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Parenting

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Original poster

L3 at 5 1/2 - how much exposure necessary?

4 replies

SSSandy · 04/04/2006 13:34

Hi,
my daughter is bilingual, L1 is English, L2 German. We live in Germany and she is due to start school this autumn. She's a bit behind in both languages I think. Her father is Russian but never spoke Russian to her. We are not together now, he's back in Russia but I would really like her to learn the language so she can go there and visit grandparents, have roots on that side too.

I haven't found any classes here for children of her age. She's been attending art school once a week in Russian for 2 years although the teacher explains everything to her in German. She doesn't seem to have picked up any Russian from it. I was thinking of getting a young Russian babysitter to spend time playing with her say twice a week. Would that be enough, do you think? I took her to Russian playgroups when she was small but she wanted to stop going because she couldn't understand anything and I didn't want to force her of course.

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catrin · 05/04/2006 10:10

SSSandy,
I think it's v kind of you to be concerned about dds grandparents, but if you don't speak Russian, surely your x could have some input on this? Re her being behind in both languages - chances are her comprehension is good but cannot express herself as well as you due to having different vocabularies. Unless she uses Russian regularly, she will not develop it that confidently, so the babysitter idea may be good. German and Russian grammar is similar so that should help. As she gets more Russian, you could try the playgroup idea then.

HTH :)

SenoraPostrophe · 05/04/2006 10:16

German and Russian are similar??? Only compared to, oh i don't know, swahili.

anyway twice a week won't be enough for your dd to become fluent, I'm pretty sure of that. But it will give her a taste for the language and provide a starting point. At least, it will if the baby sitter is nice

catrin · 05/04/2006 11:27

Interesting! Am not fluent in Swahili.They are similar in that they both use a case system for grammar. Did not mean to cause offence, was merely drawing on own experience :)

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SenoraPostrophe · 05/04/2006 11:40

sorry catrin - I wasn't offended, I'm just having a bit of a teenager-like sarcastic phase at the mo. it must be because it's spring.

I don't know Russian btw, but I do know it has weird grammar - no "the" for one thing.

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