Farsi speaking 2 year olds sought

[justtheone]

My DS is 2yr 7mth old. English is his mother tongue but my DH speaks Farsi. He is doing quite well speaking English to me and Farsi to his father but I think he needs more exposure to Farsi speaking children/mothers. I live in West London and go to a number of playgroups but I have not met any Farsi speaking children. Any ideas on how I can make contact?

Justtheone - I must be dim.... where does Farsi originate from? I've never heard of it..... the shame!

Iran(?). Norman Schwarkoph is a native speaker, apparently.

just the one - there is a big persian community in west london, centred around the west end of ken high street/ holland park mainly. I don't know how you meet them though, because they tend not to go to playgroups and socialise in the persian set instead. I'll try and think of bright ideas, but my persian friends who all used to live around there are all in the states now. Hmmm. Does his dad not know any persians with children which would get you some entry into that group?

DH works in Translation and Interpreting section of Haringay Council, he doesn't know any groups off the top of his head, but they do use Farsi interpreters so he'll ask around, see if he can find out anything helpful.

Thank you for the replies. Our friends' children are now in their teens... we delayed just a little bit (!!!) before having DS. Also, unless the mother is iranian, our friends' children may understand some farsi but do not speak it. With nursery rapidly approaching I am worried that DS will lose the willingness to speak Farsi, as everybody he talks to will understand English (including DH).

This must be a common problem for bilingual children where the second language is not the mother tongue and it is also not the normal everyday language.

No, I understand fully as DH is Cypriot. We don't use Greek at home although I try to get MIL to speak to the kids in it. We are just very lucky that a Greek Orthodox primary school opened near us a couple of years ago (the one and only in the UK!) and they teach Greek ( and Cypriot) language, history and culture in addition to the national curriculum.

I read your message about finding a playgroup for Farsi-speaking children. My husband and I are Iranian and we have a 3-month old son - it's never too soon to learn Farsi We live in Finchley. There are many Iranian and Afghan families living in West and North London. I am actively seeking to find a playgroup for Farsi toddlers. If there isn't one, I would like to create one. This is partly for selfish reasons (i.e. like yourself I would like my son to have as much exposure to Farsi as possible - learning it from his parents is not going to be enough) and partly beacuse I think that there are many like-minded parents out there whose children would benefit from a Farsi playgroup.

hi there! any luck with farsi playgroup in London? can't find any farsi playgroups yet. :(

The child is off to secondary school, this thread is 9 years old

How does that happen??