Your children and languages

[lushlala]

Botswana has a lot of mixed race/interracial couples, me being one. I don't have children of my own yet, but I've observed that many interracial couples don't seem to care to teach their children Setswana. Many of these children tend to speak English only and can't communicate with their elderly relatives. I know it's their prerogative, but I also feel it's a crying shame. If or when I have children, I'd like to believe I'd do everything to ensure they learn about both mine and their father's culture, as well as both languages.

 

What's your take on this?

[Kangoo]

Honestly I'm guilty as charged on this specific point (but am trying to make up for it mind you). I'm a perfectly fluent French/English born Aussie, who had both her kids in France. For work/private purposes I do speak English every day online, so my kids are familiar with it, although I don't speak English at home with them... I know that I should have since the beginning but didn't. One is now in high school and the second has two years of elementary school left, both study English and are doing great (I have a blast helping them with homework and now encourage them for what is of using English at home whenever they want), but I know that it would have been easier for them if I had spoken English to them upfront.

[pesic87]

Actually, I was also thinking about the same thing. I do not have children of my own, too, but I always believed it would be my aim and goal to make sure they learn my mother tongue, the language of my boyfriend (who is from a different country, thus different language and culture, if we get married), and English language, on top of that. Some might think that will be a lot for a kid to process, but I do  not agree. I am of the belief that the younger the children are, the better they accept and the faster then acquire and learn languages. So, I am going to introduce all those languages to my children from the young age, through many different techniques, school/education, etc., and games and fun, too.

[Mameha]

I think that a child with parents who speaks differents language is a really lucky child. I would have liked to speak two languages (besides english) when i was young  For exemple i know a guy here in Italy who speaks fluently Japanese and Italian perfctly because he has a Japanese mother and Italian father. Actually there is no reason not to teach both languages to a son. In the future, when and if i'll have a son, i'll teach him/her Italian as well as theenglish notions i know.

[宇崎ちゃん]

Heh, first man in a topic with 4 posts before him, you won't see this happening so commonly.

I don't have any children myself, but I'm born and raised in the Netherlands while both parents were Polish immigrants (one unplanned immigrant and one refugee to be more precise).
Therefore, I learnt Polish from my parents and Dutch from the outside world.
Me and my sister spoke both language our entire lives (she currently lives in Japan by the way).

My little sister born 8 years later was different.
She could understand Polish her entire life, but refused to speak it until 4 years ago.
This was because by the time she was born, mother got a different boyfriend (a Dutch person), who could be really mad if somebody else spoke a language he didn't understand.
He taught her that she shouldn't speak Polish because she was born in the Netherlands and thus she should only speak Dutch forever.
She finally changed her mind after our visit to Poland 4 years ago and finally started to speak Polish.
It's Polish pronounced very badly and mixed with Dutch grammar, but at least she's trying and that's really cool.

[Chris_A]

I think if an interracial couple has kids, teaching them both native languages is a huge boon. It was the same case with me as well. And I benefit from it throughout my life.

[capuchin]

It's their children so there's not really anything we can do about it. I have a sister who lives in the US. She doesn't even even teach her daughter Tagalog or expose her to our culture which is a shame because it is part of who the child is. But I don't tell my sister that because it's not my business how she raise her child.

[Trellum]

My future husband it's Dutch, I am Mexican so we are also an interracial couple   We have agreed our kids will learn Spanish and English, of course. Dutch is also a must since they will grow in the Netherlands.  We will try to raise them as trilingual kids,  the rest will be up to them, but I'll try to instill my love and interest in languages in them   I'll read a lot to them, and try to expose them to a lot foreign music, movies and cultures. 

[OmniHead]

I was reading a lot about bilingual/multilingual children when a friend of mine was expecting her twins.

I found that children that are born to a couple of different nationalities and speaking different languages (as she and her hubby) do not need to be taught as most of us were taught. It wouldn't be about "learn to conjuagate this verb nor tell the baby the translation for each item, but simply children will pick what they listen to, and if the parent speak the two, three or more languages on a regular basis and refer to an item with the different ways to call it for each language, children will learn them naturally.

 

[宇崎ちゃん]

3 hours ago, capuchin said:

It's their children so there's not really anything we can do about it. I have a sister who lives in the US. She doesn't even even teach her daughter Tagalog or expose her to our culture which is a shame because it is part of who the child is. But I don't tell my sister that because it's not my business how she raise her child.

I know some people who moved from the Netherlands to the USA or Canada, made kids there and their kids never learnt Dutch.
So it might be the geographical location which decides whether or not you will learn another language?

[lushlala]

On 20 December 2015 at 1:53:22 PM, Kangoo said:

Honestly I'm guilty as charged on this specific point (but am trying to make up for it mind you). I'm a perfectly fluent French/English born Aussie, who had both her kids in France. For work/private purposes I do speak English every day online, so my kids are familiar with it, although I don't speak English at home with them... I know that I should have since the beginning but didn't. One is now in high school and the second has two years of elementary school left, both study English and are doing great (I have a blast helping them with homework and now encourage them for what is of using English at home whenever they want), but I know that it would have been easier for them if I had spoken English to them upfront.

Ok, it's very interesting to note that this doesn't just happen with people here! Just out of interest, how did this come about? I mean, were there any reasons that prevented you teaching them English from a young age? where do you guys live, and could that have contributed? just curious.

[lushlala]

On 20 December 2015 at 8:34:56 PM, Chris_A said:

I think if an interracial couple has kids, teaching them both native languages is a huge boon. It was the same case with me as well. And I benefit from it throughout my life.

I absolutely agree with you @Chris_A....I think it's a huge plus, and in my opinion, the child who received such a gift will never feel out of place in his/her mother or father's country. You really are lucky and have a lot to thank your parents for  When  (or if) I ever have children of my own, I hope I can do this for them too!

[takibari]

Hands down it's nice for children to speak the languages of their parents. Knowing different languages is an added skill set that will benefit them in the long term.

I agree with OmniHead that for children of interracial couples, they aren't necessarily "taught the language" per se, but are able to pick up words here and there if the parents expose them to their respective languages.

In any case, couples are the better judge regarding the necessity of learning languages. Yes, geographical issue might be a big consideration, too. I have a friend who lives in Norway. Both her kids mostly speak Norwegian in their daily dealings and English only when in school. However, since she sometimes speaks Bisaya (her mother tongue) at home, her kids can understand it, too. They, however, have difficulty speaking Bisaya as they don't have much exposure of it. When they come here on vacation, we can speak with the kids in our mother tongue, but more often, the kids reply in English or Norwegian (my friend translates for us).

[IronMike]

My wife and I both know Russian at B2-C1. But we decided that wasn't good enough to "raise" our kids in Russian.  The first year of my first son's life I spoke to him in Esperanto as much as possible, and he happens to be good at languages (picked up Spanish quickly and his Russian isn't bad). Not sure if his language abilities are from that Esperanto experience, but who knows?

We homeschooled our kids for a while, and my wife let the kids play RuneScape for an hour per school day, as long as they played in the German world. Sure enough, after a few months, my boys (then 8 and 10) were arguing amongst themselves over the difference between axe and hatchet in German.   

We have lived overseas and put our kids in international schools, but sadly (?) English-medium schools. They each got Russian in school and can all read it pretty well, but still probably at a A2 maybe B1 level. Still, better than not. 

[JenniferZeman]

It's good for children to learn their mother tongue and important too. Now preschool or learning centers also interact with the kids in the languages they are comfortable in i.e either English or their native language. I think this is good as a child gets in his comfort zone and can perform well.

[brooklyn218]

While we do not have children yet, we have discussed teaching our children other languages from the start.  It is the easiest time for a person to learn new languages and it will provide them with ample amounts of opportunities in their lives.  

Children learning other languages opens their eyes to the world around them, helps culture them, and educates them (obviously.) I think it is a shame when kids only learn one language.  But, to each his own. 

[lingvo]

Learning your children multiple languages is a commendable challenge, and requires commitment and doing in the most natural way. Like using ur native language almost exclusively within the family nucleus and another for the outer world. Arabs Muslim immigrant families use their mother tonge  each other  and also are fluent in the language of the country they are currently living in. The same applies for chinese and other asian families. Now, three languages at the same time? That's a real challenge. Your kids are not going to be fond sitting several hours a day with rosetta stone or similar to learn the third language..

[Baburra]

We have the same situation in my country, wherein a lot of the middle and upper class are training their kids more and more to just rely on English almost entirely. I myself don't have kids as well and I don't know how my reaction or stance will change when the time comes, but for now my thought on it is that I find it understandable. I believe pride in nationality and language has to have weight behind it and it's difficult to be in favor of it just for the sake of it, so if the current generation is starting to slip away from the old ways then there must have been something wrong in how the previous generations and the government has been handling it, and personally I don't think I could blame the individual families for favoring a language and culture that they see as being more attractive or fruitful.