do you feel embarassed speaking to your child in your own language in public ?

[fredly]

I sometimes do, thinking at the same time that it's silly. When it's among people I don't know like in a shop, I don't usually care, but when I'm with friend I feel like I'm alienating them.

No, I don't feel embarrassed, but speaking English to a child in Germany is generally regarded as a good thing and not something to be ashamed of. I am sure that a lot of languages are not seen as a enrichment for the child, unfortunately.

A friend is bringing her child up German/Croatian and has had some negative comments, like why she is bothering, it is not as if many people speak Croatian anyway. Er, perhaps her DD's grandparents?

I think that it is important that our children feel that the 2nd language is as important and valuable as the local language.

The only time I feel embarassed is when I am dealing with a child behaving badly in a public place. I worry that people will think that my children are badly brought up because their mum is English.

But then it's likely I'd be embarrassed in a similar situation in the UK as well!

I'm never embarrassed as here it's seen as a good thing that a child speaks English, but like Cali I get annoyed by people trying out their English on me or trying to speak heavily accented bad English to my DD. Now my DD just glares at anyone who is obviously not mother tongue and runs away screaming.

I do have an Albanian friend who never spoke her language when out and about as she felt people looked down at her, what with Albanians often being considered as low life and criminals in Italy. It's such a shame as her DS who's now 6 cannot comunicate with his grandparents.

Oh, I dislike that too, when German shopkeepers try out their English on me, especially when I have made it clear that I speak German. DD just wont answer to anyone German speaking to her in English, she is good at sussing out the native speakers!

never embarrased but agree that sometimes with English friends... i end up doing a simultaneous translation! Exhausting but no one feels weird then!

Speak Spanish all the time to my 14 dd!
But almost all her firs words are english, popo, book and toast..

My friend mostly speaks in swedish to her children at playgroup and I have nothing but respect and awe that she is so fluent in English and Swedish. I wish I spoke a language well enough to teach my dd a second language. I do teach her some french, she can say au revoir, and can say hola in Spanish ( I try my best to speak these languages while on holiday so she picked it up at only 15mths!)

I never feel embarrassed but then Engish is a high status foreign language in Germany so unlikely anyone would be disapproving about it. Many parents are keen for their own dc to make an early start in languages like French or English so it's anon-issue here really.

I do know Polish parents who refuse to let their dc learn Polish,or if they speak Polish at home would never speak it on the street because it's a low status language here. Or seems to be at the moment.

It could well be that a child speaking Polish gets a different reaction to a child speaking English here, I don't know. I've never had a negative reaction.

However I do think it is common courtesy to not exclude people if it's unavoidable so I would speak German when with people who do not or do not all understand English. Dc need to learn basic manners as well as languages IMO.

If dd is playing with another English speaking dc, they'll speak English. If a German speaking child joins them, they will switch to German so that dc doesn't feel excluded and I think that's important.

I don't feel embarrassed, though sometimes small children stop and stare. Less so in Provence than when we were in Réunion, unsurprisingly.

I agree, though, that prejudices about languages abound: people here say it's wonderful that I speak English to DS, but mutter when others speak Arabic or when the gitans speak their version of Spanish.

I tend to translate odd bits so that people will understand, or else I sum up in French. But I confess that it gives me a childish pleasure to know that MIL (control freak queen) doesn't know what I'm saying to DS and therefore cannot give endless advice, counter-instructions and orders.

Like kindersurprise, Brangelina and SSSandy2, I have generally found that people are in admiration/envy that my daughter is being brought up to be bilingual in French and English as English is such a high status language. So no, I am absolutely not embarrassed to speak English to her in public.

And, what's more, I never speak French to her in front of people who might not understand English as in general here people who consider themselves even moderately well educated like to think they can speak English and it is better manners, IMO, to go along with this (even if it is a self-delusion on their part ) than to insult their egos by assuming they need to be spoken to in French .

Manners are complicated things...

No never, but I do make an effort to speak english only if we are in anglo company.
And if I slip, DS usually goes "silly mummy! they don't understand!!"

No i don't, and as Auld says, it can sometimes be an advantage not to be fully understood by others when speaking to your children. Having recently moved to france from belgium i have noticed that it generates more curiosity here than it did in belgium where i think that people are more used to people speaking at least one other foreign language - where i am at the moment i sometimes feel like an oddity! My DD would probably wonder who I was speaking to if i suddenly started speaking to her and DS in French.

yes, although it has got better now after 8 years of speaking German to my children...

I went to boarding school in Devon for my A levels and was subjected to constant low-level xenophobia, both from other pupils and teachers, as well as a few physical attacks from another pupil who had BNP tattooed across his knuckles which the school didn't really react to...

As a result I felt very nervous about letting on anything about my German-ness in public for years, although I have never again experienced reactions like that, thankfully.

I'm so sorry you made those experiences Geekgirl, that's horrible I have to say I have never come across anything remotely similar in Germany, ever. Children can be nasty we all know that, but the school not reacting to it is unbelievable .

Actually come to think of it, I have made a concrete effort to speak quietly when I'm speaking English out and about, so maybe people rarely notice - not out of embarrassment but because I've felt annoyed myself at mums reading out in English to their dc at the TOP of their voices in buses/trains/waiting rooms and I find it quite rude, subjecting people sitting around you to a constant stream of language they cannot understand at a high volume. I wonder why it is that English speakers sometimes feel the need to speak especially loudly when they're in a non-English speaking environment and I don't know even if I was the same before it struck me. I've noticed though that French speakers don't seem to do it.

aha Anna, well I knew the French was a bit complicated, in the nicest possible way, so I still have a way to go before I'll really understand them then

argh "were" not "was"! Honestly I don't speak English like that to dd in public - then I would be embarrassed!

LOL Sandy - it's hard mastering the intricacies of étiquette in other cultures

Apologies in advance for the hijack: how did the move go in the end, belgianchox?

@Geekgirl
Sorry that you had a nasty experience in school, very bad of the school to let that go on.

I have never experienced any nastiness in UK but friends were recently at Wembley to watch Germany play England. They had their DCs with them, ages 14 and 18 and for some reason were in the middle of the English fan block. My friends were made very uncomfortable by the English fans, cursing and swearing at them. I was very embarrassed to be British when they told me about it.

geekgirl, your experience at school really does sound awful , especially that the teachers did not know better. I do hope these attitudes have changed by now!

I generally speak only German to my children, even in public. No, it never bothers me in the least and it usually opens up conversations about how lucky the children are to be raised bilingually.

And when we spend time in Germany dh speaks to the children in English and, likewise, we generally only get positive remarks.

geekgirl

I feel like Cali. As dh and I speak German at home, and we will, for various reasons, not be sending dc to a bilingual kindergarten, I know it's vital that I only ever speak English to ds, wherever we are (if someone who can't speak English - e.g. ILs - is around, I will speak German to them but still English when speaking exclusively to ds), but the looks and the way you can see some people's eyes light up - 'ah, I can speak some English to these people!' do get intensely annoying. My German is near-native, I feel very assimilated (for want of a better word) and get very prickly when people assume I'm not au fait with the language/culture. What's still worse is when people you've only just met try and get free English lessons/corrections out of you (which has happened to me at, for example, an indoor playground).

Oh all the time. It's such an ugly, hybrid language, shorn of any decent grammatical structure and capable of verbose incomprehensibility and vacuity at the same time. I'm even more embarassed when I look at the other people around me who nominally also speak it - a vocabulary based on swear words, no means of communication other than shouting and swearing at each other, and the sense of wasted human potential oozing from every pore.

Still, he won't speak much English until he goes to school, by which time he'll be fluent in Russian - now THAT'S a proper language!

I feel relaxed about using Swedish in public, only reason I'd abstain would be if we were actually with somebody who might feel excluded.
Though I do use English with my dcs too, as the fancy takes me. My Mum noticed that I use a switch in language to discipline them and attract their attention- I've since read in a book on linguistics that this is quite common. Though I'd usually not use English with my Swedish relatives around, not because they wouldn't understand, but because I don't want them to think I'm getting out of touch with my culture. But I might be quite likely to speak a bit of English if we were out in Sweden and my relatives weren't around, simply because moving between languages is something we do when we're together as a family.
Never had a negative reaction in either country- English is a high status language in Sweden, and in England most people don't recognise Swedish (though that would probably be fairly high status too).

To me it boils down to one thing:
What is more important? - That someone else might be embarrassed or alienated because you are speaking a different language to your child, or your unique linguistic relationship with your child?

I am not willing to compromise years of hard work and perserverance on my part just because someone else might not like it. They probably don't even care that much anyway...

I'm proud that my Spanish-born 4.6 yo DD still speaks better English than Spanish even after over two years of full-time Spanish-only nursery.

Have just noticed how old this thread is!
Fredly - are you still around? How's it going now?