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Parenting

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Original poster

Terrified of it all...

11 replies

MrsLilymunster · 16/09/2017 16:45

I know that sounds a little over the top long story short but my husband speaks Korean and we have been discussing the idea of our baby to be bilingual.
I do love the idea but I'm terrified of how to get there. DH is a high earner and spend little time at home and I'm a SAHM who only speaks English. I'm expected to teach a language I don't know to our child and DH doesn't speak to him in Korean either , only English! The whole thing is so daunting i feel like I'm putting so much pressure on myself when DS can't even lift up his baby head!! Any advice? Xxx

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TractorTedTed · 16/09/2017 16:51

Being bilingual is fantastic, so I'd say go for it!

However, your dh will HAVE to speak Korean all the time to your son.

People I know who have raised bilingual children have done the 'one parent one language' thing, so each parent talks only in their own mother tongue to the child.

Stansmith01 · 16/09/2017 16:53

I don't see how your DH expects you to teach him Korean when only he speaks it?

Mamabear12 · 16/09/2017 19:41

If your husband does not speak Korean to the baby, the baby will not learn. He needs 25 hours a week at least to learn it fluently. If your husband works all the time, then get a korean au pair to fill in the hours or hire a korean nanny. Its the only way. This is coming from someone who has a husband who refused to speak his language with the kids. Even though I had a nanny to help for 15 hours a week! I realised the effort was not worth it if the father was not involved and switched to French. We do not speak French, but I managed to get my kids in a French bilingual school and have an au pair during the summer and French sitters 10 hours a week during the school year.

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corythatwas · 16/09/2017 20:11

a) don't think of it as an all-or-nothing position. Even learning a little Korean will benefit your son: it will open his eyes to other worlds and other ways of thinking and playing with language. Bilingualism isn't like jumping a fence where you will either sail over or hurt yourself. It's fine to do just a little.

b) this is not your responsibility: it's the responsibility of the Korean speaker in the family. Ball's in his court.

c) if your husband does want his son to speak Korean fluently, then he will need to put quite a bit of work in. Since he is absent a lot, he will probably have to speak Korean to him all the time, and he will certainly have to put work into finding him films and music and perhaps teaching him to read. He will have to make it worth while for your son to speak Korean- so he will need to find him fun things, exciting things that are exclusively Korean.

25 hours a week does sound like a minimum.

DrinkFeckArseGirls · 16/09/2017 20:15

How bizarre your DH doesnt want to speak his native language to his DC but expects him to be bilingual? Did he explain his reasoning?

Original poster

MrsLilymunster · 19/09/2017 10:12

it's not that he doesn't on purpose... I think he just forgets to a lot! I guess I'm worried because there's a huge expectation of me learning Korean as well and I'm not good at languages..... :( I'm not sure if he was too fussed before but his mum and dad had a go at him recently about not teaching the child or not talking around him.

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Penhacked · 21/09/2017 10:42

Your Dh needs to get real. If he is serious about this, he either needs to be home more, find a Korean nanny, or get you some Korean lessons and make Korean the language you speak together as a family. Potentially all three to be fully bilingual. He can help your Korean masses if you agree to only speak to Korean in front of the baby. But you will need books, and lessons, and exposure to Korean. Frankly most of it is on your dh.

AtlanticWaves · 21/09/2017 10:46

Errr how is a non-speaker of a language supposed to teach a baby that language?

I speak to my DC in my mother tongue because that's what comes naturally. I don't speak the local language to them despite being fluent. That's DH's job.

Having a bilingual child takes work. If tour DH isn't prepared to do it then he needs to accept it won't happen.

HMC2000 · 21/09/2017 11:01

My husband is Greek, and our daughter is bilingual, but the only way we were able to get there was by him speaking only Greek to her from day one. For a child to be truly bilingual, you can't really teach them the language formally: they need to absorb both languages during those first few years. Because our culture is monolingual, it does need someone at home to be speaking the second language regularly and frequently, so I agree that a Korean speaking nanny is a great idea. However, if your DH isn't going to be speaking Korean to the baby, I'm not sure I see the point, and I think it's unlikely to work. With DD, DH had always conversed with her in Greek, and we've supplemented that with Greek school once a week so that she can read and write it as well. But even then, she isn't as fluent as her Greek cousins of the same age because she lives in the U.K.

HMC2000 · 21/09/2017 11:02

Oh - and my Greek is almost non existent, so I know how you feel on that one!

Natsku · 21/09/2017 11:10

Your husband has to be the one to teach Korean to your son not you - parents should speak their mother tongue to their children, that's the best thing for their language development.

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