- Your Questions -- General

- Your Questions -- General http://forums.multilingualchildren.org - Your Questions -- General 60 Tue, 07 Sep 2010 03:14:17 GMT how do i go on with my daughter when she doesn't want to speak english http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/post?id=4864601 i live in germany with my six year old daughter and her german dad. he speaks only german to her, i speak only english accept when addressing her and her friends - then i speak german. initially her first language was english but since being here it has swopped to german, which is an obvious development. when we first lived here i spoke no german and my daughter who was three at the time was mixing up her languages in each sentence which i thought was normal. as time went on the german content of every sentence increased, with less and less use of english until i finally noticed that my daughter wasn't really speaking much english to me anymore. which i found really disturbing as it felt like she wasn't my kid anymore. sounds silly but that was how it was. i also had problems understanding her. so i started to insist she speak english with me. whenever she said something in german i would say 'sorry?' until she said it in english. when i guessed what she wanted to say but could see she couldn't formulate it i would say it in english. the problem is that now she knows i speak german and often i have to say 'sorry?' so often - sometimes she says every sentence in german unless i remind her every five minutes to speak english - it is driving me mad. i would never stop speaking english to my daughter. that's not the topic. but i want her to have more than a passive knowledge of the language - my parents don't speak german but we don't have so much phone contact. i'm beginning to think i should just let her speak german to me. part of me feels this is better for us - we are having a lot of fights about english - but part of me knows that if given the choice she will stop speaking english and will then really struggle when we're in ireland. i know everyone says pressure is bad but all my friends bringing up bilingual kids who don't use pressure say the same - their kid talks to them in german. help! playgroups here don't work - the kids speak german to each other even when they're english or irish. <p>Forum: <a href="http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/?forum=29058">Your Questions -- General</a> http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/post?id=4864601 Sat, 28 Aug 2010 22:37:53 GMT bernice Bilingual problems http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/post?id=4862595 I am not married to the father of my child.<br>He is Afrikaans speaking and I am English. Our daughter is now almost 22 months and doesn't yet say simple sentences. I've been trying really hard the past month to focus on her speech. I've bought basic books and she will point to a picture and I will say the word. She is slowly picking up the words and I'm terribly proud of her. The problem is that my boyfriend is fighting with me constantly saying that I'm selfish because I don't also speak Afrikaans to her. I'm not sure of where our relationship is going and would much rather send her to an English school as it would make it easier for me. I won't keep her away from Afrikaans. My dad is Afrikaans and I can speak it well. But the way my boyfriend is carrying on, he wants me to speak Afrikaans and he isn't happy that I enrolled her in Top Tots which is an English speaking class... the class has done her well and she has picked up and learned so much. He just won't stop fighting.<br>What can you suggest!? I'm tired of fighting and I just want the best for my daughter.<br><br> <p>Forum: <a href="http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/?forum=29058">Your Questions -- General</a> http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/post?id=4862595 Fri, 27 Aug 2010 12:58:07 GMT Mignonne fourth language? http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/post?id=4839231 Hi -- We have a 4.5 year old son who is trilingual.  I speak to him in German exclusively, my husband speaks to him in Spanish exclusively and we live in the US.  I am thrilled with how well he is doing, as I did have some concern that we were overloading him when we were just starting out.  We now have an opportunity to send him to chinese classes after school.  I am not sure how many days a week but I think at least 3 days a week for 90 minutes each time.   I worry that this might be too much for him, and end up doing more harm than good. I am not sure when he would begin, but it might not be til next year when he is almost 6.  Any thoughts?  Neither my husband nor I speak and Chinese, so we would not really be able to reinforce it.  Thanks, Jessica<br> <p>Forum: <a href="http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/?forum=29058">Your Questions -- General</a> http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/post?id=4839231 Tue, 10 Aug 2010 22:58:13 GMT jessica English, Korean, Russian, and a Baby http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/post?id=4787355 Hello there.  I am due to have a baby in 8 weeks.  My husband and I live in Los Angeles, California.  I am Korean-American and my husband is Russian.  I speak English and Korean fluently, while my husband speaks English with an accent, and Russian fluently.  We have a dog who we trained in Russian.  The reason I mention this is because I have noticed, when I am not giving her commands in Russian, I am having a conversation with her in Korean.  With babies, I tend to express myself in Korean too, perhaps because it is my first language.  I am most fluent in English but find myself thinking in Korean quite frequently. Despite being born and raised in America, I still feel a strong connection with my native roots.  My husband, on the other hand, came to the states when he was 17 years old.  He thinks in Russian most of the time and in English some of the time.  I want my baby to learn all 3 languages together.  We are thinking to use this strategy:  I will speak to her in Korean and English only, while my husband will speak to her in Russian and English only.  I have been picking up Russian for the past 3 years.  I can understand some of it and say basic things, but I still need more practice. I am hoping to learn together with my daughter as she grows up. Can anyone comment on this?  I want to know if this would be the best way to incorporate our three cultures...THANKS!   <p>Forum: <a href="http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/?forum=29058">Your Questions -- General</a> http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/post?id=4787355 Mon, 05 Jul 2010 03:02:23 GMT Joan Makarova I need parents' help for my project. http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/post?id=4786815 Hello,<div>I'm a university student from Japan and doing Graduation Project about bilingual child rearing.<div><br></div><div>Currently I'm making a questionnaire and want some parents (who are doing bilingual child rearing) to fill out it.</div><div><br></div><div>Please tell me if you can help and then I will send you one, or I'll post the questions to this thread.</div></div><div><br></div><div>Thank you.</div> <p>Forum: <a href="http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/?forum=29058">Your Questions -- General</a> http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/post?id=4786815 Sun, 04 Jul 2010 15:17:22 GMT Eriko Rainbow Cultural Gardens http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/post?id=4775393 Hi<br><br>I was just wondering if anyone had any involvement with the Rainbow Cultural Gardens project, or knew anything about their multi-lingual kids program?<br><br>Thanks<br><br>Laura<br> <p>Forum: <a href="http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/?forum=29058">Your Questions -- General</a> http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/post?id=4775393 Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:24:06 GMT Laura Matthews Kick my butt - latish start... http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/post?id=4768442 Hi I'm Swedish raising my two children, 2 1/2 and 15 months, in Australia with an Australian husband. <br><br>For various dumb reasons I did not start speaking Swedish to my daughter from birth -  and of course the longer you leave it the harder it becomes. My main hurdle is the fact that I've not actually lived in Sweden myself for 12 years and now days I think / dream / talk in English so I have to make a conscious effort to stick to it.<br><br>On the plus side my daughter has at least been exposed to the sound of Swedish from an early age: weekly Swedish mothers group and meeting Swedish friends, phoning my mum in Swedish, visiting there and listening to Swedish music.<br><br>I really want to start now... just hoping to hear from anyone who started around this age and how it went? Just need a kick up my back really to just do it!<br><br> <p>Forum: <a href="http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/?forum=29058">Your Questions -- General</a> http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/post?id=4768442 Sun, 20 Jun 2010 07:32:46 GMT swedishchick OPOL: One of the parents doesn't understand the other language http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/post?id=4757042 We are planning use the OPOL method at home. We live in Spain (Barcelona), my wife is Spanish and I'm from Holland. <br>I plan to talk Dutch to my child and my wife in catalan (and Spanish will be the language at school). <br><br>The problem is that my wife doesn't understand Dutch. <br><br>We went to see a child psychologist and she said that my wife would learn Dutch (along with the child) without any problem. However we have our doubts... <br><br>Will this be that easy for her? Will we be able to have a fluent communication at home? Someone had a similar experience, how did this work out?<br><br>Txs!  <br> <p>Forum: <a href="http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/?forum=29058">Your Questions -- General</a> http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/post?id=4757042 Fri, 11 Jun 2010 11:41:54 GMT Radboud References about the FAQ topic - critical period http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/post?id=4751732 Hi, my question is for the moderator (i think) I was reading about the FAQ the one about critical period to learn languages. There are many interesting facts in the answer, so I wonder if I could get a link and/or reference about the ages and language acquisition. I would like to do more in deep reading aobut this. <br>Main reason my D (5 yr old) is trilingual so far and she'll start her 4 language when she starts kindergarden. She'll attend an immersion school. So I wonder how to make a successfull acquisition of her 4 language. Thank you!<br> <p>Forum: <a href="http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/?forum=29058">Your Questions -- General</a> http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/post?id=4751732 Mon, 07 Jun 2010 19:57:11 GMT Angie Help choosing a method to fit my family http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/post?id=4736977 <br>I live in the U.S, and while my native language is English, I grew up in Guatemala/Chile/Uruguay and am bilingual in Spanish.  My husband lived in Argentina for 2 years and minored in Spanish in College.  He speaks Spanish, but would not be considered bilingual.<br><br>We are pregnant with our first and trying to choose the best method for teaching him/her both languages.  Originally we considered doing the OPOL method with myself speaking Spanish to our children and my husband speaking English (he does not feel he is strong enough in Spanish be the predominate Spanish parent).  My concern is that my husband is a pilot in the military and travels quite and bit, and is deployed for months at a time.  I worry that if he is the "English" parent, our children will grow up lacking in the language due to his absence and fall behind. It is important to me for our children to grow up strong in both languages.  Unfortunately, we don't live close to family to help supplement in either language.<br><br>I am obviously completely new at this. Do you have any suggestions?  Is it possible for one parent to do both languages adequately alone and have the second parent supplement when he/she is around?  How do single parents do it?<br><br>thanks in advance!<br><br> <p>Forum: <a href="http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/?forum=29058">Your Questions -- General</a> http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/post?id=4736977 Fri, 28 May 2010 03:39:32 GMT Rebekah Which bilingual method, given my husband's personality? http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/post?id=4733721 My husband (American) and I (Eastern European), living in the US, are raising bilingual children: a boy, 4 1/2 and a girl, 2. <br><br>So far we have always used the OPOL method which seems to have worked fine for our son. At least so far. He was never behind in terms of speaking in either language, he has a good vocabulary in both and everything seems to be going well. <br><br>Despite the fact that he has heard mostly my native tongue throughout the day, either from me or from my family - my son still picked up English quite well. Sometimes I wonder how he even managed to do this since my husband is a major NON-TALKER. <br>As a matter of fact, me trying to squeeze words out of his mouth and make him get lost in a sustainable conversation, is the only major thorn in our marriage. Well...with pushing and prodding and trying to make my husband aware that his limited conversations can affect our son's English language negatively - he tried to do better and it seemed to have worked OK for a while. <br>My son is now in preschool and gets his English from there too. <br><br>The trouble begins with me daughter. She clearly does not seem to have our son's verbal inclinations and I think that my husband has gotten even less talkative over the past few years (ask me how much this is driving me up the walls). She is now 2 and speaks my native tongue OK (putting together sentences though she messes up words, be it in a very adorable way). With English though, as you might expect, she is almost zero. She hears her dad a little bit in the evenings, when he comes home from work, but granted his very few sentences and overall lack of verbosity, her English is obviously much worse than that of other American children her age.<br><br>I am starting to get really frustrated and I am thinking to simply change the method. Instead of continuing to push my husband to be more verbose (which he argues is extremely difficult for him) I would rather do the speaking in both myself.<br><br>I hate to see her so behind in English compared to her age peers in the US - so I have been considering switching to a method where I say things in my language and then repeat it right away in English. <br><br>I have not heard this method to be widely used and I don't think it gives the best results either, but rather than leaving this little girl's speaking up to her introverted, non-talkative daddy, I'd rather give up the OPOL method, because one of the P-s is hardly capable to speak his very own. <br><br>My husband's lack of verbosity does not come from a lack of education - he has two graduate degrees (granted, not in a field involving lots of words, but rather numbers), and he does have a very good vocabulary, often using words that I have to ask him about. <br>The trouble is he is not expressing language frequently and consistently, not "taking it out". <br>He says he just isn't much of a conversationalist and that it does not come naturally to him to add a lot of detail and context, etc in conversations.             <br><br>Question : what would you do to prevent this little girl from falling so behind with her English.<br><br>PS: Yes, we do reading every evening - we take turns putting each one to bed and I am thinking that this is where my son got his English from: his father verbalizing it with the aid of books. Unfortunately, my daughter seems to be more antsy and she does not seem to have the keen interest and long attention span that my son has always had with books. She loses interest quicker which by nature, reduced the words being read. Thanks again.   <br><br> <p>Forum: <a href="http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/?forum=29058">Your Questions -- General</a> http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/post?id=4733721 Wed, 26 May 2010 03:13:18 GMT Adele sign language http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/post?id=4694225 Hi. I live in Canada. My boyfriend and I only speak English (I'm working on German, and later on want to learn Esperanto). We don't have kids yet.<br><br>When I have a child, I'm considering having ASL as one of the languages. What I wonder is, how would that fit into the language systems? I certainly wouldn't want to be non-verbal with my child if he/she has perfect hearing. Would it be confusing if I used English and ASL, perhaps signing as I said the same thing?<br><br>I'd also like him/her to learn French, as it's so very useful in this country, but only my dad and my aunts, uncles, and cousins on his side of the family speak French, so I'm not sure the child would see them enough for it to really catch on as a primary language.<br><br>I would do Esperanto, but since I'm not going to start learning it until I'm fairly proficient in German, I may not have time to learn it well before having a child, but we'll see!<br><br>Thanks for any tips!<br><br>~Lianne<br> <p>Forum: <a href="http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/?forum=29058">Your Questions -- General</a> http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/post?id=4694225 Wed, 28 Apr 2010 18:21:48 GMT Lianne Lavoie OPOL - Dutch/Greek/English - 13 months http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/post?id=4688676 I'm Greek married with a Belgian and we live in Belgium. We have a son of 13 months old. For the moment I speak to him Greek and my husband speaks to him Dutch but my husband and I speak to each other in English. My husband worries that in this way, we'll confuse our son and for daily tasks (like having a lunch together) it'll be really difficult (as we'll speak to each other in English and to our son our native language). Should we change the language that we communicate to each other? (I can speak Dutch but with mistakes and my husband has a poor knowledge in Greek). I also wonder if it's ok for my son to hear me speaking Dutch (with my family in law) and English or it'll be confusing for him.<br>Thank you for sharing your knowledge.<br>Vasiliki<br><br><br> <p>Forum: <a href="http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/?forum=29058">Your Questions -- General</a> http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/post?id=4688676 Sat, 24 Apr 2010 21:33:04 GMT Vasiliki Trilingual mother http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/post?id=4668074 Hello,<br /><br>I am going to have a baby in less than a month and I have been trying to figure out what language system to use by browsing the various questions in this site. (unsuccessfully so far!)<br /><br>Here's my situation: I am trilingual English/ Greek/ Italian and live in Italy with my Italian husband with whom we only speak italian.(his english is rather elementary, greek even worse) My family live in Greece and I want to speak Greek to the baby since we will all be spending time in Greece during summers and other holidays. What should I do about the English? I do have a couple of English friends that I occasionally see but the amount of exposure time needed for the child to learn the language is much more than the time I spend with them. I have noticed that most parents agree that the opol system works best so I've been thinking of using means other than myself to take care of the English. Tv, Cds, Computer in english. This however means the child should spend considerable time watching TV something I am totally against. So It occured to me to speak Greek most of the time but only read fairytales and bedtime stories in English. Another idea would be to speak greek at home and english whenever we go out so the baby can associate a language with a place. I have not mentioned italian so far because my husband and the environment we live in will take care of it.<br /><br>Any ideas? Thank you.<br /><br>Katerina <p>Forum: <a href="http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/?forum=29058">Your Questions -- General</a> http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/post?id=4668074 Sat, 10 Apr 2010 17:22:54 GMT Katerina Can an 5-year old really speak 11 languages fluently? http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/post?id=4664320 <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CFabs%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><link rel="themeData" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CFabs%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx"><link rel="colorSchemeMapping" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CFabs%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml"><style>  </style> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 8.5pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; color: rgb(82, 39, 44);">Last week I heard a radio spot for Incredible Edible egg in which an 8-year old "child prodigy" is said to have spoken 11 languages fluently since age 5: </span><span style="font-size: 8.5pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; color: rgb(82, 39, 44);">English</span><span style="font-size: 8.5pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; color: rgb(82, 39, 44);">, Vietnamese, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, French, Japanese, Hindi, Arabic, Russian, Cantonese, and Portuguese. </span><span style="font-size: 8.5pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; color: rgb(82, 39, 44);"><b><a href="http://www.incredibleegg.org/incredible-people/meet-incredible-people/wendy-vo." target="_blank">http://www.incredibleegg.org/incredible-people/meet-incredible-people/wendy-vo.</a></b>  I was intrigued so I watched and listened to her on a YouTube video.  She's a cute little girl who reads English at the beginning of the video and then responds to some basic questions in the various languages, four languages to which I can attest (what is your name? how many brothers and sisters do you have?).  My wife, who is a native Spanish speaker, listened to her Spanish and remarked that the little girl has no accent.  </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 8.5pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; color: rgb(82, 39, 44);"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 8.5pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; color: rgb(82, 39, 44);">On this website, I read that Just as a reference, researchers suggest that a child needs to hear a language 30% of the waking time to learn to speak with ease.   I, for one, would be surprised to find that the little girl could actually carry on a conversation with the fluency and range of vocabulary of a native or near-native speaking 8-year old in each of the 11 languages.  As much as I'd like to believe it, i</span><span style="font-size: 8.5pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; color: rgb(82, 39, 44);">s anyone else out there skeptical about the claim she speaks 11 languages fluently?<br></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 8.5pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; color: rgb(82, 39, 44);"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 8.5pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; color: rgb(82, 39, 44);"></span><font size="3"><span style="font-size: 8.5pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; color: rgb(82, 39, 44);"><span style="">1.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">             </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 8.5pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; color: rgb(82, 39, 44);">USA <br></span></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><font size="3"><span style="font-size: 8.5pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; color: rgb(82, 39, 44);">2.</span><span style="font-size: 8.5pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; color: rgb(82, 39, 44);">       English, Spanish, French, German</span></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><font size="3"><span style="font-size: 8.5pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; color: rgb(82, 39, 44);"> 3.</span><span style="font-size: 8.5pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; color: rgb(82, 39, 44);">       7, 5, 3.5  <br></span></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><font size="3"><span style="font-size: 8.5pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; color: rgb(82, 39, 44);">4.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style=""><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 8.5pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; color: rgb(82, 39, 44);">      OPOL Plus</span></font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 8.5pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; color: rgb(82, 39, 44);"><span style=""></span><br></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 8.5pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; color: rgb(82, 39, 44);"> </span></p> <p>Forum: <a href="http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/?forum=29058">Your Questions -- General</a> http://forums.multilingualchildren.org/post?id=4664320 Thur, 08 Apr 2010 00:00:26 GMT Paul R