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Original poster

DS - Can’t speak language abroad

56 replies

LangoLanguage · 25/04/2025 18:20

Sorry for the long post. Myself and my husband have a 2 year old son and currently we live in London. I was born and raised in the UK and he was born and raised in Zurich and moved here for work.

We regularly go to Zurich often and have recently decided we would like to try and find jobs there and move there. In his industry this is quite common and he is a citizen so has all the passports etc, and for a while I’d be a SAHM. We have a lot of friends and nearly all family there.

We both naturally speak to my son in English, although we have been trying with German more and more. The state schools in Zurich are pretty great and we’d quite like to send him to one if we moved (as opposed to international school) and he’d start with a few days at age 3.

Is this a stupid idea? Sending him to school that speaks a language he doesn’t understand? Friends have said at this age they’re like sponges and absorb, but im
worried. This is also a future problem as we haven’t even moved!

ETA I tried to post this but it crashed so hopefully it hasn’t posted two separate threads!

OP posts:
GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 26/04/2025 11:27

At only 3 I’d have thought he’d mop it up. While living in Oman we had Swedish neighbours whose 5 year old dd had to attend an English speaking nursery for only a month, before her English was considered adequate for the English speaking primary.

At 6 her brother took a little longer, but in no time you’d have thought both had been born and bred in the UK.
Also at 2 and 3 my dd2 played very happily for hours with other neighbours’ dd of the same age - who spoke only Greek!

Original poster
LangoLanguage · 26/04/2025 11:35

Caspianberg · 26/04/2025 11:20

Another thing that’s good is a Tonie box. We buy all the story books in English, but all the music and dancing Tonies in German.
So Ds gets German listening when playing in the day, and English listening before bed

Oh! We have a Tonies box given from my nephew that he outgrew. I had no idea you could get German ones!

OP posts:
Original poster
LangoLanguage · 26/04/2025 11:36

SchoolDilemma17 · 26/04/2025 11:23

Children speak Swiss German in schools and nursery which is very different from High German. I have immigrant friends and their children struggle at school as the spoken language is so different. He will pick it up quickly if you send him to nursery soon. Btw my UK friends in Zurich are not so impressed with the state school system and schools finish very early in the day so you need a lot of additional childcare or a very part time job.

Thanks for this. I’ll likely be a SAHM for a while and so the short hours may be okay.

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Original poster
LangoLanguage · 26/04/2025 11:37

Dontlletmedownbruce · 26/04/2025 11:25

I work in a preschool where children begin around 3. There are a lot of recent migrants in the area so every year we have about 6 who do not speak English. We are very used to the patterns of speech acquisition with a second language and we use visual aids at the start (for routine etc) for all children which really helps the non English speakers settle in. They pick it up quickly. The only issues arise at circle time when we are doing newstime and they don't understand and can't contribute. They learn songs just as quick as English speakers cos kids learn songs phonetically and many of them are nonsense anyways. If they are sad or down we might find a song in their home language and we usually try to learn a few basic words like hello thanks in their language at the start to make them feel welcome.

Not all nursery staff are the same so make sure you are with well qualified people who are educated in secondary language acquisition and have experience with this.

thank you for this. DS is a very quiet soul and doesn’t like being separated from us, so we’ll need to choose somewhere very nurturing anyway.

OP posts:
SchoolDilemma17 · 26/04/2025 11:49

LangoLanguage · 26/04/2025 11:35

Oh! We have a Tonies box given from my nephew that he outgrew. I had no idea you could get German ones!

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It’s a German company!

Original poster
LangoLanguage · 26/04/2025 11:54

SchoolDilemma17 · 26/04/2025 11:49

It’s a German company!

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Ordering Straight away (so I don’t have to listen to Peppas first nursery rhymes for the tenth time today!!!)

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