
When your child speaks a language you don’t - jamessun
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2015/03/18/when-your-child-speaks-a-language-you-dont/
======
te_platt
I have a friend who grew up in a home where her mom and grandma spoke to her
only in Spanish and her dad only spoke to her in English. She was surprised
when she went to Kindergarten and her teacher spoke English. She thought
Spanish was what women spoke and that English was for men.

~~~
tsuyoshi
I am American and my wife is Cambodian. We live in a Cambodian neighborhood in
the United States. We have a daughter, born in Cambodia, who is now 4. I speak
to her in English and her mother (and everyone else in the neighborhood)
speaks to her in Cambodian. Until she started preschool last September,
virtually everyone except myself talked to her in Cambodian.

Not too long ago, she asked me why some person (I think it was a waiter at a
restaurant) spoke English and not Cambodian. For her, everyone spoke
Cambodian, and then some of them also spoke English. I tried to explain that
in America, most people actually speak English and not Cambodian. After that
explanation, she kept asking "is this place America?" everywhere we went for a
few days.

------
Spearchucker
I'm German, and speak that with my son. My son's mother is French, and she
uses that with my son. She and I speak English when we converse. He goes to a
bilingual French/English nursery school, which has mostly French expats' kids
in it, and (happily) four kids that also speak German.

We never really discussed this when my son was born - it just happened,
because doing it any other way was alien enough to not enter our heads. Seems
to be the norm in Europe.

Yes, I struggle with French (his mum's German is pretty reasonable). I have a
secret weapon though - I'm also native-fluent in Afrikaans, which I use when I
scrape a shin, drive angry, or tease.

Being fluent in three languages never seemed like a big deal - my mother spoke
_seven_. It _is_ a big deal when you speak to a Brit about it, or to an
American. I guess when you're used to chicken, beef might seem a little odd.

~~~
therobot24
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.

~~~
tonyarkles
In (non-Quebec) Canada, there's often an option to do French Immersion, even
though the primary language is English. My parents put me in this program for
elementary (K-8) school, and gave me the choice for high school, which I opted
out of. There's a few positives and negatives that I found watching myself and
my peers:

Pros:

\- The 9 years that I spoke French in the classroom for every class except for
English was enough to make the language stick. I'm 31 now, and I can still
speak, read, and write French. My vocabulary is weak since I don't use French
on a regular basis, but when I was in Paris, I had no problem understanding
what was going on, ordering food, taking a cab, etc.

\- I feel like having the 2nd language has made it easier to pick up other
languages. I'm by no means fluent in Spanish, but when I was regularly doing
DuoLingo Spanish lessons, I felt like things stuck very quickly.

\- I also feel like some kind of structures in my brain from this help me pick
up different programming languages. It seems like, compared to most of my
peers, switching between new languages and learning new languages is generally
a straightforward task for me, including weird ones like Erlang and Haskell.
The majority of the effort goes into learning the concepts, not learning the
syntax.

Cons:

\- After graduating high school doing full immersion all the way through, many
of my peers struggled with writing in University. I distinctly remember my
first roommate getting an essay back and he was freaking out about the
terrible mark he got. He asked me to look over it to see if I could see what
was wrong with it. I read through it and just told him "Well... the problem is
that you used English words, but you wrote it in French."

\- Likewise, many of them had difficulties in math and science, where they
understood the concepts very well from high school, but didn't have the
English vocabulary to describe what they were doing.

All in all, I'm super happy that my parents made the choices they did, and
that I dropped out of immersion before high school. I think, too, it helped a
lot that I read a _pile_ of English books growing up, both fiction and non-
fiction, which hopefully helped supplement my English vocabulary while I was
learning French at school every day. I was the 10 year old who held on tightly
to his copy of the Peter Norton pink shirt book :)

~~~
ChristinaM
I found the same thing. In the bit of rural Canada where I grew up, it was
pretty standard for french elementary students to go on to english high school
(with 1-2 classes/year in french, usually french & history or geography). We
can all still speak french (with weaker vocab if we don't practice) but we
didn't have issues with math/science jargon or having enough practice in
english. A handful of students went to french high school but generally
because they intended to go to a french university.

------
ccozan
This is almost OK. Wait until you have twin boys, like me. They are 20 months
now, grown at home, no day care ( KiTa as in Germany ;Kindergarden is later
on).

They don't speak, but very few words with a meaning ( mama, papa, apa ). But!
Here it comes: they speak between them and communicate using a almost invented
language. The language is so strange, because is based on using the same word
( twin 1 uses 'bahdi', twin 2 'budji' \- approx phonetic rendering),
repeatedly but changing tonality, like in cantonese. It's really amazing to
see how they can talk each other and coordinate while playing for hours using
this language, me and my wife feel we are completly left out :).

~~~
jskonhovd
I did the same with my twin. It's quite common from my understanding.

~~~
rm445
Fascinating - do you remember it? (As opposed to being told about it / vague
memories-of-memories). Are there any remnants in how you communicate with your
twin now?

------
ekidd
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.

~~~
LeonRobrotsky
> Given the right environment, the brain seems to adapt.

In high school, I had a German immigrant, fresh out of college as an
instructor. The moment one stepped into that classroom to the moment one
stepped out, nothing but German.

Hell, it didn't stop there. If you tried to talk to him at all, in or out of
the classroom, he wouldn't acknowledge you unless you spoke to him in German,
and he would only speak German to you.

Strangely enough, the German students were the only ones capable of holding
conversation in a foreign language.

I graduated in 2008, haven't 'used' German in 7 years, but I still find myself
thinking in German every once in a while.

Immersion (even for ~50min, 5 days a week) is easily the best way to learn. I
don't know why anyone wastes their time with anything else.

EDIT: Hah, I just remembered how he never cared that we talked to each other
during class about whatever, just that it was in German, not English.

~~~
teirce
>Immersion (even for ~50min, 5 days a week) is easily the best way to learn. I
don't know why anyone wastes their time with anything else.

I think once you're somewhat proficient in the language, this is true.

I'm currently taking Spanish courses in uni, and my professor is from Cuba.
She's the sweetest lady, but has a tendency to ramble off in Spanish. About
50-60% of the time I can (vaguely) follow her, but the rest of the time I'm
just hopelessly lost. And judging by the silence the rest of the class has a
tendency for, I'm not alone.

Anyway, I'm certainly not trying to counteract your point, just to say that
there are steps up to 100% immersion that I feel are necessary.

~~~
verisimilidude
Yup, and this is especially true of languages that are completely different
than your own.

Immersion and osmosis are going to work a whole lot better if you're going
from French to Spanish, or English to German, etc. There's enough shared
vocabulary and culture that it's easier to make assumptions about the intent
of the speaker.

That will not be the case if you're going from English to, say, Korean.
Immersion is important for any language learning, but some prerequisite
learning is needed to take advantage of it. I think those prerequisites stack
up as you move further away from the foundation of your current languages.

------
mipapage
I'm going to share this in case someone finds it useful...

I am Canadian and married to a Spanish women and living in Spain. While my son
started out sponging up both languages, he eventually took off in Spanish and
left English behind. In order to have some form of relationship with him I had
to speak Spanish with him.

People would lecture me, "oh, give him that gift of English" or "how can you
not be speaking English to him?".

Now that he is older and has discovered the Internet, he has a need to learn
English. And he's learned. I'm sure it was there all along, he went from not
speaking English to speaking it in about two weeks.

My wife and I would speak English around him, and sometimes I would speak
English to him, but it really wasn't until he needed to, like the child in the
OP story, that he learned English.

~~~
emodendroket
Yeah, unfortunately kids get pretty clever about this and resist doing
language acquisition that isn't necessary.

~~~
mipapage
When I came to Spain a lot of (Spanish) people would give me the "why do we
need to learn English?", and then the market crashed. To this day I interact
with younger folk who continue this line of thinking; the ones who leave and
learn English and find work are going to be much better prepared...

~~~
emodendroket
What I mean by "necessary" is "necessary to a child, for his day-to-day life."
Very often kids pick up that Mom and Dad understand (at least to some extent)
the local language too and then stop picking up whatever the second language
is.

Anyway, at least Spanish people are speaking one of the world's most widely
used languages... I think the top four are Chinese, French, Spanish, and
English, but don't quote me on it.

------
DavidSJ

      Your children are not your children.
      They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
      They come through you but not from you,
      And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
    
      You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
      For they have their own thoughts.
      You may house their bodies but not their souls,
      For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
      which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
      You may strive to be like them,
      but seek not to make them like you.
      For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
    
      You are the bows from which your children
      as living arrows are sent forth.
    

...

[http://www.katsandogz.com/onchildren.html](http://www.katsandogz.com/onchildren.html)

~~~
StevePerkins
Just curious why you chose to truncate a few lines away from the finish,
rather than simply pasting the poem in its entirety? Was it because the last
few lines take a vaguely-religious turn, and you thought the audience here
would be hostile? I have no strong opinion either way there, I just find the
edit interesting.

~~~
DavidSJ
It's not because I thought the audience would be hostile, but I don't like
those last few lines (mainly because of that turn), and think it's a better
poem without them. Do you think it's better to leave it intact?

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

~~~
le_lenny_face
>change the meaning of the poem

What? Those lines __are __the poem!

~~~
ohjesusthatguy
In the short time I've been reading HN, it's become clear that its readership
likes to think of itself as more enlightened than the average mouthbreathing
yokel. It doesn't mean they don't have their own orthodoxy, though, and
religion is one of those things We Don't Acknowledge Around Here.

Hell, I'm an atheist and I would have added the last lines anyway[0]. Of
course, he didn't attribute the poem to the author anyway so we're supposed to
imagine he wrote it, right?[1]

[0][http://www.katsandogz.com/onchildren.html](http://www.katsandogz.com/onchildren.html)
\- the first thing I ran across, but at least the author's name is on it.
EDIT: hey, he finally did the same google search I did!

[1][http://nedroidcomics.tumblr.com/post/41879001445/the-
interne...](http://nedroidcomics.tumblr.com/post/41879001445/the-internet)

~~~
DavidSJ
I included the link in your zeroeth reference in my original post, well before
anyone had replied. I had no intention to take credit for the poem, and
assumed most readers here were smart enough to infer authorship from the link
I included. Please, a little more charity in interpretation and a little more
attention to detail would go a long way in keeping discourse friendly here.

~~~
ohjesusthatguy
Says the guy editing poetry because he doesn't agree with the sentiment. Sure,
I'll go easier on you next time.

~~~
DavidSJ
I omitted the last few lines while including an ellipsis to indicate I had
done so, and including a link to the original so people could see the full
poem (as well as authorship) for themselves. I don't think I changed the
meaning of the part I quoted, so I think the omission was fair, though I was
conflicted about doing it since there really were only a few more lines
remaining.

Your accusation that I deliberately didn't name the author in order to take
credit was false and assumes bad faith, especially given that, contrary to
your assertion, the link to the full poem with named author was in my original
post. I haven't seen a retraction or apology from you for that assertion
despite its demonstrable inaccuracy, nothing but the assumption of bad faith
and hostility. It's possible to express disagreement without either, which is
what has generally made Hacker News discussions great. You can disagree with
me without assuming every possible bad thing about me, and with a good faith
desire to reach common understanding.

I'll let you get the last word since I don't want to turn this into a flame
war, but please be civil. Take care.

~~~
ohjesusthatguy
"It's not because I thought the audience would be hostile, but I don't like
those last few lines (mainly because of that turn), and think it's a better
poem without them. Do you think it's better to leave it intact?"

This is the part with which I disagree. Let's just drop the nonattribution
that you did indeed fix after the fact.

You said you edited the writing to alter its meaning. Is this not the case?
While I was indeed blunt, I was not incorrect in pointing out you took the
writing of a noted Lebanese author and removed the lines that offended your
sensibilities.

Like I said, I am a nonbeliever. Misquoting (and that is indeed what you did
when you removed those three lines) makes you look petty. Take care.

------
e40
I kept waiting for the payoff from the title. It never arrived. It's not the
language her daughter speaks at daycare, it's that she's at daycare. That's
the cause of this. Same thing happened to my son and he went to an English-
speaking daycare. They grow apart from you, for a reason.

~~~
emodendroket
You found yourself smiling and nodding at daycare teachers who were saying
things you could understand less than half of?

------
lordnacho
I'm the kid of parents who didn't speak my nursery's language, and the parent
of a kid who also speaks a different language at nursery.

It's really not a big deal. They may speak a little slower, but they get it. I
was a little worried a few months ago when my kids wasn't speaking well, but
it's come on very suddenly.

One thing I think about is immersion. When I was a kid, there was only one TV
station, and it showed stuff in Danish. You couldn't get away from learning
the language when you spent all day speaking it with other kids, and then
going home and watching TV in the same language. Nowadays, you can get TV in
just about any language you like. I wonder if it makes a difference.

------
luxpir
I can speak two other languages fluently, but I live in England and neither of
those two other languages are native. As such, my infant son rarely hears
them.

I know others in my situation who have given up, resigning themselves to being
able to help with language homework.

I'm tempted to push on though, much like the (possibly misguided) attempts of
a man to speak to his son only in Klingon for the first three years of his
life in the 90s.

I have already accepted that the result will be along the lines of my son
having a passing familiarity with the sounds and basics of the two languages.
Better than nothing.

\--

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klingon_Language_Institute#d.2...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klingon_Language_Institute#d.27Armond_Speers)
//
[http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/7.08/mustread.html?pg...](http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/7.08/mustread.html?pg=8)

~~~
Spearchucker
Far be it for me to suggest to another how to raise their child. If it were up
to me I'd so totally stick with it. The insane pace of development in these
early years will never happen again. Another language is another life. The
mind is also very good at adaptation, so anything you teach incorrectly today
will auto-align/correct when your son is older and experiences that culture
for real. What you're doing takes courage. Respect.

~~~
luxpir
Thanks for the encouragement. Did you do something similar yourself?

I'll give it a bash, I think, based on your words. Just think of the influence
that comment might have had on his future life if it does pay off. Thanks
again!

Edit: I see from further up the thread you've got a complex situation of your
own underway. It's great when you've two native languages at home because
English seems to always be an easy third to pick up.

------
scobar
The sentence, "The truth is this: I think Noa is raising us as much as we are
raising her." and the paragraph it heads really resonated with me as a parent
of a young child.

Upon seeing the title, I expected the article to be about the unknown
languages infants sometimes seem to invent. We speak two languages to our son,
but my wife and I both understand each language quite well. Our son was very
vocal as an infant, but less than half of his words were English or
Portuguese. He's nearly three now, but he'll still use some of his invented
words to unnecessarily lengthen phrases. I imagine this is to mimic adults who
express themselves with more words. He may believe that longer phrases are
given more consideration as he tends to do this more often when making a
request with a small chance of success, like asking for another treat after
being told he can only have one.

------
amyjess
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.

~~~
mrrrgn
It's the same for me in French. I can understand Americans (who have a thick
accent) much more easily than natives. I think it's because my brain can tune
into the palette of sounds produced by Americans more readily. Some sounds
that are very distinct to natives sound the same to me; it artificially
inflates the number of homophones I have to deal with.

------
gingerlime
My wife is Japanese, I'm Israeli, and we both live in Berin, where our son was
born. We talk to him in our native language, and between us in English. He
goes to the Kita, where they speak only German...

He's still fairly young (17 months), so doesn't really talk much, but we can
spot a few German words (Ja! Nein). He does seem to understand Hebrew and
Japanese when we talk to him, and says one or two words in Hebrew (Aba, means
Dad) and in Japanese (Wanwan, means Dog).

We're very curious on how things will evolve from here. It's very likely that
his German will be his strongest. But we're sure he will understand and can
speak with us. Our biggest hope is that he can help translate German for us
though ;-)

~~~
blackkettle
wanwan is the sound the dog makes (like ruff-ruff in English). wan-chan is a
colloquial term for dog. [just to be a nit-picking ass].

~~~
gingerlime
I'll make sure to tell it to my son (and my wife!) so he learns things the
proper way ;-)

------
jkot
I know this situation too well. It gets worse when child is asking for
pacifier, favorite tv show, playground etc. Also child does not pronounce
clearly, and its very hard to understand for non-native speaker.

I wonder why author had not learned German in advance, they had almost 2 years
time. English speaker can pickup German in 5 months, very similar and easy
language.

------
KFW504
It seems there may also be an additional (and potentially larger) cultural
element here that goes beyond language, though it would be less pronounced at
such an elementary age. Further, it would be interesting to explore how this
family's experience maps to first-generation American families in the US.

------
aklein
My 18 month old daughter has a full time nanny who has spoken to her only in
Spanish (at our request) since she was 3 months old; my wife and I speak to
her only in English, and we don't speak any Spanish. It's been really
fascinating to see what my daughter chooses to say in Spanish instead of
English: always agua (her first word), siéntate ("sit"), mas ("more"), wacala
(spanish slang for "yucky" \- for poop)... other words, she can interchange
depending on who she speaks to. Sometimes I can't understand her, and can't
tell if she's trying to tell me something in Spanish, or her diction just
isn't good enough yet. I suspect it's the latter, I think she's already adept
enough at recognizing mommy and daddy don't speak Spanish...

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

------
dmacvicar
>Viennese daycares—known here as kindergartens—have a very long
Eingewöhnungszeit—literally translated as “getting adjusted period” or
"acclimatization." Dropping your kid off on Day One while she shrieks "MOMMY!"
is looked upon as child abuse.

I went over this in Germany (living here since 10 years) and it is just
ridiculous. During my second child "acclimatization" after seeing a mother in
tears and making progress for her absence in intervals of 5 minutes each day,
I realize this long "acclimatization" period was for them, not for the child.

------
dmacvicar
My children (ages 5 and 3) were born and raised in Germany. We only speak
spanish at home. They both went to day-care very early.

Today they speak like natives. When they play alone or between them, they do
it in german, and while I defend myself in german quite good, he corrects me
all the time, especially with the right pronunciation.

Sad true is, lot of people, including educators are ignorant about
multilinguism. They did at some point ask me and my wife to speak german at
home with them because they were behind with the language.

I will not even mention stupid ideas politicians have had about the topic.

------
mathieuh
I suffer from the opposite problem: my mother speaks a language I don't. She
is French, but despite giving me a French name never spoke to me in French
while I was growing up. She'd speak to her family in French, but never to me
or my brother.

I've studied to B2 level on my own and managed to osmose a fair ability to
distinguish words and sounds, but I'll never be able to get the native-level
fluency I could have. It's something we both regret.

~~~
magic_beans
I could never understand how this is possible. If you have a child, wouldn't
it be natural to speak to her in your native tongue? I would NEVER speak to my
child in anything other than English, even if I lived in France, if only to
avoid propagating non-native grammatical errors.

------
laurentoget
As a parent of a bilingual 18 month old, my experience is totally different. I
speak english most of my day at work, my son speaks english at daycare, and we
speak french together at home. When I get to daycare he immediately switches
to french and this feels like we have a shared secret. I left a CD of french
songs at the daycare and they play it when he needs soothing.

I think this boils down to the fact that I think of myself as an immigrant,
not an expat.

------
gclaramunt
tl;dr: being a parent is totally different from what you plan to be as a
parent

(and that's actually awesome)

~~~
ColinWright
The military have a saying:

    
    
        No plan survives contact with the enemy.
    

Seems appropriate.

------
needacig
Does anyone else think it kind of shameful that the author could live in
Austria for 12 years and still speak such poor German? Now you can't
understand everything your child is saying. Congrats.

------
pluma
Kindergarten isn't day care. Kindertagesstätte (or KiTa for short) are day
care. Kindergarten is equivalent to pre-school.

------
nzealand
I don't understand the authors point of view.

My toddler is teaching me Spanish.

I am not being left behind, I am simply catching up.

