teddy wilkin
16 Sep 2009
Language / Kids languages for mixed couples ? [26]
I am a Brit and I have a Polish wife and 2 daughter 2 and 3. I did A LOT of research into this in the early days and yes, apparently we are supposed to stick to our native languages when speaking to the children. Evan when my first daughter learnt her first words, she did so in 'pairs' one word for english the other for polish. It is an old wives tale that children brought up in this way have a delay in language development, there is no data to support this ANYWHERE - it is just somethin that people say to each other and so it has become an urban myth.
The laguage of the mother is stronger and so the languages are equal in the child's brain if they a brought up in the fathers coutry. Tv is also a huge influence on which language they prefer and so this that of the playground. In any case, the thing to avoid is a single person speaking more than one lnaguage to any child as they will confuse the two. If you stick to each parent speaking a difefrent langauge you can ask questiosn like ' what does mummy call this' and when tghey are about 3 or 4 you should be able to ask them for words in each language and remind them which language to use for each set of grandparents. The worst thing is see is aan international couple in which the parents oinly ever speak to their ther children, as being brought up bilibngual has to be one of the best gifts you can give your kids - and if they only wpeak on the parent's language they will never prperly get to know around half their family! Good luck it s agreat journey
I am a Brit and I have a Polish wife and 2 daughter 2 and 3. I did A LOT of research into this in the early days and yes, apparently we are supposed to stick to our native languages when speaking to the children. Evan when my first daughter learnt her first words, she did so in 'pairs' one word for english the other for polish. It is an old wives tale that children brought up in this way have a delay in language development, there is no data to support this ANYWHERE - it is just somethin that people say to each other and so it has become an urban myth.
The laguage of the mother is stronger and so the languages are equal in the child's brain if they a brought up in the fathers coutry. Tv is also a huge influence on which language they prefer and so this that of the playground. In any case, the thing to avoid is a single person speaking more than one lnaguage to any child as they will confuse the two. If you stick to each parent speaking a difefrent langauge you can ask questiosn like ' what does mummy call this' and when tghey are about 3 or 4 you should be able to ask them for words in each language and remind them which language to use for each set of grandparents. The worst thing is see is aan international couple in which the parents oinly ever speak to their ther children, as being brought up bilibngual has to be one of the best gifts you can give your kids - and if they only wpeak on the parent's language they will never prperly get to know around half their family! Good luck it s agreat journey