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Question about multi-lingual child-rearing
Thread poster: Chris Lovelace
Denise Phelps
Denise Phelps  Identity Verified
Local time: 14:50
Spanish to English
+ ...
Insist Feb 20, 2012

My only English friend here in Spain who has managed to raise her kids to be truly bilingual insisted that they talked to her in English. As well as formal classes, she never pretended she couldn't understand Spanish (pointless, since it was the language she used with her husband), she just told them clearly that she would never do what they asked or answer them unless they spoke to her in English. It sounds hard, but they're completely confident in English now (12 and 18), they even have thei... See more
My only English friend here in Spain who has managed to raise her kids to be truly bilingual insisted that they talked to her in English. As well as formal classes, she never pretended she couldn't understand Spanish (pointless, since it was the language she used with her husband), she just told them clearly that she would never do what they asked or answer them unless they spoke to her in English. It sounds hard, but they're completely confident in English now (12 and 18), they even have their mother's regional accent! Obviously, there were rewards for speaking English apart from having their mother pay attention to them - English time, when she would take them places or do things with them that they wanted, as long as they spoke in English, for example.
My other friends in the same position kind of hoped that it would all work through osmosis; they always spoke in English but never insisted that the children spoke it themselves, and now their children understand everything, but struggle to express themselves and know enough about the language to be embarrassed about and inhibited by their own relatively poor command.
Seeing that you speak Russian with people other than her has obviously encouraged her too, so yes, carry on skyping!
Good luck. ▲ Collapse
 
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Question about multi-lingual child-rearing






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