Mumsnet Talk

Hi,

I am half Turkish and just wanted to chat to some like minded people really.

Can listen to nightmare Turkish MIL stories, chat in Turkish, maybe do meet ups as i would love DS to get more exposure to Turkish.

No sorry,although I spent three years on and off living in Van and loved it.
Did you grow up in Turkey?
Great that yuo are passing it on to your son.

No, I was born here and my mum is English. It is just difficult as only my dad and I speak Turkish and all of my family that live here (which is not much) have grown up here as well, but we are always around my mum, bro and DH who dont speak Turkish so seems rude sometimes.

Interesting that you picked Van, what was the appeal? (Never been there BTW)

Why doesn't your brother speak Turkish?
My dh had an EU development job in Van.

Well we never really spoke Turkish at home since mum cant speak Turkish. I spent every weekend since birth pretty much at my grandparents who couldnt speak English, plus I by the time my bro came along my two cousins were also born and they were bilingual so just easier for them to use English.

he understands quite a lot now and can make himself understood, but no where near enough to live there or anything.

Hi. I'm Turkish & would love to meet up but we live in Monaco (south of France).

I speak Turkish to DD (2 yrs), DH speaks to her in English, and she gets French from everyone else.

How old is your DS and how is he dealing with the bilingualism?

Hi,
I am turkish, 6m pregnant, and my hubby is english. I am considering to speak to our baby in turkish when I am alone with him, as I don't want to exclude my husband. Any thoughts on this? Is this likely to work?

Merhaba Ozz. Nasilsiniz?
I would strongly encourage you to talk Turkish with your baby at all times.
Being bilingual is a huge gift and you will be helping your child a great deal to cope in other situations.
The complex grammar of Turkish makes most other laguages look easy by comparison.
I have read a lot about Turkish children's superiour language skills because of this.

I am a speech and language therapist who works bilingually so have a great interest in this topic.

Your husband can learn Turkish with the baby.This is how my mother learnt my father's language.

merhaba benim esim turk but I'm English

I speak Turkish (not perfectly but well enough to chat). I lived there for 4 years or so. sadly our boys only have a smattering of words (dondurma, kopek, yemek, yapma falan) but they have never learnt to speak it properly. This is a great regret of ours but we just found it so very very hard to keep up the use of the language at home when we normaly speak English to each other and live in an area with no other Turks for a 50 mile radius.

I think they call it mother tongue rather than father tongue for a reason.

Very true Shimmy about the mother tongue.

Merhaba Ozz - I am Turkish, we live in Monaco (French-speaking), and speak in English with DH. So 2 yr old DD is learning three languages at the same time.

I speak Turkish to her, despite DH's dismay, and a pleasant side-effect has been that DH started picking up words and phrases. He had hitherto been refusing to learn any Turkish except the "annecigim" and "babacigim" he used to woo my parents when we were dating .

The downside is that DD is still not saying much, and when she does, it is a mix of words from all three languages. [Just an hour ago, she went to bed crying "Bebe tirtiiiiil!" because I didn't let her watch the whole dvd of Petits Einsteins (in French) with the little caterpillar.]

Merhaba Mixed mama,

Ben Turkiye dogumlu Turk'um. Esim Ingiliz. Londra'nin banliyosundeyiz. Siz nerede yasiyorsunuz?

Hi everyone....

Didnt realise people had been posting here. I am in East London.

At the moment DS is 20 months and doesnt seem to be saying very much at all but he is trying to learn Turkish, Bengali and English. He understands loads tho most things I say to him in either Turkish or English he understands. I definitely recommend speaking solely Turkish as much as possible as they will pick up the language of the country they are living in very easily.

Moondog - shoudl I be worried about his speech as he doesnt seem to even have 3 words. I think he says look and manages to get himself understood and is always yabbering, but other children his age managed actual words.

Shimmy it is great you have picked some up... my mum has been married to my dad for 26 years and still can only just get along.

mixedmama - 2 yr old DD is also learning three languages (Turkish, English, French) at the same time. Until about six months ago, she had very few words - mama, baba, bumbu (used for balik/fish, bubbles, or ball), gaga (used for bird, helicopter, and plane), and that was about it. She has just started to try to repeat what we say to her and her vocabulary took off.

I would give it a bit more time. Learning three languages at the same time is not easy!

Thanks CoteDAzur, that is reassuring. They will be fabulously talented when they are older wont they

Must be lovely living in Monaco.... how did you end up in Monaco?

Hi Cote DAzur,

When did your DD start talking? And did she start talking in all 3 at once? Just out of interest, as my DS (only 9 months now, so there won't be any talking for a while) is growing up with me speaking English, my Turkish/Swiss husband and his family speaking mostly Turkish, but sometimes French. DH and I speak English together at home usually. On top of that, we are about to move to Paris.

I'm so intrigued to hear which language DS comes out with first and when that will be!

DD is 2.4 and still not really talking in full sentences from one language or another, but rather mixes words words from all three languages into phrases that many people don't understand.

Although I speak to her in Turkish, most of what she says is French. This puzzled me until I realized that she hears no conversation in Turkish (only my monologue).

She starts maternelle (preschool?) in September, and it looks like her strongest language will be French, after all.

mixedmama - sorry I just saw your message. I came here first through work, and then liked it and started working here. Met DH and the rest is history. It is indeed very pleasant - great weather, by the sea, no traffic, no crime, no pollution. I feel lucky

Hi Everyone,

I would love to get together with some Turkish mums - I live in Clapham, SW London but happy to travel a little ... SE London for example.