A question for those married with kids here...

dwmte7 says on Nov 16, 2007, 05:34:

well in my experience, our youngest, now 14, does get a little rusty on her english...she was born in medellin and we have a home there and have lived there for about 19 years. the reason is i'm the only one she speaks english with. we're here in florida right now as we don't want her studying in colombia. but we speak spanish at home. after 19 years, mom still refuses to speak english. you figure. but as long as you keep up the dialogue in english, they/he/she, wont forget it.

dwmte

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capitan_centella says on Nov 16, 2007, 05:43:

My youngest nephew, she´s 9 right now. . . she´s been living in canada all her life, both parents colombians and she speaks spanish, english and french almost perfect. It´s kind of funny when you see her mon, lecture her in espanish and she talk back in french, then cursing in english. . . jejejejejeje. . .

"When you open your eyes, you turn around with the world, But it can change, if you only close it, and see a dream to yourself." Me.

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john_stark says on Nov 16, 2007, 05:57:

Douglas is right. My stepkids speak perfect English and since their mother doesn't speak English (is there a pattern here?), they continue to speak Spanish with her.

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Lowell says on Nov 16, 2007, 06:37:

Yea, my wife, her son and family have'nt put any time into learning English, my customs, holidays..... I'm more than a bit offended because of it. Her son even received a poor grade in his English studies. In return, they've lost a lot of my respect and my desire to provide for them. Especially her family. Oh sure when it's time for them to receive their assistance it's all smiles. Fuck them! Her son and family are in for a big surprise this Xmas. I refuse to buy them any special presents. I've more than had enough with their BS.

I've a 22 month old daughter. I'm speaking some English to her. I'm unsure as to what age I should increase my English education to her. I don't want her to be confused when she enters school. I would like some feedback on what is considered the proper approach to having a bilingual child in the house. When she's 5 or so I've thought of only speaking English in the evenings after dinner.

??????????????????????????????????? help

Alfred E. Newman. "What. Me Worry?"

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Waterdawg says on Nov 16, 2007, 06:49:

You know Lowell , I read your posts and feel like you are going to have a long road to hoe ! ..

" Yea, my wife, her son and family have'nt put any time into learning English, my customs, holidays..... I'm more than a bit offended because of it."

I have witnessed a lot of that in my years down here.. Some folks are all about learning language / Customs and the like ( enjoy it ) but a whole bunch just will raise a finger ( been through it ) ..

Read article some time ago about the dos and dont's of two language children .. Bottom line was if live in a Spanish culture you need to speak English all the time and reverse if you live in an English culture .. Kids are cool and a whole lot smarter than us grown up folks !

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mranderson says on Nov 16, 2007, 06:54:

In my opinion a baby has a clean slate so how can you confuse them? Or they are just confused with everything to start with. Anyway, speak english from day 1 all the time. Everybody else; her mother, relatives, friends will be speaking spanish to her so don't worry about her not learning spanish. I think it will be more confusing or maybe she will be more reluctant if you wait. Just my opinion.

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kat1 (Moderator) says on Nov 16, 2007, 07:16:

My kids both speak English and Spanish, my daughter took a while to be comfortable with the Spanish Language but she is alright now, everytime we go to Colombia we talk just in Spanish . They both dominate the language very well. I think going to Colombia helped them a lot, they have to make the effort as none of my family there speak English and they have lots of friend around who don't speak English either.

engage brain before opening mouth

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dwmte7 says on Nov 16, 2007, 07:22:

lowell, don't speak anything but english with your daughter. she needs it. it's the only input she'll receive. i've been through the b.s. with language for 19 years. in the beginning it was warfare, but since i don't choose war under my roof, i just learned spanish and let it go. the reality is, you can lead a horse to water, and you know the rest. those who don't choose to learn english are arrogantly foolish. it's a feather/boon for them. don't let it upset you, they lose. my wife suffers when we're stateside because she doesn't handle the idiom. she has no one to blame but herself. what can you say/do. those who conduct themselves foolishly are condemning them self to the life of fools.

dwmte

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bufalo says on Nov 16, 2007, 07:39:

Here as in "where"?

We are in Colombia now, but moving to NYC early next year. We have lived in NYC, Spain and several parts of Colombia since our 4 1/2 YO was born. First 2.5 -3 years I only spoke lSpanish to my daughter (mom as well, she's colombian). After that I only spoke English to her. She has no problem in either language and can read and write in both too (at her level of course).

Why did I speak spanish first then stop you ask? I've seen other bilingual kids that feel goofy speaking to one of the parents in the different language. Say I only spoke English to her, she wouldn't feel ocmfortable speaking to me in Spanish later on. Now she knows that "papá" speaks Spanish, but just not with her, for now. We can comfortably speak Spanish in certain cases, family parties, etc. But other than that, it is English.

When we hit the states it will be English 100%, so mom will get fluent, then once she is in school for a bit and has a lot of English-speaking situations (and mom is 100%), I will return to Spanish so she keeps up with that too. I don't want her to have only Spanish with mom in the future.

Another reason I stopped Spanish is that I didn't want her to learn wrong. I'm a gringo and fluent, but I must make some mistakes and even though people don't say so, I must have a bit of an accent. I didn't want her picking my errors up. Let her learn well and then point out my stuff (and laugh). One of the things that bugs me is the shitty Spanish that is spoken in the states, especially NYC. If she is in school and her classmates speak spanglish, I really don't want her picking that up, it's even on TV. So we'll have to set a better example at home.

"If you don't like it - lump it, take it down the road and dump it." - Archie Bunker played by Carroll O'Connor

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bufalo says on Nov 16, 2007, 07:49:

Forgot to mention, best to teach math and stuff in both languages too. Some skip that alltogether, but later can be a bit of a pain to do smaller everyday number-stuff in another language. I've heard that it should be done in only one, but we haven't. She was up to 20 in both languages since..... about when she was 2 - 2 1/2 with no problem (even a bit in Catalán which is completely gone).
Now she does, math in both with no problems at all, language-wise. But a funny thing is she keeps skipping 13 and 15 in English. No clue why that is. Happened suddenly and just isn't going away.

Just make sure to keep English books for English and Spanish books for Spanish. It seperates things more so they can distinguish between the languages. And DON'T explain to them in one language how to do something in the other.

"If you don't like it - lump it, take it down the road and dump it." - Archie Bunker played by Carroll O'Connor

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Lowell says on Nov 16, 2007, 09:36:

Waterdawg, for over 4 years I've given them their chances. It's clear that it's their loss. Later, when my daughter and I speak in English to each other, they will be lost. I'm looking forward to it.

Kids are super smart. They know who the bad people are. My daughter shuns one of my wifes sisters. A sister who is a selfish, dispespectful jerk. She's also drifting away from her grandma and grandma's house. Bad vibes. She wants to be with me more and more. I don't know how much time is too much time. If that even exists. I'm a first time dad and am learning as I go.

In the am, she moves from her bed to ours, we play and watch some tv. I then prepare her bath, help bathe her and then make breakfast for us. She sits in a highchair next to me and I give her bits of my breakfast to eat. Often, after that we (solo) go for a walk for an hour or so. In the pm, at about 1 she likes to be with me to watch tv and then takes a nap. She goes to sleep faster if I'm near. Late afternoons I spend about an hour with her in front of our house. Then at about 8 pm we're alone again in our bedroom for more fooling around and watching tv. Often her mom is at Grandma's so I put her to bed. So often I'm the first one that she sees in the morning and the last one that she sees at night. I'm a yes kind of dad and her mom is a no kind of mom. If it's not dangerous, damaging to things, I let my baby girl investigate, check out, look at.... anything that she wants. I've preped my self to the times when she does damage something. However, when I do say don't touch, don't go there.... she listens and rerspects my desires. Not equally so with other family members.

One good defense that I've developed is mimicking her bad/wrong behavior, but a bit stronger. Fussy? I can be fussy too. Crying to get her way. I can fake a real good cry. You should see the look on her face. Classic.

In all, I really enjoying being a dad. I never really knew my father and then he died when I was 14. I beleive that it stunted my emotional growth and decission making. I doing the opposite with her. One bummer is her knowledge of the ATM. She has seen me withdraw money. If I say to her I've no money, she says "Papi, vamos mechania". Poor Papi.

Alfred E. Newman. "What. Me Worry?"

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bufalo says on Nov 16, 2007, 09:53:

Great post Lowell. One of the things that bugs me is that I know I'll have way less time for mine when we go back to the states- sucks.

"...and am learning as I go" - same here, like the time I learned NOT to fill the cup of milk all the way to the top. Toddlers have a hard time handing that - DUH!

"If you don't like it - lump it, take it down the road and dump it." - Archie Bunker played by Carroll O'Connor

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Desideria (Moderator) says on Nov 16, 2007, 09:58:

Mine speak English, Swedish and Spanish. We spoke only Spanish to them until they were 5 or 6, then we moved to the States and the kids learned English within a year. Later when we moved to Sweden the kids picked up Swedish.

There are basically two ways of doing it if you want your kids to be bilingual:
The simultaneous method which means one parent/one language, always. Starts at age from birth. Exposure to both languages at home but by different parent. This is the best method IMHO.

The successive method is the one we employed; one language from birth, second language with full immersion when child starts school. In our case, the fact that we also moved to a new language environment made the learning of the second language both faster and more complete.

"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them."-President George W. Bush

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ColombianoGringo says on Nov 16, 2007, 10:02:

My kids speak English and Spanish. They live with their mother who speaks no Spanish. I only see them on my visitation weekends and my parents see them come as well. Even so, they are pretty fluent in Spanish. So it is definitely possible, especially when they are young. Since your daughter is so young her brain is still very adept at learning new languages. After age 6, it supposedly begins to get more difficult to learn new languages. Don't give up. Your daughter will have a huge advantage being truly bilingual.

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Cerealkiller says on Nov 16, 2007, 10:59:

I don't have any children but I am was one of those kids who learned languages simultaneously. I learned to read and write in English Spanish and German at the same time and I don't recall ever feeling confused. IMO if you don't teach kids simultaneously they are going to have a hard time at being fully bilingual. They can be proficient, but if they learn spanish first and then taught English, chances are they will just translate stuff in their heads rather than thinking in the language. I dunno though, I am not an expert.

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives -John Stuart Mill

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bufalo says on Nov 16, 2007, 11:09:

Yup, gotta go with Cerealkiller. Not an expert as well but I'd say simultaneously is best, otherwise they just translate.

But then again, I only became fluent in Spanish at 25 or so and since being out of the US for 5 years, I tend to think mostly in Spanish now.......

OK, I don't know diddly.

"If you don't like it - lump it, take it down the road and dump it." - Archie Bunker played by Carroll O'Connor

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morphus says on Nov 16, 2007, 11:12:

I wonder what CK thinks in?

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ColombianoGringo says on Nov 16, 2007, 11:14:

She probably thinks in all three languages. I got that question a lot as a kid and it seemed like an odd question at the time. The reality for most people that are multi-lingual from childhood is that they think in either language depending on the situation and can switch instantly.

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Lowell says on Nov 16, 2007, 11:15:

Thanks for the tips. I also do a lot of research on the computer.

For the 1st 9 months of her life our daughter slept in the middle our bed. Lites out. She made the transition to her own crib/bed easily. Her crib is our room, so it's still lights out. She's a good all night sleeper. I hear thats a gift. We've never used the crib as a negative or punishment type of place. When she's ready for a regular bed we have a bedroom that we're preparing for her. She's a nut for Winney the Pooh. So her room is all Pooh. Bed headboard and baseboard, lamps, wall paper (top and middle of walls), dolls, backpack, wall hanging, bed spread, sheets and pillow cases, are all Pooh. Later a Pooh TV. Sure hope that she doesn't switch to Barbie.

Alfred E. Newman. "What. Me Worry?"

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Desideria (Moderator) says on Nov 16, 2007, 11:29:

I know that I never translate and I don't believe my kids do either, even if they were already pre-schoolers by the time they learned their second language. Your brain just swithces on to the language you are using. My kids have no traceable accent in their English and only a very, very slight one in Swedish. (My daughter says that people usually think of her as a Swede but from another part of the country,....they don't associate her slight accent with being foreign, but rather dialect).

My son's Spanish is good, but his vocabulary is getting very limited for lack of use. He speaks Spanish very creatively (makes up words when he doesn't have them ;)), my daughter speaks and understands Spanish, but thinks it embarrasing to speak it.

Overall, I believe it's possible to be perfectly bilingual and multilingual with perhaps just a trace of accent even if you didn't learn the languages as an infant, but it's highly individual and needs constant maintenance.

"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them."-President George W. Bush

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kat1 (Moderator) says on Nov 16, 2007, 11:31:

I don't think so Desi, he spoke very good Spanish to me.
say hello to him ;)

engage brain before opening mouth

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ColombianoGringo says on Nov 16, 2007, 11:40:

Desi,

Do your kids have a Colombian accent in Spanish? Although my vocabulary is very Colombian, I have what some people say is a Mexican accent. My wife says I sound like a Mexican novela actor.

You're right about having to maintain it. Apparently, I spoke very good German as a little kid, but forgot it all since I never used it.

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Desideria (Moderator) says on Nov 16, 2007, 11:40:

He'll be happy to hear that, kat;)

"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them."-President George W. Bush

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Mononoke28 says on Nov 16, 2007, 12:34:

I was born in Colombia but grew up in the States and am fluent in both languages and with no accent either.

My niece is 2 years-old and she understands both English and Spanish.

Kids learn anything you teach them and if you keep at it, they will too.

Diana

Diana

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Desideria (Moderator) says on Nov 16, 2007, 12:46:

Yes, they speak with a slight caleño accent. It's pretty neutral and they have a natural handicap in Spanish because I have a slight accent in it.

"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them."-President George W. Bush

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kat1 (Moderator) says on Nov 16, 2007, 12:48:

My son Speak Spanish nearly without accent, while my my daughter have a very strong foreign accent, and that is what is putting her off a bit, when she goes to Colombia everybody laugh about her accent, not in a bad way but she still doesn't like it. they think is cute

engage brain before opening mouth

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dwmte7 says on Nov 16, 2007, 13:40:

lowell...here's a lullaby for the sweet one...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjIYTd_lJqs

hopes she enjoys it. i always did/do.

dwmte

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bufalo says on Nov 16, 2007, 13:55:

"...but it's highly individual and needs constant maintenance".

so true. Years ago when I was acting (nothing major) I spent a lot of time studying the movements, accents, words, etc of people. Since I always went to Santa Marta, that's what I had to study. I got so well, most people thought I was from there. They'd even ask me if I studied English in the Colombo or Meyer. My wife even thought I was from there for the first 2 days after we met.

Now, wife, kid, trying to eek out a living, need dental work, several scars on my body from surgeries, and the dread of moving back to the states, I can't spend too much time studying that stuff, so my accent is way off (allthough most tell me it isn't) and I speak more like a gringo. I also have had more experience in other spanish-speaking places that has had its affect.

"If you don't like it - lump it, take it down the road and dump it." - Archie Bunker played by Carroll O'Connor

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dwmte7 says on Nov 16, 2007, 14:35:

wow, bufalo...you sound a bit like me...money woes, aches and pains, bills, etc. growing old ain't for the feint hearted and weak. amen

dwmte

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john_stark says on Nov 16, 2007, 15:25:

Good thread. Interesting posts. Unusual for PBH.

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bufalo says on Nov 16, 2007, 18:53:

I remember one of your posts back dwmte7 about (I hope I get this right) how you couldn't come back to colombia for several reasons, sick relatives, then kids in school, etc. That's what I don't want as well. When my wife gets her citizenship, my daughter will be in school, friends, etc. Who knows where we'll be career-wise (just hope to have one). We'd like to move back, or somewhere else.

Why don't you want your daughter studying here in Colombia? I don't either.

"If you don't like it - lump it, take it down the road and dump it." - Archie Bunker played by Carroll O'Connor

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Desideria (Moderator) says on Nov 17, 2007, 08:01:

Kat, my kids haven't been in Colombia for many years now and I can't talk them into it either. Now thatthey have no relatives to visit there (grandparents are dead and the only uncle they have there is a total a-hole) I might have to move there myself to get them to visit their own country. At least your kids still want to go.

"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them."-President George W. Bush

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Lowell says on Nov 18, 2007, 14:07:

One problem I find with taking to my daughter in English, is remembering to do so. I hardly ever talk in English anymore. An then when I do, it seems to be mixed with Spanish. Wow, I'm all messed up!

Alfred E. Newman. "What. Me Worry?"

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dwmte7 says on Nov 19, 2007, 17:33:

lowell....duh? did you check the song for your daughter above?

dwmte

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Lowell says on Nov 20, 2007, 05:20:

yes I did and I have that along with many other childrens songs.

Alfred E. Newman. "What. Me Worry?"

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dwmte7 says on Nov 20, 2007, 14:46:

you're welcome...

dwmte

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Lowell says on Nov 20, 2007, 16:11:

sorry, I thanked you on another post, but don't see it. must not have posted it.

Alfred E. Newman. "What. Me Worry?"

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dwmte7 says on Nov 20, 2007, 16:22:

you are most welcome, friend, i love that song and it was one i "used on" my kids. a sweet calmer.

dwmte

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Lowell says on Nov 21, 2007, 05:49:

soon I'm going to burn some cd's for her to use when she moves into her own room.

Alfred E. Newman. "What. Me Worry?"

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