She isn't even talking yet, and we've already resigned ourselves to the fact that it's unlikely she'll know three or four languages. No matter how many languages we speak, we don't speak the same ones (and only speak to each other in English), and neither of us is home during the day, speaking to her. The best we can hope for is that she picks up Mandarin from the nanny.
Kudos to all of you who are fighting the good fight. LOL.
The mandarin speaking nanny will definitely help. Growing up my father only spoke to us in Spanish and my mother (also fluent in Spanish) only spoke to us in English. They both worked during the day but we had Spanish speaking nannies.
Another vote for one parent, one language. As previous folks have said, they'll pick up English easily enough through the media, friends, school and (possibly) listening to you and your DH communicate.
One tip from what I've seen with other families: Please don't get frustrated if one of your kids doesn't reply to you in the language you want. They'll come around eventually. I just refuse to answer ("I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're saying.")
She isn't even talking yet, and we've already resigned ourselves to the fact that it's unlikely she'll know three or four languages. No matter how many languages we speak, we don't speak the same ones (and only speak to each other in English), and neither of us is home during the day, speaking to her. The best we can hope for is that she picks up Mandarin from the nanny.
Kudos to all of you who are fighting the good fight. LOL.
The mandarin speaking nanny will definitely help. Growing up my father only spoke to us in Spanish and my mother (also fluent in Spanish) only spoke to us in English. They both worked during the day but we had Spanish speaking nannies.
I sure hope so! My mom, stepdad, and father also speak to her in Mandarin.
My husband's Mandarin is not as good as mine, but his Taiwanese is better than mine. And his family speaks Taiwanese more often.
And then we also speak Spanish but not good enough to count as really speaking it, but we do well enough when traveling. Eh, she'll learn that in school, too.
I am just crossing fingers for the Mandarin. That will be winning alone.
Don't you have an older DD? Does she speak more than one language?
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Yep and feeling like the ship sailed with her but she knows some spanish and arabic. Her understanding of spanish is better. She's still just 11 so she can still learn it just might not be as easy.
She isn't even talking yet, and we've already resigned ourselves to the fact that it's unlikely she'll know three or four languages. No matter how many languages we speak, we don't speak the same ones (and only speak to each other in English), and neither of us is home during the day, speaking to her. The best we can hope for is that she picks up Mandarin from the nanny.
Kudos to all of you who are fighting the good fight. LOL.
I've known a few working parent couples that did the one parent, one language thing with separate languages and it still worked out well!
Post by rupertpenny on Aug 26, 2014 19:46:28 GMT -5
Does anyone have kids learning a language neither parent speaks?
I want B to learn Cantonese, but I have no idea if there is anything I can do to facilitate it before she starts pre-school. I am starting lessons next month though,so maybe we can learn it together, haha.
Zomg people! She asked for advice from people who speak 3 languages. I do. This is how I keep things straight in my head. I associate words in the various languages with colors so that I don't mix up my vocabulary from various romance languages or whatever. I said I don't have kids. I never claimed to be a kid expert. This is just my personal experience of how to keep various languages straight without mixing up my vocabulary. Color coding helps. It has nothing to do with hats.
That's very interesting. I know a lot of people that speak 3+ languages and they never mentioned associating colors to them. Did you learn all 3 as a baby/child?
Another vote for one parent, one language. As previous folks have said, they'll pick up English easily enough through the media, friends, school and (possibly) listening to you and your DH communicate.
One tip from what I've seen with other families: Please don't get frustrated if one of your kids doesn't reply to you in the language you want. They'll come around eventually. I just refuse to answer ("I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're saying.")
This doesn't work with all kids. My parents tried that, but I knew they understood English and at some point they would give up.
Yes, my parents tried the same, but I'd always reply in English. My listening comprehension of their language is excellent though; I could always follow all the gossip the adults didn't want us kids to know about.