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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

parents who speak French to their tots who aren't actually French

248 replies

becstarlitsea · 13/11/2009 11:22

pretentious, non?

I've got a friend and an acquaintance who do this. I excuse my friend on the basis that although she isn't French, her grandmother was, and my friend does speak very good French. I still think it's a bit teensy bit barmy, especially as both of her kids are so far behind in their speech development for their age (in either language) but each to their own, and no doubt they'll catch up later...

But then the acquaintance doesn't actually speak very good French - it's just about post-A-level standard. But she insists in speaking French to her kids who are all under 6. None of the kids can talk at all in either language - not un mot.

Bourgeois pushy parenting or a sensible addition to their children's cultural life? (Must admit my DSs cultural life consists of Diego and Dora marathons when I've got flu)

OP posts:
StealthPolarBear · 13/11/2009 13:34

so did she tell you they don't speak? weird she'd say that without saying a bit more about why! how old are they?

MadameDefarge · 13/11/2009 13:34

I would think mimile, that your dd would be picking up the deep grammar from your dp (I assume he does talk to her? ) and your fluent English would reinforce that.

It tends to be more of a problem in say, immigrant households who mistakenly believe they need to speak to their children only in the language of their new country, and so only pass on broken and inaccurate language with a limited vocabulary and no deep grammar knowledge. Which makes its very hard for them when they start nursery or school because unlearning that bad practice is yet another stress on them and does significantly impede their academic development.

castille · 13/11/2009 13:36

Mimile -

Don't your family mind that your child isn't growing up speaking French? My family would have been really upset if they couldn't communicate normally with my DC.

thesecondcoming · 13/11/2009 13:37

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

girlsyearapart · 13/11/2009 13:38

Glad you also think that is U.

I am fluent in French as lived and went to school in Brussels and DH thinks I'm selfish for not speaking French to the dds..

My French is NOT perfect and I am not a native French speaker and we live in England.

I'd look like a nutter.

Original poster
becstarlitsea · 13/11/2009 13:38

She is just an acquaintance not a friend - maybe they do indeed speak perfectly at home. I've never heard them speak - seen them about a hundred times so far this year. But perhaps they rattle away in perfect French the moment they're not in my earshot. Quite possible.

OP posts:
Mimile · 13/11/2009 13:45

castille - 'course they mind
but as I said, I am lazy, and my brain cannot cope with the swinging between two languages. So I speak French in France, French when visiting French households in Glasgow (and there aren't many!), French at the French toddler group (reluctantly though) - rest of the time, English. This wiring thing is funny, if I hear both languages at the same time, my vocab goes all funny in both languages, and I get all annoyed. I guess that it could be the same for others, maybe also LOs?
So I choose to be consistent with my surroundings
As for my DH, he does speak, sometime, but having Aspergers' that another story

Original poster
becstarlitsea · 13/11/2009 13:52

Mimile - I get that too! My brain is only big enough for one language at a time. If I speak French for a while I totally lose the ability to speak English to the point where I'm struggling to remember the simplest words. Maybe that's the real reason I refuse to speak French to DS

Or maybe it's because I'm guilty of some shocking reverse-snobbery at times...

OP posts:
bellissima · 13/11/2009 13:57

I think it sounds very pretentious. And yes a bit ugh when you hear them passing on mistakes.

BUT my Belgian DH speaks to DCs in both English and Flemish. And of course when he's speaking English it's with the 'wrong' accent and sometimes with (he'd kill me for saying so!) mistakes.

And the posters noting the number of non-anglo-not-even-living-here parents who speak English to their children are also right. Back in Brussels they do so (or claim they do so) and then shove them barely able to string a sentence together into the English section at the European schools...(don't get me started on that one here...

castille · 13/11/2009 14:14

Mimile & Becstar - Flipping between languages is a skill that can be learnt though.

I was hopeless at it pre-kids when living and working in France - I used to visit my family and not realise I was speaking French to them (they were not impressed). But when the DC came along I started having to switch between languages all the time and now I do it easily, as do they.

belgo · 13/11/2009 14:18

bellisma - I have a friend who teaches (in english) at one of the bilingual Brussels schools and she is trying to teach children who all have a different level of english (some have no english), but who are all in the same class.

Bonsoir · 13/11/2009 14:28

belgo - that sounds awful.

At DD's bilingual school there are four levels of English in grande section (three classes of 90 children) and six levels of English right through primary school (five classes of 25 children). The Anglophone/bilingual children are taught in their own separate class.

nigelslaterfan · 13/11/2009 14:34

LOL
there was a very snooty tax inspector in my nct coffee group who used to Bark at her little Tristram of Tristwat or whatever Little Lord Fauntleass was called, in terrible French with no accent at all just English pronunciation.
my mate and I used to just weep with laughter, she just looked 0
so ridiculous. at least get the accent right mate!

bellissima · 13/11/2009 14:47

belgo - from the reports I get from English friends/colleagues that sounds exactly like the European Schools!

But I won't hijack this thread.

I should perhaps note, to be fair, that there was a Finnish child in my DD1s salle at the (French speaking) creche, one of whose (both Finnish) parents spoke to him in English. One day when it was pissing down the way it is here today, he watched me come in to collect DD and said (he was two) "Your handbag is wet because it is raining". When I read that Finns always come top of these OECD school performance tables - I start to see why.

Flightattendant · 13/11/2009 17:01

However poor she is at French and however rude she seemed to you, I think it comes across as very mean spirited and a bit insecure to keep mocking her accent on here. Sorry

MadameDefarge · 13/11/2009 18:00

Can't agree there. It's like someone whipping out a violin and screeching out some cats being strangled version of Mozart,"In order to expose my child to good music from a young age".

It's deluded and embarrassing for anyone else being tortured by it.

Though it is completely fine to be a bit rubbish and have a crap accent if you are actually talking French like that because you have to speak the language...perhaps living in a Francophone country etc....

dawntigga · 13/11/2009 18:03

YAB a bit U, we will be moving to France and will be speaking french to our son to help him when we move - it helps us as well tbh.

LookingForwardToLivingInFranceTiggaxx

Flightattendant · 13/11/2009 18:05

Yes MD but surely no call for bitchy comments about accent. I have been dying to mock RL people on here before but you hold back however funny it is, because it's not nice.

megapixels · 13/11/2009 18:09

Hmmm I don't know if YABU. It does sound odd if the parent is not even fluent in the language. Can't do any good, only harm. Reminds me of the parent who said that she's considering home schooling for her child. Nothing wrong with that of course, until she said that she spent most of her school days playing truant until she dropped out at age 13. Never went back to her studies after that. How can anyone with that background homeschool?

To those parents whose dcs speak several languages, just wanted to ask how you managed it. I am trilingual myself but I only speak one language to my dcs, I'm not sure how you can speak several. In my case one was my home language, one my school language and one the language that we spoke to the maids and other staff. I also had formal learning in all three. Since we've been living here obviously my dcs are not in that environment so only know one language. Do you speak a mixture of languages at home? Or do you speak one, and once the dcs have mastered it moved onto the next?

LynetteScavo · 13/11/2009 18:10

A old school friend of mine would tell her Dc's off in French. They had no idea what she was saying, so seemed a little pointless to me.

She later moved to France, and I've always wondered if her DC's thought they were being told off all the time in their new school.

MadameDefarge · 13/11/2009 18:12

tough one, the thing is, that the point of hearing another language early is so you develop and ear for the real thing, and so your child will develop a good accent. If you are not able to provide a good accent, there is very little point.

I think the OP's point is that unless you can actually provide a good approximation of the real deal, then yes it is pointless and a bit pretentious.

I, by the way, have an excelllent French accent (but my grammar is crap, even though I lived there and have a degree in French, which gets me into loads of trouble, ironically, when in France because I sound as if I understand everything, but I really don't anymore!) , but my ds refuses absolutely to listen to me, even when I do his French homework with him. However he is delighted to talk French with his Norwegian grandmother. Go figure! Grrrrh!

LynetteScavo · 13/11/2009 18:12

But then, I have taught my dC's to say please, thankyou yes, no etc' in French. I suspect my French sounds more authenitc than their class teacher's.

MadameDefarge · 13/11/2009 18:16

To clarify, to point out and ridicule another person's accent when they are using that language to communicate in a situation which demands they use that language is appalling in any circumstances...

To gently mock someone's pretensions in the instance described by the OP is, well, understandable. Its not like she is rolling around on floor pointing fingers when she is there, she is doing it on MN, a great place to vent when we can't in RL>

claw3 · 13/11/2009 18:16

My sister is married to a Spanish guy and both of their sons, can speak fluent Spanish and English. They were spoken to in both languages growing up.

Not sure speaking to a child ONLY in French as you describe would do anyone much good to be honest, particularly if its not the language spoken in the Country where their live and neither parent are French. Might come in handy for duty free trips?

MIFLAW · 13/11/2009 18:46

I do this.

No idea if it's pretentious or not. TBH I don't much care.

But I do find presumtious and, frankly, offensive the implicit assumption that I will pass on "hideous franglais faux pas" and an atrocious accent - I think there is a lot of generalisation going on here.

An Australian academic did exactly this in the 1970s (though in German) and achieved excellent and lasting results.

FWIW, at 21 months, my daughter speaks English and French at roughly comparable levels (though, unsurprisingly, English has the upper hand.) I have spoken to her exclusively in french since a week after her birth. We live in London.