Question on bilingualism

[mpops]

Hi everyone. Just went through some of the threads on here - they are very interesting but I can't find exactly what I'm looking for in terms of advice. We've only just found out that I'm pregnant too, so it's a bit too early to be thinking about this but it's such an important thing for me to get it right and make sure I've done all my research ahead of time.

The question is this: me and DH are both Greek and have been living in the UK for 12 years. We communicate in Greek (with a million English words slotted in!). My English is better that DH's. We'd like our child to be fluent in Greek so that they can communicate with our families and feel comfortable and at home on holidays there.

I was thinking the easiest way to do this would be for DH to speak to baby in Greek and for me to speak to baby in English.

But DH reckons we should both speak to our kid in Greek and they'll pick up English at nursery after 9 months. That makes perfect sense, but I'm kind of terrified that baby will feel lost at nursery if they don't understand anything and have no experience of English.

Don't know what to do for the best!

Has anyone had any similar experiences or has any advice? Many thanks!

Mpops

I think OPOL is brilliant - IF you both have a different language you want to pass on! As you both have the SAME language you want to pass on, I think OPOL would be an odd choice for you, the more so as your child will be hearing English from everyone BUT you, especially once school starts.

Undutchable - have you tried Bumba? my duaghter loves it in French so am assuming it is just as funny if you enable the Dutch soundtrack instead ...

I am German and DH is English we speak English to each other but I speak German to DC (almost 6 and 2). I have kept to OPOL quite rigidly, out of fear that they will just switch to English - a number of friends' DC will not speak German, especially after starting school, they understand it but answer back in English.

DS (almost 6) boasts at school that his mummy speaks German to him and that they can't understand. He will switch language depending on who he is talking to. He always speaks German to me and if he finds that someone is fluent he will only use German, even if they switch to English. DS also speaks German to DD (2), its nice to see them use German to each other. I think German is still his first language.

However, as he moves up in school his English is bound to become better and I don't think I can compete with that.

OP - I think you should speak to your DC in the language you feel is your native language, in which you can be most natural, know the most nursery rhymes, are most articulate to teach them the language well.

I agree with you Gabid, do what comes naturally.

When we were in NL we had Polish friends who were worried that their DD was not learning Dutch at her nursery. When my DCs went to play they automatically spoke to her in Dutch and she replied in Dutch much to her parents' surprise!

Children are adaptable, they work out which language they need and where. Dont panic about which language they respond in. Just make sure they have access to all relevant languages well spoken. This was our argument - out Dutch was slecht bad so rather than learning bad Dutch from us we would teach them to speak decent English.

MIFLAW - DS2's second word (after 'Mama') was 'Bumba' . They're all on youtube! (in Dutch, not sure about French).

Yes, that's true, the Dutch ones ARE on Youtube, aren't they?

OP, if you are in London, there was another poster recently who wanted to set up a Greek playgroup. look at this thread

Re books, if you go back to visit Greece or if anyone comes to visit you, then buy books or get them to bring some. You will want to have a good supply.

kai kali lefteria!

Thanks Alexpolismums for remembering me :)

Hello to the OP, I haven't read whole thread (too early still on a sunday morning!) but I am in a very similar situation, both DP & I are greek & our DS, although he understands greek very well, only speaks english.

Like you, our friends are mostly english & the ones who are greek have no children. So our DS mainly gets exposure to english when we meet with friends.

Recently (he's 2.6) he's started saying more & more greek words, mixing them up with english. For example 'I want fao'. Or 'No thelo pao sholeio' (etc). I hope that gradually he'll learn to separate the 2 languages & I hope that eventually he'll learn to actively speak greek although I don't consider it a given by no means.

As for books, we struggle with that one too, but I just do what comes naturally, read some books in english (the ones which have rhyming text) but other than that I translate as I go lots of the english ones in Greek which I've been doing in the last 6 months in an effort to speak more greek as I found I was more & more following my son in speaking english as that was what he was initiating.

I would be very interested in setting up a Greek playgroup in North / North-West London if anyone's interested & have set up another thread for that which, come to think of it, I'll bump. There's a very good greek playgroup in South / South-West London, here's the link.