[shared by Feisty Tapas]
Raising bilingual children, it seems quite a hot topic as more and more people move around the world, sometimes across the world. Yes, there are a whole lot of books and theories (all of which I have avoided) to give your children the best start with more than one language, but what about how it actually feels to be a bilingual parent to a bilingual child? More importantly, how can you cope as a bilingual parent?
The thing is that I know from university, don’t forget I am a translator, that so-called bilingual children can start talking later than monolingual children but that they are taking everything in as sponges and that one day it will all fall into place. I also know that in a few years time she may start rejecting my language so not to feel different from her peers and that I will have to stand my ground, however hard. But it is hard already.
Then there is the part that, despite her very first words being Spanish, like agua(water), she is now saying a whole lot of words and sentences in English, much more than Spanish. I also know that a whole lot of this is mainly due to the fact that we are in England and the fact that it is much easier to say shoe than zapato, sock thancalcetín. I studied this at university, I knew this over a decade before even having a child. I was fully aware of it, still it hurts when my parents go on about it: ay inglesita que no te entiendo (yes, her Spanish grandma may not understand her, for goodness sake I don’t understand her sometimes, she still is very chatty in her own language that she makes up). The really is no need to rub it in.
Or the taxi driver who insists I must talk English to her because she will be going to school in England and needs to understand English. So the fact that I am a highly cultivated person, my husband is English and she understands both are all to be ignored then?
But the worst part of being a bilingual parent has been trying my best to speak Spanish to her at all times and still have her reply in English every time. It is really demoralising, and in my mind I know ahead of time that one day another kid will mention the fact that her mother speaks differently because I do have a Spanish accent.
I could go on and on about this topic for paragraphs and paragraphs but I shall stop there. I just needed to get it off my chest and let it flow into words. It helps, even if they are words written in my “other” language.
Thank you all for reading.
Update: Guys, please I am not after we do this and that and it works or I know so and so who does this and that and it works for them. As I said at the beginning of the post, this is not about raising bilingual children, this is about how it feels to be a bilingual parent. Not just that but a highly educated translator and linguist who actually knows all about the process as she had to study it (and don’t forget my husband is English and doesn’t speak much Spanish). In my household mine is the minority language. I also know that I will want my child to read, write and understand the Spanish culture, in fact I want her to have the two cultures. I have met plenty of people in my life who can speak both their parents’ languages but who can’t write or read them. There are a million depths to this but this is about me as a parent, not about a solution.
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Great post… we all do things differently and you should do what works for you and your family!
My children speak Welsh and English, we all speak English, I learn Welsh and speak “un poco de Español” and my husband is learning Spanish (and is dyslexic)… so you can imagine what it’s like in our house sometimes! Put it this way, it’s never quiet!
Good luck and keep going! xx
I share the pain with Maria. It’s very hard. I’m struggling as well, but the language is Russian, which has a difficult grammar, pronunciation and words are longer (English in comparison is so much easier). I recently published a post on this matter on my blog. Would love to hear from other mum on how they are coping.
http://letsgocrabbingmum.com/2012/10/04/dilemmas-of-raising-a-bilingual-child/
I felt so much relief when I read your post. I am a highly educated linguist too, with a degree in languages and a Master’s in literature and culture. I am Romanian, married to a Greek and raising an Irish daughter
. Yes, she speaks and understands mainly English. I had the same dilemmas as you as I think it’s rude speaking to your kid in a language other parents don’t understand. My mum can’t communicate with my daughter if I’m not in the same room which distresses them both. Yet, I have found no solution to having my daughter tri-lingual successfully and we’ll stick to English.
This post could have been written by me a few years ago, if you substituted Spanish for English and England for France.
I am English, my husband is French, I lived in France for 12 years, our daughter was born in France, I have a modern languages degree in French and Spanish and have taught English and French as foreign languages. None of my family speaks French and none of my in-laws speak English.
I was desperate for L to learn English as well as French and it was so hard, in particular because she was looked after by a French (and non-English speaking) childminder 4 days a week from 3 months old. It would pain me so much when the only words she came out with were French ones, although I could see she understood me.
I knew that bilingual kids take longer to talk than monolingual ones, but it was still hard when you’re being judged by other parents/adults in general.
I hated the glares that I got when I was out with L in public and speaking to her in English (in France). I felt that I had to justify everything I did with her to strangers, to my in-laws (who saw no need to push English), to French friends…
However I have the last laugh now – L is nearly 6 years old, is perfectly bilingual and is learning to read and write in English but also – to a lesser extent for now – in French. I am so glad I persevered and developed this thick skin and I’m sure she’ll thank me when she’s older.
If anyone is looking for tips, this is what worked for me:
I only spoke to her in English, even if we were with French friends and having a French conversation, if I was speaking directly to her then it was only in English.
As she got a bit older (around 3) and was able to talk back, when she replied to me in French I would say to her “I don’t understand you” and when she said “but you understand French” (in French) I would say to her “I don’t understand YOU when you speak to me in French, so you need to speak to me in English”. Fortunately her reasoning was too basic to see through this.
Now she is older and everything has been turned on its head as we are now living in the UK, so English has become the dominant language over French. In order to maintain her French we only speak French as a family at home, and when she speaks in English we don’t answer her.
One last thing that motivates her is having friends her age who only speak the weaker language (cousins, holiday friends etc), so she knows she has to work on that language to have fun with them.
Sorry, I don’t mean to go on, but this is something that is very close to my heart! My only issue now is I am due with baby number 2 and our aim is to get the two children speaking French together (the weaker language), but that is going to be one hell of a hurdle….
Good luck and don’t give up – I know so many bilingual parents that have done and then it’s too late to go back.