
> much English. These days it's been really hard to get a complete
> sentence out of her in MT. I'm worried that this way she'll forget her
> MT.
>
> DH and speak 99% MT at home. The remaining 1% being unavoidable words
> like TV, Coffee etc. DD is only 2 but her MT vocabulary is outstanding.
> She knows every word for everything in MT so I doubt if she's not able
> to put in words in MT. I really want her to learn MT. I've been
> insisting that she speak in MT but she continues gibberish. I tell her
> what to say in MT and she repeats it. But what bothers me is she
> already knows what to say. Why is she making me say it? Did she already
> forget the language? I don't think so because in other situations, she
> can talk hours and hours in MT. I'm at a loss. I want to do something
> before she really forgets MT.
I'm not sure if this helps, but I'll share a friend's experience. She's
Aussie, DH is French, they live in Thailand and have a Karen nanny. Her
son's first language was Karen. Each parent spoke to him in only their
MT. Tho he struggled a bit with his secondary languages (parents MT),
he was fairly good at speaking them, and was fluent in Karen (I
don'tcall it MT because it's not exactly....). Anyway, whenever they'd
go to France for a few weeks, they'd come back to Thailand and son
would *only* speak French and refuse ENglish or Karen. Same thing when
coming back from OZ - ENglish only. This would last for a few weeks. It
was some sort of obstinate streak as it was clear he was just being
stubborn. But parents and Nanny all maintained the normal methods, and
within a month or so he'd be back to his usual speaking patterns. Oh,
and he also had a number of Thai neighborhood friends so managed to
pick that up as well.
So all that's to say - I doubt she's forgotton. I suspect she's just
testing her own use of this new language she's learned. Keep speaking
MT. She'll be fine.
FWIW - we'll do the same with our kids, DH and I have two different
MTs, and each will speak our own only.
.
- References:
- Raising a bilingual child (long)
- From: tedneeley
- Raising a bilingual child (long)
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