Raising bilingual kids is quite an important part of our life - and yet I hardly talk about it here. I am not sure it is the place for it, but I thought I would share some pictures of our Easter Sunday and raising bilingual kids is the reason why we ended up at Hatfield House. I found that there was a French market - a French market for Baby MiH is an opportunity to speak... French.
And he did. He bought cheese, bread and saucisson (don't judge the French-ness of our shopping) and paid for it as well. It was exciting for him to practice with new people, and some of the market stall holders totally played the game.
Just to clarify we speak only speak French to him (we had French TV installed as well), and with his grand-parents. He speaks English at nursery and with his friends. I know some of you are also raising bilingual children, how have you decided to do it?
Of course, you will have seen that Baby MiH has acquired Bough. He probably wears it better than I do - although it is weird to think that a 2 year old can wear beanie hats knitted for me. At least my hand knitted beanies get worn more?
I hope you had a great Easter weekend!
I wanna learn! It's super cool how you're raising him bilingual. He is adorable in his pom pom hat.
ReplyDeleteHi. I'm English and lived in France for 13 years, raising my 2 bi-lingual girls there (they were born there.) Their father is French, and obviously everyone and everything around them was French, but I only ever spoke English to them, and they watched English dvd's. I never, ever spoke to them in French (though they heard me speak with others) and if they spoke to me in French, I ignored them until they spoke in English. If they were with me, then they tended to speak English to each other, if they were with Papa, they spoke French, which was cute! We now live back in England, but at 24 and 22 years old, they are still bilingual.....and without a trace of accent in either language. Good luck with your little one....it is such a gift you're giving him. xx
ReplyDeleteMy boyfriend is Mexican and I'm American. We are absolutely planning on raising the kids bilingual. I've seen a couple ways to do it that differ and I'm not quite sure which way we'll go, but I definitely need to work on my Spanish in the meantime!
ReplyDeleteI am really happy you brought this up! See, I am in a particular situation. We live in Quebec, which is a bilingual province. Aidan went to a french daycare, so he learned it there, he is now in a bilingual school, but his english has taken over, it's certainly gotten stronger then his french. To complicate things, I am Romanian by birth, but was raised by my German grandmother, and it was always important to me that my kids speak these as well. But how exactly do you squeeze 4 languages in?
ReplyDeleteIt requires so much discipline, and I find that the older he gets, the more he fights me on it as well.
I guess time will tell...
Oh, and your photos are lovely, Baby MiH is rocking that beanie!
ReplyDeleteoh lovely to be able to raise a child bilingually, a great gift for them!
ReplyDeleteI wish I could say I have such a rich language history! However I do have the desire to raise my daughter + hopefully future kids at least bilingual (I want French; hubby is for Spanish; both are the language we studied in high school in the States). So far she knows "light" + "all done" in American Sign Language. :-P. I think discipline will be our hardest obstacle to bilingual education.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to reading about your journey in this subject.
I wish I could say I have such a rich language history! However I do have the desire to raise my daughter + hopefully future kids at least bilingual (I want French; hubby is for Spanish; both are the language we studied in high school in the States). So far she knows "light" + "all done" in American Sign Language. :-P. I think discipline will be our hardest obstacle to bilingual education.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to reading about your journey in this subject.
I speak in English to my daughters here in Italy. It is very interesting to see how they use Italian and English. My three year old never spoke in English until an Irish grandmother started spending a few hours a week in her nursery school. She must have then realised English was not just a language I had invented or that was used in cartoons!
ReplyDeleteI amazed by the way children learn language. We have friends with a little girl. One parent is Russian, the other is British, and they live here in Chicago. My friend, the nanny and grandparents all speak Russian with her. Dad only understands a few words and phrases in Russian, but wants to make sure she has an "English" vocabulary. And, she communicates with the rest of us in American English just as competently as any other 2 year old. She already understands who speaks which languages and switches between them seamlessly. She has taken to translating Russian for her dad, which is about the cutest thing I've ever seen.
ReplyDelete