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

[becstarlitsea]

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)

I was polyglot as a very young child (english, shona, afrikaans, portuguese) but was hopeless at languages at school and am now a reluctant (as in pretty dodgy) bilinguist - English/french, due to circumstance rather than ability.

Would love my children to be effortlessly polyglot.

Are you saying that your acquaintance who doesn't speak very good French does not converse with her children in English? I find that very hard to believe. It is very difficult, if not a native speaker, to keep up speaking in another language. I've tried and I speak good French. Expressions here and there and the odd mealtime in French is fine, but it is difficult to keep up, especially if you're not surrounded by the language by living in the country for instance.

Having said that, I don't think it's pretentious or pointless to introduce other languages at all, it's enriching.

Oh, it's nothing to worry about! It's just one of these daft cases of over application of academic theory to actual practice - my mum's PhD was on some the post-colonial authors of some country (I've forgotten which) which was colonised by the Italians and people grew up speaking Italian and their original language, and my mum's thesis was something along the lines that this caused a radical disconnect between their true self and their self-presentation in the world. I believe that structuralism and semiotics played a major part of it as well. You have the picture. We are talking about the woman that wanted to call her oldest daughter 'Rainbow' as a message of hope to the world, don't forget. More logically, at the time (over 30 years ago) bringing children up bilingual was believed to have various effects on language acquisition, which I believe were subsequently considered not to be the case. She did teach us to make all the right noises, though - so we had these sessions round the kitchen table doing different vowel and consonant sounds.

I would much rather that she'd swallowed her semiotic theories and brought us up bilingual.

wot like madonna?

how odd to not to want to converse naturally with your kids?

As I understand it Madge didn't actually speak French to her kids, just sent them to the Lycee Francais.

Yup. And Lourdes got tossed out because Madge kept taking her out of school to go on tour or whatever....French folk don't take too kindly to that kind of attitude to their dyed in the wool bourgois ideas...

ZZZenAgain - You have no idea how I am!

(Bonsoir - )

ulyanka - Thanks that has really taught me something!

I am finding this thread terribly interesting. The more posts I read the more I think this subject is really grey and we can't make serious general statements. There are so many ifs and buts!

For example... what if you have a sort of OKish grasp of a language?

A parent, who often speaks with a child in a language other than his or her Mother tongue, could infact successfully model having a passion for languages. This parent could demonstrates to his or her children the joy he or she gets from speaking for example B1 level French while admitting limitations. He or she may encourage the children to learn from elsewhere (a tutor, bilingual school etc) and experience as many Mother tongue influences as possible (camps, visiting friends and holidays). Surely this is really positive?

On the otherhand, Ulyanka I agree with you, someone who does not have their Mother-tongue/strongest language nurtured but instead has four or more languges taught by people who perhaps have only B1 or even lower standards of that language who are portraying their model as completely right and true is of course more than a bit concerning!

I hate to do this, but have read the first few posts but not the rest:

Am I right in thinking these are non-Francophone parents (so, let's say, they are English speakers from Islington) who don't speak any English to their DC but speak in French?

If I am right, then they are totally barking fruitcakes.

If I'm wrong, I apologise, I know I should have read the thread. But still [ grin]

the thing is teafortwo, one should converse in the intimate maternal way in the language which is one's maternal langauge. That gives them the profound linguistic basic to learn their own language, and others.

If you have two parents who do not speak their maternal languages to their children, then they lose an essential part of of language acquisition.

And if their primary carer speaks only alanguage other than their maternal language, that also destroys their base language.

It doesn't just affect their language, it affects their emotional well being. We talk about preverbal and postverbal. If children are not grounded in language it affects their emotional well being also.

Yay - interesting debate!

I'm a translator/interpreter, and dp and I are bringing our dd up bilingual. I speak to her in my native language, English, and dp speaks to her in his, Spanish. We live in Spain, so everything outside the home is also in Spanish. We spend a lot of time with English-speaking friends and see a lot of my family. So it's pretty balanced so far, although dd is only 17 months old, so I don't know what her English and Spanish will be like in a few years' time.

I was very interested in the Translation Studies and Linguistics side of things while doing my postgrad, and actually did my dissertation on Semiotics - it is nutty, isn't it Grendelsmum! I did laugh at your post, you poor linguistic/cultural identity guinea pigs!

First of all, I think having a native language is extremely important, and it is true that there are cases of people who express themselves extremely well in two or more languages but have no true native language. I also think it's virtually impossible to have two completely native languages.

I don't think it's unnatural for a mother to speak to her dc in a language that is not her mother tongue, and it can be done well imo, provided the decision to do so is an educated one. If the mother has near native competence (and if she describes her level using this term, as MIFLAW as done, she obviously knows what she's doing) and her dc have plenty of exposure to the other language, ie from their dad, school, living in a country where the other language is spoken, then this set-up can work very well. MIFLAW's dc, for example, will have no problem becoming native speakers of English, even if she, their mother, never speaks to them in English, because the rest of their "world" is in English (I presume..?)

However, the situation that the OP describes is a different matter. I don't think someone with A level competence in a language is a good enough linguistic role model for their children to learn from. But I seriously doubt she speaks to them in French all the time OP, I think she's exaggerating and just speaks French to them sometimes. Maybe she just wants to impress you and just chatters away to them in French when the notion takes her. And even if she is kidding herself that she's going to speak to them exclusively in French, she'll soon get tired and give up, because it's pretty much an impossible task if you're not up to scratch. And if she does carry on, then her French is better than you think it is .

Lastly, imo YABU OP to think that generally it's pretentious to speak to your children in a language that is not your own. That is a typical British sentiment of tutting/tittering at people who get ideas above their station and who do they think they are anyway?? Voltaire?

I just wanted to add that if a child is being brought up in England and their mother is pretty good at French for example and chats away to them quite a bit in French and reads books with them and so on, I think this is an extremely positive thing and will do absolutely no harm to their acquisition of their native language. Any input of another language is a good thing. Children have amazing brains. Anyway, I must go to bed!

WOW - pispirispis what a very good post!

I really must go to bed... but this thread is so interesting it is hard to switch the computer off!!!

MadameLaFarge

yes, I've read that and I understand that, thanks.

it isn't "recent", it isn't a universally held view, Chomsky himself changed his stance on these things throughout his long career and, most importantly, he does not say (I don't think) that "an approximation" is not good enough. He certainly doesn't say it's detrimental. So I'm not sure I see the relevance.

Most people on this thread seem to be "arguing" (if that's not too grand a word for it) that it's pretentious, they can't imagine why you would do it, Mrs X down the road does it and her French is dreadful, etc. I personally find the whole concept of language "lessons" at this age pretentious, FWIW, because I do not see the advantage of language learning in a vacuum when the student has no critical faculty around it - but there you go. The point is, it's one thing to say "I don't like it" and another to say, especially without any factual basis, it's wrong or it's harmful, because, frankly, it isn't.

There is also an assumption that we do this in a vacuum. I don't. My daughter regularly meets native speakers, watches (with me) French children's DVDs, listens (with me) to French music, reads (with me) French books ... all of these are exposure to "real" French speakers.

And, frankly, so what if you're all right and I'm wrong? There is no evidence of harm arising from this. Are you suggsting that I should wait for secondary school because they will do a better job? I have worked alongside a fair few teachers, I may well have taught some of them French at uni and, frankly, my French is better than a lot of theirs, so what have I got to lose?

I speak exclusively spanish to my children (i am not a native spanish speaker but lived abroad and am fluent) and they attend a spanish school, and their english is stronger than their spanish. They learn language not only from parents, but also from the community they are in. It's nothing but an advantage to speak another language to a child even if you are not totally fluent. Another example - think of all the immigrants who move to a new country and adopt that country's language (well, I guess this used to happen more than it does now). Those kids speak english fine.

Eleanorsmum - if you don't mind me asking, where do you live? Presumably not the leafy Cotswolds or the wilds of Yorkshire? It seems odd to me not to speak to your children in your native tongue. I have friends who are genuinely bi-lingual (English/Afrikaans)and they use both languages, but why would you not speak to your DC in your mother tongue. Do you speak Spanish to everyone all day long? I.e. is it an adopted language?

I am not having a go at you, I am genuinely baffled by all this.

"What would you say are the benefits of speaking French with your little one?.... And.... errrr.... what do you do to ensure you model to your dd good collocation, particularities such as accurate usage of masculine and feminine, accent and inclusion of new vocab?"

Wanted to answer this seperately. The obvious advantage is, of course, that she speaks French. As in, she understands and produces spoken French spontaneously. She is a native speaker, even if I am not.

Then there's stuff like an apparently quicker than usual mind but I bet most parents think that; no, the other big advantage is a greatly increased closeness between us, because, as her main representative of French, I have made sure I am around in a greater variety of situations and for greater stretches of time, stuff I might have left to her mother if we were a monolingual family. French is an extremely positive bond between us.

As for the more techy bits of your question, I basically do what a caring monolingual parent does - I "reflect and amplify" her utterances ("liv'" - "oui, c'est ton livre de Charlie et Lola, n'est-ce pas?"); I encourage her to use words if I think she knows them ("ock" - "oui, maman dit 'sock', que dit papa?" "sossette" - "oui, bravo, c'est une chausette, que tu es intelligente!"); sometimes, I will "check over" a sentence in my head before speaking to make sure all the loose ends tie up; she is still too young to be attaching articles to nouns or getting verbs to agree, but I will be using similar techniques when the time comes.

I never say I am teaching my daughter French. I say that I speak French with her. Because that's basically it. I speak accurate, varied French with her as much as possible, I supplement and vary it with native sources, she responds in French and is doing so more and more, and I praise her.

I bring my kid to polish singing class. I'm not polish, but its a lovely group and its free (local library). I feel that it is good for him to hear as many vocal sounds as possible as a baby. His child minder also speaks another language at home (speaks English to her charges, but her own language to her own family on front of them). If I knew enough french I'd speak french to him but I am REALLY rubbish at other languages, a fact that I am embarrassed about (I really do try, language CDs and major efforts when abroad) and also a bit resentful about because one of my parents were bilingual but they only ever spoke English to me. I just cannot understand why they would not share their language with me, I think it would have made it much easier for me to learn both that and other languages.

I have friends raising kids in bilingual households and they do agree that the kids start speaking later than babies who are purely spoken to in English. But so what? suppose it would matter if you're into the more competitive mother and baby groups, but I believe that exposure to other languages has benefits later on in their development.

so I think YABU

Often speak to the DCs in French. Taught them songs in French, to count in French, to have basic conversations in French. I thought this was an okay thing to do - wasn't being ostentatious about it - no-one outside the family has ever witnessed me talking to them in French. Not doing anyone any harm and might be doing them some good. So YABU, I reckon.

Should add that I am not French and neither are the DCs.

p.s. is it so bad if the french being taught isn't exactly perfect? surely the benefits of them ENJOYING it and being familiar with the sounds are more important, plus if they want to take it further it can be 'tidied up' through formal education later on, at least they will have the basic aptitude to take it further if they want to!

And who's to say they would be spoken to in perfect English? At uni my lecturers from abroad (so English a second language) were the biggest sticklers for correct English.

"I have friends raising kids in bilingual households and they do agree that the kids start speaking later than babies who are purely spoken to in English." FWIW Saunders produced independent statistical evidence in the early 80s that the difference was in fact negligible.

I don't think that's the point, Quattro: this is if you exclusively spk French to them, even though you aren't a native F speaker or live in a F speaking area... So what you do is very nice but not bonkers, whereas the other is, well, just strange. Unless as I have said before I have just misunderstood this thread completely.

Tiger

I don't think you have misunderstood the thread at all.

But, as an offender myself, I would be interested to know why this "strange" behaviour seems to bother people so much? Can you help?