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Two years of raising a bilingual daughter

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Re: Two years of raising a bilingual daughter

#81

Post by prismatix »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #72

It's good to also talk about failures, so let me tell a failure story. I intended to do this the other way round: I'm a native Spanish speaker with good command of English (officially CEFR C2 level which is the highest recognized in Europe) and I intended to always speak to my son in English so that he could be bilingual (or trilingual, as we also have an additional regional language here). It was an utter failure. S…

Thanks for sharing your perspective! I was in a similar boat with wanting to speak in the desired language, but also not being close with my child. Now, I just read books in other languages and say phrases to them occasionally to prime their brain to the sounds and ease learning in the future (if they do choose).

In college I remember hearing many stories from bilingual children whose parents spoke exclusively one language at home while the child spoke English at school, etc. Anecdotally, I recall many of these people saying they were less likely to open up to their parents (or, parent, if it was only one exclusively speaking the language). Many cited it was because they didn't feel as comfortable in the second language but didn't bother to even try because they knew their parents wouldn't budge on speaking English.

OP, YMMV and your daughter is only 2 so I'm sure it's fine for now, but it's also important to consider that as she grows into a teenager she may come to resent Spanish. As that happens you might want to allow her to ease off and speak to you in whatever she feels most comfortable with, for the sake of your own relationship. And remember: no matter what the outcome, you're already doing amazing work by preparing her brain to explore languages on her own in the future!

Re: Two years of raising a bilingual daughter

#82

Post by Gud »

CogitoCogito wrote: post #64
Gud wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks a lot for this info. I will be in a similar situation down the road. I speak Swedish, my girlfriend speaks an Indian minority language and we live in Switzerland. I was always worried if the kid would be able to manage 4 languages. This gives me hope

> I was always worried if the kid would be able to manage 4 languages. This gives me hope What makes you worry exactly? I mean in the case your child can't really manage 4 languages, is that a problem?

I would wish me and my girlfriends kids can speak our native languages.

Re: Two years of raising a bilingual daughter

#83

Post by laurencerowe »

rcarr wrote: post #50
m00x wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could just jump on a train for 35 euros and be in France in a few hours, and a bit more to go to Germany/Spain. Imagine being in Canada/US where you don't have any other language outside of a 6h plane ride.

> You could just jump on a train for 35 euros and be in France in a few hours So first off, you're assuming that they live in London, as that is the only place with a direct train link to France. Second, the Eurostar website has ticket prices "from £39" which equates to €45. But that's the "from" price. Looking at all availability up to the end of October, there is one day where you can get a £63 ticket, another day…

Living in London is horribly expensive, but being so close, European travel from the UK is often similar in price to travel within the UK. As well as Eurostar there are many cheap flights and both can be similar to the costs of train travel within the UK.

Brexit has sunk the pound so the costs of holidays abroad will be relatively more expensive now, but as kids we often took summer holidays in France because it cost less than going somewhere in the UK.

Re: Two years of raising a bilingual daughter

#84

Post by laurencerowe »

dopidopHN wrote: post #55
sho_hn wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I call this the "I don't understand why Europeans don't go for lunch in Paris" puzzlement. I've had variations of this conversation with many American friends over the years ... :)

I’m French but lives in the US since a while. Distances just hit differently on their side of the Atlantic. It’s considerably less tiresome and costly to cover long distance in cars. I noticed that a 500km ride in France is very long distance. A once in a summer thing. While a 350miles trajectory in the us is something I can do with less friction.

This is a big factor, but living in the US I do miss the cheap flights that made weekend city breaks within Europe cheap and easy. From San Francisco it seems like the only place you can get a similarly cheap flight to is Las Vegas and I've never understood the attraction of gambling...

Re: Two years of raising a bilingual daughter

#85

Post by infinitezest »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #72

It's good to also talk about failures, so let me tell a failure story. I intended to do this the other way round: I'm a native Spanish speaker with good command of English (officially CEFR C2 level which is the highest recognized in Europe) and I intended to always speak to my son in English so that he could be bilingual (or trilingual, as we also have an additional regional language here). It was an utter failure. S…

This is a totally aside but as someone attempting to learn Spanish as an adult I was curious about the translation from "castellano" to "spanish" (rather than using "espanol"). I had assumed that it referred to the Catalan language but based on some searches it sounds like maybe it _can_ refer to a particular dialect of Spanish but can also just refer to the Spanish language in general. Do i have that right? Language is fascinating!

Re: Two years of raising a bilingual daughter

#86

Post by evertedsphere »

infinitezest wrote: post #85
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #72

It's good to also talk about failures, so let me tell a failure story. I intended to do this the other way round: I'm a native Spanish speaker with good command of English (officially CEFR C2 level which is the highest recognized in Europe) and I intended to always speak to my son in English so that he could be bilingual (or trilingual, as we also have an additional regional language here). It was an utter failure. S…

This is a totally aside but as someone attempting to learn Spanish as an adult I was curious about the translation from "castellano" to "spanish" (rather than using "espanol"). I had assumed that it referred to the Catalan language but based on some searches it sounds like maybe it _can_ refer to a particular dialect of Spanish but can also just refer to the Spanish language in general. Do i have that right? Language…

castellano (etymologically) is the equivalent of the English word Castilian, which can refer to the variety of Spanish spoken in central / northern Spain. Catalan is a distinct Romance language.

As for the use of castellano for Spanish-in-general see e.g. https://spanish.stackexchange.com/questions/913/is-there-a-d...

Re: Two years of raising a bilingual daughter

#87

Post by ascar »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #72

It's good to also talk about failures, so let me tell a failure story. I intended to do this the other way round: I'm a native Spanish speaker with good command of English (officially CEFR C2 level which is the highest recognized in Europe) and I intended to always speak to my son in English so that he could be bilingual (or trilingual, as we also have an additional regional language here). It was an utter failure. S…

I'm curious where you are living while trying this and what language you speak with your spouse.

I'm German and have a foreign spouse living in Germany. I speak English with my spouse, work mostly in English and spend most of my free time using English. For neither of us English is the native language though.

I guess it's a dramatically different experience if you try to teach your child a language that's not used in the household and not used in the country. E.g. me speaking German with my child in Germany, while we use English as the common language, should be a lot easier than my spouse trying to teach a language to our child that's not spoken in the country.

This is all theoretical for me as kids are still a few years away, but a question I have been wondering about in a long time.

Re: Two years of raising a bilingual daughter

#88

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

infinitezest wrote: post #85
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #72

It's good to also talk about failures, so let me tell a failure story. I intended to do this the other way round: I'm a native Spanish speaker with good command of English (officially CEFR C2 level which is the highest recognized in Europe) and I intended to always speak to my son in English so that he could be bilingual (or trilingual, as we also have an additional regional language here). It was an utter failure. S…

This is a totally aside but as someone attempting to learn Spanish as an adult I was curious about the translation from "castellano" to "spanish" (rather than using "espanol"). I had assumed that it referred to the Catalan language but based on some searches it sounds like maybe it _can_ refer to a particular dialect of Spanish but can also just refer to the Spanish language in general. Do i have that right? Language…

Originally it meant the specific dialect of Castilla, a region of Spain, but nowadays the term is used to refer to the Spanish language in general. Unless you are talking about history, "castellano" and "español" are synonyms and people understand them interchangeably and use one or the other depending on where they are from. Here is a map:

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Español_de_América#/media/Arch...

I am from Galicia, that red corner in northwestern Spain, so "castellano" is the most common term here.

The division within Spain makes sense, by the way: regions that have strong official regional languages say "castellano", because of course Galician, Catalan, etc. are also Spanish languages. So when you speak two languages, both with their origin in Spain, it makes less sense to call one of them español (Spanish). Note however that this doesn't mean that choosing to say one or the other is a political statement at all (or at least, the overwhelming majority of people wouldn't consider it so), things just evolved that way.

As to why some Latin American countries ended up saying "español" and others "castellano", I have no idea, to be honest.

Re: Two years of raising a bilingual daughter

#89

Post by zwieback »

dopidopHN wrote: post #56
zwieback wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think part of it is that so many people around the world speak English so if English is your first language it's easier to get around.

But you get the English treatment. While being polite, lots of people will think of you as a retarded child. If you travel to Mexico for instance, the difference is staggering between someone with a command of Spanish and someone that speaks English only.

Now you're making Mexicans sound like dicks, I don't want to believe that is true.

Re: Two years of raising a bilingual daughter

#90

Post by zwieback »

herewulf wrote: post #62
zwieback wrote: post #15

This is great, hopefully OP can keep it up. I spoke only my native German to our first daughter and it went great but when the second one came around she wanted to have nothing to do with it. "Stop speaking Spanish!" was her reply (all foreign languages were spanish in her estimation) so I slacked off. Even with my older one I stopped the German when she was a bit older because I didn't want to be the only one having…

I advise you not to give up. It's never too late to learn a language (further). I have two elementary aged kids who are German/English bilingual and have always lived in an English speaking country. What has worked for us: - I always speak to them in German -- I'm not the stay at home parent so every word counts - Media in German (their favorite shows of their choosing -- it's too easy with Netflix and YouTube these…

That's great, keep it up. Mine took German through high school and the oder one got a minor in German in college. The younger is still not that interested in German but they both have both citizenships, hopefully will take advantage later on.
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