| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] | Poll: If you live in a bi / multilingual home, do you speak sentences that are a mix of those languages? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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| Any combination is okay, as long as we talk | Oct 19, 2007 |
My native language is English, my husband's is Spanish. The kids (now 14 and 12) came to Spain when they were 3 1/2 and 1 1/2 with very little prior contact with Spanish. They went to a British international school for elementary school (where both my husband and I worked), and are now in Spanish public schools.
We all speak in a mix of both languages, and it doesn't bother me one bit. What's important (at their age, especially) is that we *do* talk, without worrying if we "know the... See more My native language is English, my husband's is Spanish. The kids (now 14 and 12) came to Spain when they were 3 1/2 and 1 1/2 with very little prior contact with Spanish. They went to a British international school for elementary school (where both my husband and I worked), and are now in Spanish public schools.
We all speak in a mix of both languages, and it doesn't bother me one bit. What's important (at their age, especially) is that we *do* talk, without worrying if we "know the word" or "say it right".
What I do watch out for is an inability to express a concept or idea in both languages, and if I see that, I try to "feed" the word(s) to them during our conversation and see if they pick up on it. If not, I draw it to their attention and we talk about it (sometimes they're concepts that aren't easily translated or that they've been exposed to in one linguistic environment like their school).
I've found this especially true with documentaries (years ago my tv-loving husband and I made a deal: we would watch TV during dinner, but I could pick the program; we've watched a least one documentary together as a family nearly every day for the last 10 years.) We'll watch a documentary in one language and talk about it at the table, then a few days or weeks later, watch it again in the other. The trick is to try to talk about in one language what we've seen in the other...but if you can't, just TALK about it; the more they talk about it, the easier their ability to express themselves in one language or another language becomes.
They're getting smarter and more aware; last night we were watching a program about Africa and the narrator said (in Spanish), something like "Y aquí se molía el maíz en la era neolítica..."
and my 12 year old said, "Mom, it can't be "maíz", corn comes from America and it wasn't in Africa in caveman times. They must mean GRAINS and this must be an English program."
I was so proud... ▲ Collapse
| | | | Rebecca Garber 
Local time: 14:13
Member (2005)
German to English
+ ...
| For my daughter | Oct 20, 2007 |
I try to speak only correct German with her, because she won't hear it too much anywhere else. She understands a great deal, and is now frustrated that she can't produce correct sentences.
It helps that she has bilingual friends.
| | | | | I try not to, but... | Nov 3, 2007 |
I used to live in Italy with my mom (Tagalog) and my step dad (Italian) but here in the Philippines, our language has adopted a lot of English words so when I speak with them I try to speak in Italian as fluent as I can but if I can't find the right Italian word, I replace it with an English one then my mom asks me its meaning (if it is unknown to her) and I have to think its Tagalog translation before she can translate it into Italian. Che fatica! ... See more I used to live in Italy with my mom (Tagalog) and my step dad (Italian) but here in the Philippines, our language has adopted a lot of English words so when I speak with them I try to speak in Italian as fluent as I can but if I can't find the right Italian word, I replace it with an English one then my mom asks me its meaning (if it is unknown to her) and I have to think its Tagalog translation before she can translate it into Italian. Che fatica! ▲ Collapse
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