Black mum Italian dad

[marsiettina]

Hi all.
I'm mum to ds 6 and dd 3. I am black British and hubby is Italian.

Just wondering if there is anyone else with a similar mix or someone whose partner has a second language.

My two children seem to understand Italian, but would love them to speak it more, but it is so hard when it is the dad's and not the mum's native language. I suppose I should wipe the cobwebs off all the different Italian language courses I have and start to practice again!

There are lots of posters on MN with families with more than one cultural and linguistic heritage.

Does your DH speak Italian to the children all the time? Do you go on holiday to Italy as a family?

DH tries to speak Italian to the children as much as possible, but sometimes it is easier to explain something in English than to keep on translating each word.

We try to get the children to watch Italian cartoons etc on Italian satallite, but for the older one it is almost like a punishment for him when we do that. If only we could find Ben10 in Italian!!! We have found Peppa pig in Italian, so the younger one is content with watching that.

We go to Italy on holiday, but now ds has started school we visit less as it is school holiday time only.

My ex was Dutch & I'm black British, but we broke up many years ago. Even though I tried to get him to speak only in Dutch to ds, he couldn't help speaking in English so ds never learned Dutch. I still want him to learn though, since his dad has moved back to Holland and he has a younger brother who only speaks a tiny bit of English. I didn't get beyond basic Dutch so I keep planning on learning together with him. Just have to get organised about it before he's too old to be bothered.

In case you haven't already discovered it, there's a bilingual group on here which you might find useful.

Hi Mars

I'm not back british but rather english/indian british and my dh is an italianb national.

ds is 3 and although seems to understanding italian is not keen on speaking it at all. I hear this is very normal.l

dh doesn't speak in italian enough to ds in my opinion and ds doesn't want me to speak italian (I have enough to converse well with a little kid!). apart from getting dh to properly speak in italian (ie he speaks in italian all the time to him and me in english all the time to him) I don't see what else I can do.

It does annoy me as my family has lots of languages and we've done nothing so he can learn italian ie dad's language. If no improvement we're planning on getting him to speak something else!

If it's any consolation I know lots of kids in the UK with both parents Italian who don't speak it well - could be because it's a hard language?