When your child speaks a language you don’t

My wife is a native French speaker, and she's always spoken French to the kids. Unlike the author of this story, I've never really felt like I was getting left behind.

Before the kids were born, I spent a while studying an Assimil course (a fine course, from a French publisher, for people who like to learn mostly through osmosis with some notes). Afterwards, I plowed my way through 450 pages of a French non-fiction book, understanding maybe 75%. So when my wife started speaking French to the kids, I could kinda-sorta follow.

Several years later, I decided to improve my French. I forced myself to speak it as much as possible, and I read another 10,000 pages (about 40 novels' worth). I also bought DVD box sets of easy series and watched them straight through. Happily, my brain decided, "Oh, so it's French or nothing. Better learn some French, then."

Today I watch French TV and read French novels without much trouble. I can converse with French preschoolers, but adult conversation is a bit tricker—my spoken vocabulary is more like that of a bookish 9-year-old than that of an educated adult. On a good day, this doesn't slow me down much. I could probably work as a programmer in French, but I'd have trouble negotiating a consulting deal without more immersion.

Ironically, I currently speak French better than my kids do, because I get more exposure. Given the right environment, the brain seems to adapt.

If you want to read up more on this, look up third culture kids. The wikipedia page is a good start.

I'd agree with you. The last few lines add a completely new agent and change the meaning of the poem.

Unfortunately languages other than English are not pushed very hard in American (public) education. It's really quite sad compared to the rest of the world. My first exposure to another language in school was 8th grade, which was the choice of an elective Spanish or French class. To prevent having to take a class at the college level, the minimum requirement (if i remember correctly) was only 2 years of a foreign language in high school.

I'm probably biased, or maybe it's because i went to a smaller school system (graduating class of only 120), but there's not nearly enough available with regards to programming, statistics, finance (you should learn how to at least do your taxes while in high school), language development (foreign and speech), and writing (we really only learn boiler plate stuff). Instead we get more 'teaching the test' so schools can keep what little funding they have.

Reminds me a story a friend and former coworker told me. She's of Cambodian descent, and whenever she has to talk to her mom, her mom can only understand her English if she affects this incredibly thick Cambodian accent.

I always found that interesting, having to put on a fake accent so people can understand you.