Parents who speak the minority language to dc - do you switch to the majority language at the park / in front of your dcs' friends?

[pispirispis]

Hello all,

I was wondering, those of you who speak to your dc in your own native language in a country where a different language is spoken, do you switch to the majority language when speaking to your dcs in front of their friends/at the park?

I'm a native English speaking mum in Spain. I have a 17 month old dd and I speak to her in English. Dp speaks to her in Spanish and only knows very basic English. Dp and I speak Spanish to each other. Dd is with me all day and also spends quite a bit of time with English speaking family and friends, so at the moment English is very much the dominant language. I'm aware this will change when she goes to nursery at 3 and also life outside the front door is all in Spanish.

The problem is, when I talk to dd at the park the other children (and parents) can't understand, and I'm not sure if that's the right thing to do... I spend an awful lot of time saying "Say hello/bye bye to the little girl/boy" and so on, which her little playmates don't understand, (although the parents often do )whereas if I said ¡Dile hola/adiós a la nena/al nene! everyone would understand. Plus maybe it's a good idea for dd to learn hola/adiós to interact with the other toddlers. And as she gets older we'll need more than just hola/adiós... In fact she's already making an attempt to say "hola" (oooaa!) but not hello, which surprised me, but then I realised she must hear me say it 10 times a day!

And then there's all the talking you do to your toddler at the park for politeness' sake, like, "No darling, that's not your trike, look, your car is over here" and "Let the little girl past so she can go down the slide" that is as much for the benefit of the other child/parents as for your dc. Wouldn't it be better to say all that in the language the people in the park can understand?

And then what about when she is at school and has friends home for tea? What language should I speak to her in then?? I had planned on English but now I'm not so sure...

Since dd was born I have been very careful to make it clear that daddy speaks Spanish and mummy speaks English. I don't want to confuse dd or send out the message later on that it's ok for her to speak to me in Spanish. In fact I had decided I wasn't going to speak any Spanish at all to dd under any circumstances, to "defend" her English, but now I'm not sure about this at all! Any advice from those of you in a similar situation?

Very worried by the statement 'I have never met children in RL who have not stopped speaking the minority language by the age of 8.' Is there anyone who can reassure me by knowing lots of children (or even one) using the minority language?

I know lots and lots of bilingual or even trilingual people, who switch between their languages effortlessly. Some have parents with different nationalities, some grew up abroad, but they all seem very much at home in all their languages. But I do also have some friends who were brought up bilingually and simply refused to speak the minority language - especially as teenagers. I think the difference might be how much you use the minority language.

I am Scottish, DH German and until a year ago we lived in Germany. I spoke (mainly) English to the DC, our family language was German as all our friends were German and I was very immersed in German.

The DC's minority language was definitely English, DD at 6yo and DS at 4yo both understood and could speak English but were more comfortable in German.

Last year we moved near to Geneva and the DC are going to local schools and learning French. Their French is coming along very well.

Since we have mainly English speaking friends here, they hear and speak a lot more English and now I would say that they speak English and German equally well. We still speak German at home as it is definitely the minoritiy language.

Keep speaking English at home, but don't worry about using Spanish when out and about.

RacingSnake
My DD is now 7yo and shows no sign of stopping speaking any of her three languages. I also know of many many children of all ages who speak both the local and the minority language well. Don't worry about it.

"Mama sagt Jacke dazu.
DD1: Papa says coat. I say coat."

O no Feierabend! I was sort of banking on using "That's what daddy says. What does mummy say?" in the hope that it would work! Looks like your dd's far too smart for that...

Catithainatita - wow, it must be very exciting living in Mexico. I'm a bit as I used to live in Colombia when I was young and free, and I love Latin America! If I had the dosh I'd fly over there for a visit with my dd in a heartbeat. Life just isn't as, I don't know, colourful anywhere else for me. What's it like having Mexican in-laws? I have some close friends who visited Mexico and totally fell in love with it - they would looove to take their baby and bump over there now if they could!

I'm not even sure in my case which is the minority language. We speak English at home, but everywhere else dd speaks French. And generally speaking she is at school 8 hours per day, and awake at home say 4. At weekends she goes to dance class (in French) or to a party (more french).

When i collect her from school, I usually initially speak in French in front of the teachers and her friends. It's good practice for me, and partly me taking part in her day. We switch to English when we leave.

There's certainly nothing wrong with her spoken English (very fluent and expressive) and we are starting to read and write in English. She won't really learn this in French for another year. As far as i can tell, her French is fine too. No comments from school.

Aged 3 and 4 she often mixed languages in sentences. Now (5.5) she doesn't really do that any more apart from words where she doesn't know the translation. Obviously stuff comes at school that might not have done at home and vice versa.

Tonight as we walked past the monumental masons (something that has given rise to some interesting discussions recently), she told me that she "preferred" to use the French word - "graviers", I think, as she found the English version harder.Then she pointed out the one with the heart on would make a good sunbed!

And I notice I have words missing again - generally my English is very good - but I type faster than this ancient keyboard allows.....

Message withdrawn

Pitchounette and Feierabend I share your concerns. I don't think you can take it for granted that dcs will keep up the minority language unless it is reinforced and imo the best way of doing that is to always speak it to them when you talk to them (even if other people in the room might not understand). I don't know at what point children begin to grasp that speaking another language might be a useful life skill worth maintaining - and not just something you have to use so other people can understand you. My dcs refuse point blank to speak any French to grandparents or English friends who ask for a demonstration - they just can't see the point and have no concept that it might be in any way charming or clever. My own nieces do not speak French because my sil (who is French) didn't routinely speak to them in French. They knew they could speak English to her and so they did. Now they are older they wish they (or rather she!) had been a bit more insistent.

RacingSnake LilianGish, Pitchounette and Feierabend: I think your concerns are very valid. But I am not sure that it is always the minority language's parent's approach that makes the difference, but rather the child's as they get older:

For example, I had a friend whose mother spoke French to her exclusively: but when she went to secondary school she decided that she didn't want to speak French to her mother anymore. She told her "we're in England, I'll speak English".
Her sister, having had the same experience did not make the same decision and carried on speaking French to her mother.

The result? My friend still speaks very good French, but not to a native level. Her younger sister does.

Obviously for your child to learn your language you need to speak it to them consistently. However, I think that there is only so much you can do; children have their own minds and opinions too.

Sorry, her younger sister speaks like a native.

Pispirispis:
Living in Mexico has it's moments. I think it was Carlos Fuentes who said that if Kafka was writing in Mexico his fiction would be considered to be an accurate portrayal of real life.
Mexican-in-laws are fun. But thankfully hundreds of miles away.

A mum at my school is German and she talks to her children in German all the time. I don't mind as I like listening to it. (Don't really understand the language myself)

Pitchounette, can I just say that my experience of mixed approach bilingualims has been that it has worked, not that it has been easy Not quite the same thing.

Instead of rules I have tried to work with salesmanship: my dcs have wanted to listen to me speaking Swedish because I have the best stories, the best songs, the best jokes. We have the largest library in the neighbourhood and a lot of it is in Swedish (often bought second-hand or cheaply off the internet). Being able to travel is of course a luxury, but the other things are more about my putting the effort in. I am still not only reading aloud every night to my 9 and 13yos but I'm having to work at selling the idea of a nightly story to children who might really think they are too old for this sort of thing (so it has to be a very good story, and performed with a great deal of verve). Important imo because listening to a literary text will give you an adult vocabulary that you would never get simply from talking to a parent. I drop little snippets of stories or jokes into conversation to get them interested in works of literature that I would like them to read in a few years' time. I think about this sort of thing all the time. I am forever story-telling, one way or another.

I never said it was the lazy route. All I meant was that it hasn't had to come at the expense of things I see as really important, such as my place in the local community or my relationship with their friends or my ability to help them with homework. I would far rather devote my evenings to story-telling than miss out on a good relationship with their friends.

I always felt I had the responsibility for teaching dcs both Swedish and English culture as dh (though very useful in other ways ) isn't well read and can't sing. Of course it has meant putting a double effort in. But it's been fun.

I am sure you are right, that it is partly about the temperament of the dcs. But a lot of it is also about salesmanship.

In answer to OP, no.

Admittedly, daughter's friends don't speak a lot and nor does she (20 months) but that's not really the point for me.

We were once on a bus and I was reading my daughter a story to distract her and keep her calm. The little girl in the pram next to her (busy bus) started taking an interest. What should I do? I ended up reading the page in French, then translating it into English for the other little girl!

When she got off a stop before us, I realised that she was, in fact, Portuguese ...

I speak to my DS in English (BTW, we live in the UK), and his father does in Serbo-Croat, so at 18 months DS can understand "tata"'s language, but says words mostly in "mummy"'s. DH's mother is meant to be taking DS for a day a week, starting soon, but is unfortunately prone to repeating words in English (as that's what he's said), and mixing the languages, which DH and I think won't help DS particularly, but what can you do?

Interestingly, DS has started using synonyms for the words he knows in both languages: seeing a car in the street, he might scream "Caaaar, Aaaauto!" (and maybe "brrrmm", for the hat-trick).

We hope that if we stay consistent in the languages we speak to him (DH and I speak English to one another, though sometimes he'll address me in S-C in front of DS), he will learn what's what, and even if he addresses us in a mixture, he'll use the right mix at nursery/school and with the "Yugo" relatives.

The relatives and school will, in any case, reinforce what they don't understand, and DS should eventually learn to separate the languages with those who don't speak both.

We have friends who have taken this sort of approach with English-Polish and English-German, and it seems that the child speaks the most "pure" (i.e. unmixed) language away from parents and those who s/he knows understand both. We have some friends from Bosnia who despair of their child, as he "mixes atrociously", but I think they are despairing unnecessarily: they don't take into account that the kid goes to school and speaks English perfectly normally there, and if he were to visit the relations, he would be forced to adapt there, too!

Good luck to all!

If I were to switch languages for the benefit of others I would worry about the message I was giving my daughter. French is already, clearly, a minority language, and everyone else speaks English to her. Should I, in addition, make French seem something to be "hidden" when other people speaking a "more important" language are around?

I'm speaking a foreign language, not shaking hands with a mason!

MIFLAW, I don't think those of us who switch languages do it because we are ashamed, more to make other people feel comfortable. As children get older, the social dynamics change and you are often not addressing just one individual, but a whole gang of them. When I have ds's friend over for a sleepover, my first concern is to make him feel reassured and part of things and the easiest way to achieve that is to address him and ds together. Often I don't even know who I am addressing (WHO pulled that picture off the wall?). If I referee their football match, I need to speak to them as a team. If I am helping dd and her friend with a school project, then it would be odd if I spoke every sentence twice, first to dd and then to her friend, and it would be very difficult for them to work as a group if that was happening. If I am playing Monopoly with ds and his grandma I might need to negotiate with the two of them at once and they both need to understand what I am saying to the other players.

And dh needs to speak the minority language when visiting my family- otherwise he would be very out of things.

I think dcs would only get a negative message if the parent refused to speak the minority language in front of other people at all. That would look like they were ashamed- I certainly wouldn't want to send that message. But that is not to say that you can never switch when there is a genuine reason for doing so.

Mine have certainly not taken away a negative message, to the contrary, the fact that both parents will speak either language as required is sending a big positive message imo. My message is not: Mummy only speaks Swedish, Daddy only speaks English. That to my mind would be preaching monolingualism. If all they see and hear is one person=one language, why shouldn't that apply to them as well? Why should a child have to make the effort to be bilingual if the parents don't have to? I can imagine that dd might well refuse to join me and my family in a Swedish conversation on purpose if I refused to join her and her friends in an English conversation.

Our message is: multilingualism is something we do as a family. It's something Daddy and Mummy do, and it's something that will be expected of you. It's the normal state of things as far as we are concerned.

DD has a friend whose mother-tongue is German. This little girl goes to the same school as DD, and speaks very good French and English (her third language) as well as German - she is a tri-lingual 5 year old. I speak English to her, and DP speaks French to her. If DD has a monolingual French child round, I will address the two of them in French, but always address DD alone in English.

Admittedly, we live in a very multilingual community (and I did as a child, too) and basically everyone speaks the language they are most comfortable with and assumes that everyone around them understands, unless they make it clear they don't or a very rare language is being spoken.

Hopeforthebest - GP's speak English. Was trying to make the point that dcs can't see the point of speaking another language unless they have to. We lived in Berlin for four years and they were pretty fluent in German, but since moving to the UK and having no reason to speak it any more they are quickly losing it. There are a couple of German kids in ds's class - but they speak English and French so ds (6) sees no reason to speak to them in German - he can't see the point of speaking it "just to keep up his German".
Cory - I take my hat off to you in your efforts to maintain the Swedish. I'm quite relieved to be in the UK for the next few years so I can take my foot of the pedal and the dcs' English can be well cemented without too much effort on my part.

Cory

Was not at all implying that you felt ashamed etc - more that, for me, I would worry my daughter might misunderstand and think that those were the reasons behind my sudden switch.

I also fully agree that, in a foot ball match, you should use the "official" language of the game (ie English in England, french in France, etc) - but then, in that context, surely the child has a pre-understanding that you've stopped being mummy for the duration of the game and become the impartial referee?

Clearly, my daughter knows I speak English (at least subconsciously) because she hears me speaking it every day. But TO HER I speak in French.

I must be honest, too, that a lot of the situations you descirbe have yet to arise and they I bridges I will have to cross when I come to them. i just know that, at present, speaking any language other than French when I am addressing my child directly would feel "wrong" to me.

I should also add, with regard to the OP's comment, "Wouldn't it be better to say all that in the language the people in the park can understand?" that, in the parks I attend, there is no safe assumption as to what that language might be!

This is an interesting thread. I've often wondered how other people approach this, as it is something I feel quite uncomfortable about.

In answer to OP's question: always the majority language (Italian) whenever there are Italians around apart from DH. I get absolutely fed up of the strange looks from other people, having to translate everything and generally being singled out as different - not because I care what other people think, but because the language issue detracts from whatever activity they are doing and we automatically get labelled. I have a couple of friends with dual nationalities, neither of them speak their mother tongue to their children, and I think TBH it makes their little lives easier, in general.

My DCs are both bilingual Italian/English but there is a lot of language-mixing especially from DS2 who is 4. For example this morning he said to me "I just ammazzad that zanzara". (ammazzare = Italian for kill, zanzara = mosquito), and it is starting to annoy me.

I am beginning to think bilingualism is overrated. It certainly hinders my - and my DCs - ability to communicate at a more profound level. Or perhaps that's just because I have no positive role models in my local area. I hope this is not other people's experience.

I speak English to dd and she knows it ( age3.8) and she chats / asks me in English it is rare that she will refer to me in Italian unless I have specifically asked her something in that languge.
I try not to be rude when in other peoples company so tend to switch from one to another and so far it seems ok nobody has taken offence .
When starting nursery the teacher was quite happy in asking dd what papa called the word if she said it in English ( we had been the the Uk for 2 months).
As far as I am concerned both my dd's need to learn both lanugages and be able to be converse in both as and when needed. If the Brits when I am in the Uk or the Italians when I am in Italy don't like it then tough - Sorry !

Has anyone noticed their children speak the minority language with a foreign accent? When DD1 does try to say something in German, she sounds awfully English. She can't even pronounce the German 'r' properly.