Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

Please or to access all these features

Parenting

For free parenting resources please check out the Early Years Alliance's Family Corner.

Advice - Mum Czech, Dad English and can't speak Czech

48 replies

Broucek · 15/09/2008 20:52

we want to raise our son bilingually but my husband can't speak Czech. I am aware that it's best to each stick to just one language but don't want Dad to be excluded so when we're all together I am using English. Will this be too confusing for my son? He is only few months old at the moment....

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
ReallySunnyDay · 02/10/2008 13:00

Ahoj Broucku,
I am Czech (lived in Uk for over 12 yrs) and have an English husband (for 13yrs) who manages only about 5 czech words...(my fault for not being diligent enough from the word go)
We have an 19mths old son. I tried to do OPOL but found it very impractical in everyday life, for reasons that others posted already. Just couldnt' sustain a family conversation around the table unless I communicated in English. I speak to my son mostly in czech when alone but also in public (less so). We have a few Czech/Slovakian girlfriends/mums/dads/children living in this area and tend to meet up regularly. At the mo my son understands 100% czech and 100% english,however he started to talk 90% in english. I think that is purely because it is the easier language to pronounce; and he has for his age a remarkably extensive vocabulary. The words he does speak in cz.l. are generaly easier to pronounce than those in egl.l. and vice-versa. (Mys insead of Mouse, haji - lie down, haci- sit down, neni- not there,BUT apple instead of jablko, chair - zidle, etc... you get the idea). I'm hoping that he will start to talk more in cz as he gets older , so long as he hears it around him.
My attitude is - relax, don't push too much in either language, talk to your baby in both. We have a lots of cz baby books and that seems to help a lot. But you cant beat live czech talk - whether over the phone with cz grangma or with a group of my cz friends here.
You will have to come to terms with the fact that in time one language WILL become the dominant one and it is likely to be English (given he lives here)
good luck

ManIFeelLikeAWoman · 02/10/2008 14:15

I am a non-native using OPOL (French). Daughter (8 months)'s mother speaks English only to daughter, though has reasonable comprehension of French. I find, when mum is around, i will still speak to D in French, but pitch the language so her mother can get the gist and doesn't feel excluded. Obviously, if your DH speaks zero Czech, this is not an option, but it might be further down the line.

As ever, the eponymous Saunders (my hero!) has plenty of good advice on this point.

Broucek · 02/10/2008 20:07

ReallySunnyDay - thanks for sharing your experience, I can see myself following in your footsteps. Czech friends around here would definitely help but haven't met any yet! We do go back tp Prague regularly and have czech books and stories on CDs so hopefully we'll get there somehow! BTW you and yr friends don't happen to live in West Midlands do they? ;-)
ManIfelLikeAWoman - (great nickname BTW) - that's a really good tip, I might try that though fear than unless the conversation will involve beer and tram tickets (my husband has a very slight holiday knowledge of Czech)it may be hard as the language is just so different to English!
I also find - and I am not sure if anyone else has experienced this - that my DH's parents are not too supportive of me speaking Czech to DS I think they find it too confusing and feel left out! They never said so in so many words but i read between the lines!So it sometimes hard to persevere!

OP posts:

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about these subjects:

kanchan · 02/10/2008 20:53

Hi
I'm new to the forum and finding it so interesting.
I'm bilingual English/Spanish and my husband only speaks English.We have 3 children under 8 and unfortunately English seems to be their language , I feel I've let them down by not perservering with the Spanish. I think the problem has been that I don't have one mother tongue as I was raised in a bilingual environment. It therefore feels very natural to me to speak in Englsh to them.
They do understand some basic everyday vocab but choose to reply in English most of the time.
Has anyone got any advice on what I could do? When is it too late for kids to pick up a language? The problem I face now is that when I speak in Spanish to them, I end up translating what I've just said and it's exhausting! I'm sure a lot of the time my 4 year-old understands, but likes to hear me speak in English.

kanchan · 02/10/2008 20:56

Hi
I'm new to the forum and finding it so interesting.
I'm bilingual English/Spanish and my husband only speaks English.We have 3 children under 8 and unfortunately English seems to be their language , I feel I've let them down by not perservering with the Spanish. I think the problem has been that I don't have one mother tongue as I was raised in a bilingual environment. It therefore feels very natural to me to speak in Englsh to them.
They do understand some basic everyday vocab but choose to reply in English most of the time.
Has anyone got any advice on what I could do? When is it too late for kids to pick up a language? The problem I face now is that when I speak in Spanish to them, I end up translating what I've just said and it's exhausting! I'm sure a lot of the time my 4 year-old understands, but likes to hear mrespeak in English.

ManIFeelLikeAWoman · 02/10/2008 23:30

From what I've heard - and i'm no expert - it sort of goes in "bands". They're really successful at picking up langs up to the age of about 6; up to 11 they have few probs but will need to "learn" it rather than absordb it; after 15 they have little chance of ever being really at home in the language.

Of course, even within these bands, the earlier you start the better; and, at any age, level of exposure and the praise and prestige attached to language learning together outweigh almost everything else.

Mind you, I could have made all of this up. It just "feels" right, but i might have read it on the back of a matchbox ...

Can anyone else back me up or else put me right?

cory · 03/10/2008 09:26

I think there is a point to the theory you mention, Man, but it is not set in stone. There are exceptions to the rule; highly motivated and/or highly gifted people. Though I agree that after a certain age, a learning approach works best (doesn't mean you can't still get good results, but you get there in a different way).

Also it does not mean that if you are not perfectly fluent/grammatically correct/whatever by age 6, you cannot ever get there. (come to think of it, I know monolingual 6yos who still struggle with some of the phonetics of their mother tongue, still make basic grammatical mistakes and have a fairly limited vocabulary. Some of them go on being lingustically very limited- but not all).

What it does mean, is that any early linguistic input is good.

So I would say- it may never be too late, but any effort you make now, kanchan, is going to save them far bigger efforts in the long run. Plus you have no guarantee that they will want to make that much bigger effort later in life. Now is the time when you can decide what they do. I would try to speak more Spanish. Do activities that will mean you naturally speak Spanish, like reading them a Spanish story book at night, watch Spanish DVDs together and talk about what you see.

And Broucek, couldn't you encourage your ds to do a couse in Czech?

I have been on several of these threads arguing that you don't have to go OPOL- but have to admit, that if you find you can't keep up a decent level of your own language, then OPOL may well be the way to go.

kanchan · 03/10/2008 09:58

Thanks Cory and Man.

I guess it's never too late to learn a language and obviously the sooner they aquire it, the better. I couldn't go down the OPOL route......I would find it very hard to just speak Spanish especially as my husband doesn't speak it.But I'll have to make a conscious effort to stick to Spanish as often as I can.

I did really well this morning before school....I spoke Spanish to them and actually got a few replies in the language so I think I just have to try harder. It truly is such a great thing to speak another language and I don't want to look back in 10 years time and think....why didn't I make the effort?

By the way, I'm new to all this.....what does ds mean? I feel stupid asking but I can't work it out!

ManIFeelLikeAWoman · 03/10/2008 14:31

I have to say that Cory has said pretty much exactly what I meant to say, but made it sound simpler and more positive.

I should also say, FWIW, that I am one of those kids who started at age 11 learning in school only, from an entirely monolingual family, and now feel I am near enough to native in one of my languages to raise my daughter bilingually. In other words, it can clearly be done at any age - it's just much harder work later on. I thin kthe gist is, it's never too late - but the sooner the better.

I'm new, too, but I think "ds" is "dear son".

kanchan · 03/10/2008 18:07

Man, I know what you mean. I just worry it's too late to bring them up as bilingual kids, which is silly as they're still so young.But yes, as with most things in life, the sooner the better!

I grew up in fully bilingual environment.....Spanish mother, English father, English school but living in Spain....it really doesn't get much better than that as far as learning languages goes. Here in the Uk I'm the only Spanish speaker, so it's only me who can make the effort.

Thanks for explaining the abbreviation......It also took me a few seconds to work ou 'FWIW'!!!!!

ReallySunnyDay · 06/10/2008 21:50

Broucek,used to live in East Midlands but now
we live in Cheshire.
PS ignore your in-laws when it comes to talking to your baby in Czech!!! I have the same but I'm mostly just carrying on in my own sweet way. Perhaps they think (as mine do) 'what is he ever going to do with cz.language....' . But the thing is - he's 50% czech and so he needs to know this side of his heritage. Keep going!

Pitchounette · 07/10/2008 11:11

Message withdrawn

Sonski79 · 07/10/2008 13:18

Hi, I am Czech also and am married to a Moroccan expecting baby in June 09. I would not worry about bilingual being too much for a baby. Have a lot of friends in a similar situation who are coping well. If you want to talk more let me know - would be nice to meet some czech mums. Where do you live? I llive in Epsom, Surrey. email. [email protected]

Bye for now,
Sona

vesela · 15/10/2008 15:10

Broucek, from what I've heard, a lot of parents who can't speak their partner's language find that they start learning when a child comes along and is learning to talk. I don't know if MNers' experience bears this out.

Yanka · 21/10/2008 19:24

Absolutely support vesela's point.
My DD is 3.5 now and my DH and I have always used OPOL with her - with the added complexity that neither of us is English so we speak to her in our languages but we communicate English together. Result? My daughter is fluent in all three languages - despite us never speaking to her in English, she has started speaking it straight on joining playgroup (aged 2.5) - so obviously she picked up the passive knowledge from our conversations 'over her head'. In addition, my husband understands significant amount of our Czech conversations, while I understand his mother-tongue conversations with her (neither of us understood more than 'beer' in each other's languages before we had DD)
I would suggest to keep using your mother-tongue. I have lived here almost 20 years now and it definitely felt weird and a bit of a struggle to start with, but she was a newborn then, so she didn't care . Now I cannot imagine speaking to her in anything else - I am definitely beginning to be conscious of my accent (she of course has the perfect British accent and it is only a question of time when she starts correcting me...

nm0208 · 02/12/2008 14:26

I'm english dh is french and we live in the UK. We speak english to each other and dh speaks english and french to ds. ds is 9 months old and will be going to nursery full time from January. We both would like ds to become bilingual but I'm worried that he will not be getting enough exposure to the french language (- my french is basic at the moment). The french side of the family live in France.

Any suggestions?

ManIFeelLikeAWoman · 02/12/2008 14:35

nm0208 - I would suggest going for the OPOL (one person, one language) route, whereby dad speaks French only and you speak English only (to child - you can speak what you like to each other.) Other strategies exist but this is a common and proven one.

Also, I think you should post this as a new thread or you might not get the feedback you're after - it's a bit different to the original post.

nm0208 · 15/12/2008 11:24

Thanks manifeellikeawoman, you're right I should post as a new thread

muminko · 21/02/2009 21:49

It was nice to read your comments as I too have the same concerns as Broucek. My son is 5 months old and I am trying to speak slovak to him whenever I can. However, I do find difficult to do this when surrounded by strangers as feeling quite self conscious and not liking to draw attention to myself. At the same time I have noticed that often I struggle to express myself in slovak language as I do all my thinking in english. I particulary find it challenging to speak endearments or baby speech in my native tongue, as I am not in touch with any slovak speaking mums and those are not the words I use in conversation with my family. Anyone else having these problems? I have now called my baby: little potato, baby carrot etc....as those words make nice sounds in my language, not sure my son would appreciate it though

Sachertorte · 23/02/2009 12:58

Broucek, I think if you don´t go for opol it´s very likely that your baby will only ever learn limited Czech and will potentiall be cut off from your family and heritage. Changing the language ýou use with somebody is always extrememly difficult, I´m not surprised you found it difficult on day 1, a habit takes a little time to form!

I really wouldn´t worry AT ALL about what people think about you using another language. Do you want to give the impression to a growing child that your language is something to be ashamed of? I think a risk is there.. You can explain to your pil that you want your child to be brought up to understand and speak Czech, and yes for the first few years, they will not understand everything that is said. So what? They will develop their own English language relationship with their grandchild and soon enough a baby learns to interpret for grandparents. That is a VERY proud day!

Having come through, raising a bilingual child is not easy, it means perhaps feeling a little embarrassed at times, it means making a huge effort, it can take over life at times. But it´s worth it! And your dh will pick up your language, if he wants to!

LGoodLife · 23/02/2009 13:06

Definately definately keep talking czech at home!!!! My dh is czech but I only speak smattering and its such a shame the kids don't speak it. Kids are very good at languages, there should be no problems, just speak lots and lots of czech because your kids are surrounded by English elsewhere. Incidentally when we see mil (czech) she ends up speaking to me in czech and to dh in english! Another point is that your dc will learn the "home" version of your language, not the formal business type.

MamaMarketa · 19/08/2011 10:59

cau Broucku
objevila jsem Tvoje psani pozde, ale prece to zkusim. Mam dceru 7 mesicni Elisku a take bych rada, aby mluvila cesky. Pritel je Anglican. Jsme z Balsall Common blizko B'hamu a Worcester neni daleko. Rada bych zalozila Czech Mums Group in the Midlands. Jestli se chces pridat nebo si pokecat o detech cesky a jak na to s cestinou, ozvi se na 07840199934. Docela by me zajimalo, jak je na tom Tvoje ditko s cestinou od te doby co si psala. My jsme teprve na zacatku a tak uvitam zkusenosti ostatnich.

Zdravim, Marketa

AussieCelt · 19/08/2011 12:50

If you are the parent with the minority language, you have to make a concerted effort to speak your language in the face of the majority language, regardless of whether your spouse speaks the language or not. Never underestimate the power of the majority language.

It's a pity that so many people (especially men) are threatened by their partner speaking a language that they don't understand to their children. My friend's 3-year old is rapidly losing her Italian because mum keeps forgetting to speak it and Dad is very threatened by it being spoken around him. By the time they're 5 or 6, it's lost forever as a native language.

@annasmami, don't worry about 3 languages as long as there's decent exposure to all 3. Our daughter comfortably speaks 4 at 8yo although it comes from a huge amount of conscious effort and the ability of mum to speak 2 and a bit of them and dad speaking all 4.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page