How to introduce my mother tongue

[archiesmummy]

I'm originally from Sweden and speak it fluently (obviously minus a lot of words which I have lost or forgot over the years), but I find it awkward to speak swedish with my DS (7 months). Will he get confusd if I speak it only sometimes? If I do speak it all the time when we are at home together, will he understand that we speak english out and about? And also that we speak english as a family? Should I start ASAP?

well, the research suggests that yes, you should start asap and you should be consistent in your approach - set a system and stick to it. I would recommend from personal experience that you should stick to one parent one language (OPOL) very consistently.
I do this with mine - my youngest two don't really talk that much yet but my eldest is 7 so it's quite easy to see how her language development is. Anyway -I talk German to the children but as we live in the UK with a Brit dh and no other German speakers around, i'm the only one they hear it from. My dd1 can understand German and hold a conversation in it, but it's all a bit anglicised and her vocabulary, both active and passive, lags a long way behind that of her German peers. She always talks to me in English - I talk to her in German. We visit my family a few times a year so she's exposed to a lot of German then and has to talk German.

Anyway! My point is that, despite my best efforts, having only German videos in the house when she was little etc., my dd1's German really isn't all that great. Bilingualism is something that does actually require a surprising amount of work and consistency. There are quite a few books available on it now, if you have a look on amazon you should find several - it might be helpful for you to have a look.

I understand that it's hard to switch - but the longer you leave the harder it will get. Do you have family in Sweden? The family connection has always been my biggest motivator.... I don't want the children to be 'divorced' from their German side of the family, and don't want them to only be able to view the culture from the outside.

geekgrrl - little hijack there - do you find that your dd makes lots and lots of mistakes in German?
My dd1 does. It's all anglicized, like saying wenn when she means als, or things like "du musst dieses weg gehen" instead of "du musst hierlang gehen" - lots and lots of things like that. Also gender and cases all over the place. I was hoping it would get better, but maybe it will get worse...

yes, completely all over the place! 'Die' and 'der' are forever getting mixed up... and everything is anglicised, the 'weg gehen' example is exactly the kind of thing she'd say.

Her German reading is getting a little bit better though, I'm hoping that will be the key. She's still a loooong way off reading proper books in German though. I find it really frustrating. Always thought that as long as I consistently used German with her everything would be just fine.........!

When will you be coming over? I'm in Kiel at the moment.

I'm going tomorrow, and looking forward to it! Especially to eating Spaghettieis!

It is very frustrating with the German, but I think it's very difficult when they are at school because they are exposed to so much more English than German.
How do you deal with all the mistakes, I'm unsure whether to correct, or let it go, or what? The thing is I could correct every single sentence she says, and it gets frustrating for her and for me.

I went to an Eisdiele yesterday.

I just let the mistakes go... she seems to feel insecure enough about it as it is. I don't want to put her off speaking it even more IYSWIM.

All the der and die mix-ups really grate but I try to control myself.
Some mistakes I simply cannot take though.

Hope you have a nice time!

oh, and I agree re. school - dd spoke pretty much only German to me until she started nursery at 2. It all went downhill from then on......!!
The other two are even more disadvantaged in this regard as they've had dd1 talking to them in English from birth. Oh well!

I always console myself by thinking that as long as they understand everything in German they'll have something to build on...

archiesmummy - I agree with geekgrrl in that bilingualism really does require A LOT of effort!

We are also a German/English speaking family and stick to the one parent one language approach. In addition, we send our children to German Saturday school, watch German videos, read German books and visit German family... and despite these efforts my 4 year olds still often speaks English to her younger brother...

So, one of the options we are considering is to send the children to the German school in London for a few years (primary school) in order for them to become truly 'bilingual' in both languages.

So, yes, you really should only speak Swedish with your son! And try to get a lot of Swedish books, dvds etc to look at together!

It doesn't matter if only one parent speaks the 'non-resident' language, while the other speaks the language of the country they live in, as long as there is consistency. I know plenty of parents who are in the same position as you, where the mum speaks to the children in one language, the dad in another, and they all speak the same language when with locals. It is hugely beneficial to the children, and well worth the effort.

Whatever mistakes the children make in their grammar, vocabulary etc are virtually irrelevant, even if they stop speaking that language during primary school, as they will have learned that there is not only one way of communicating and will find other languages easier to learn as a result.

My db and I spoke Hebrew with our parents, and English with each other and at school, until the family was naturalised when I was about 7 or 8. My parents had come under such pressure from teachers to stop talking Hebrew to us (apparently it was confusing us! ) that we gradually switched over to English and by the time I reached my teens I had forgotten much of my Hebrew. I couldn't read or write it at all any more. But I learned French, Spanish and Latin from scratch at secondary school, and, when I decided to learn French and Hebrew again in my 20s, I was fluent in both within months.

And as for confusing us - what a load of tosh! We were all top or near the top of the class in English, have degrees, and my sister is a journalist with a superb style. I don't think that's a mtter of IQ (db and I lean towards sciences and IT, dsis towards art), but because of our early experience of other languages.

I agree with the one parent, one language thing. Very much so. I have, however, heard learner parents speaking to their children in the language that the other parent speaks fluently (and that they think is the weaker language) and it is awful to hear. I'm sure they truly think they are helping but if you haven't got the accent, vocab, grammar, etc then it isn't helping the child. It's not the case in any of the stories of this thread, but I thought I'd mention it.

I'm lucky in that my children have gone to a Welsh medium school from the beginning and, although English is their first language, their Welsh has gone from strength to strength as a result. They do speak to each other in English which is understandable as it was their first language, although it would be much nicer if they used Welsh. They do, however, keep the conversation in Welsh when speaking to each other if a third party (i.e. dh ) is also speaking Welsh so they can do it, it's just that they don't because it doesn't feel natural. (Please feel free to ask questions if I've confused you!)

So....keep at it. I know of a family whose children spoke 3 languages from the beginning and it has done them no harm at all despite their mother tongue being a foreign language that they only hear from their mother, from family abroad when visiting or on the phone and on holiday.

archiesmummy, if he is to become truly bilingual (mind you one language, presumably English in his case, will always be THE dominant language), he needs a lot of exposure to both languages. Occasionally singing/speaking to him in Swedish probably won't be sufficient. Maybe you'll feel less awkward speaking Swedish to him with time. Can you meet up with other Swedish speaking parents, try and set up a Swedish toddler group, something like that to ease yourself back into it?

For the German mums, if it is any consolation, my dd says things in English like bigger as (als). I think it's just a stage of trial and error, transfering what you know from one language to another and slowly figuring it all out.

I just correct gently. If she says, I'm bigger as Otto. I'll say, oh, didn't know you were bigger than Otto. She then picks up on it straight away - I'm bigger than Otto AND Paul AND...

archiesmummy - if you're in London then the Swedish Church has some toddler coffee group I think

We are doing Swedish/ English too but DS doesn't get that much Swedish as DH works long hours in the week
We have various books and dvds picked up when visiting relatives and we have SVTEuropa

It took a while for DH to get used to only talking Swedish but DS is 18 mths now as it's a definite habit
We can't see any results yet as DS only has about 6 words

agree need to be consistent. always speak your language even when no one else understand. you'll think you're being rude while everyone else thinks it's so cute.
or so i've been told.
I'm doing the italian bit Dh the english. and fingers crossed.

I think one should not have to high a hope. I'll try my hardest but all I am settling for is for her to understand and be able to communicate with family and other kids. To have the basis. Then if she wants to perfect it later even better.

I'm a swedish mum and I teach a class of swedish children twice a month in Milton Keynes. I'm a qualified teacher and I've worked with bilingual children both in England and Sweden. I think that if you decide to make the effort than your child can learn swedish and english. I find it very sad when I met children who could have grown up bilingual but their parents just didnt bother.

I know it's hard in the beginning when you're used to speaking mostly english but try to speak swedish to your child as much as you possibly can. Get swedish books and cd's that you can enjoy together. Have a look at svenskamammor.com to see if you can find other swedish mums near you, there are lots of us. If you have relatives in sweden think of how wonderful it will be for htem and your child to be able to communicate in swedish.

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