Comments on: 8 reasons why you don’t have to be a native speaker to teach your child a language

By: All non native parents are not equal | Bilingual For Fun™

All non native parents are not equal | Bilingual For Fun™ — Sun, 09 May 2010 15:51:38 +0000

[...] Blogging on Bilingualism (or rather the blogger behind it) and I want to come back on the topic of non native parents raising bilingual children, or rather parents raising children bilingual in a language that is not their mother [...]

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Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:21:12 +0000

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By: Marta

Marta — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 18:29:32 +0000

Congrats on your blog. Thank you for the tips and resources, they are really useful.

I am not an English native speaker, but I am teaching English to my son. I always sing a lot with him in English, read in English, play some specific videos in English… I think he enjoys the activities. For example, his favourite book is ‘A Very Hungry Caterpillar’, and he wants to hear the story every day (yes, every day, over and over again!).

For him, some words in English are far easier than in Spanish or Catalan, for example, ‘red’ is easier than ‘rojo’ and ‘vermell’. I am happy he enjoys singing, playing and living in English, but I don’t know what I am supposed to do once he learns to write (school is in Catalan). Should he learn to write just in Catalan and Spanish and, just after he masters both, start writing in English?

Bilingualism is complicated but also rewarding and fun!

Thank you for your tips!

By: Marta

Marta — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 18:26:22 +0000

Congrats on your blog. Thank you for the tips and resources, they are really useful.

For him, saying some words in English are far easier than in Spanish or Catalan, for example, ‘red’ is easier for him than ‘rojo’ and ‘vermell’. I am happy he enjoys singing, playing and living in English, but I don’t know what I am supposed to do once he learns to write (school is in Catalan). Should he learn to write just in Catalan and Spanish and, just after he masters both, start writing in English?

Bilingualism is complicated but also rewarding and fun!

Thank you for your tips!

By: Maria

Maria — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 20:32:39 +0000

I feel I am in the same boat.
I am native Spanish and have never lived in any English-Speaking country for longer than 1 month.
Still, I speak quite decent English and decided to speak English to my daughters. They fully understand English now although it is taking a bit longer for them to speak it. My eldest (almost 3) speaks English if you ask her to do it, but she replies in Spanish even if I ask in English (unless I say “in English, please!”). Still, this is changing day after day and I think we are in the right way.
Sometimes it is discouraging, but I see that the results are awesome and children’s capacity to learn a language is so big, that I strongly think it is worth the effort (even though some days it is hard to speak English… as it does not come out naturally).
It took me years to be able to fully understand English and they did it in less than 5 months!
Good luck everybody trying! And thanks for all the ideas and stories. Thanks for sharing!!!!

By: speck1965

speck1965 — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 13:36:49 +0000

Thank you Adriana for the article.
I’m italian and I learned english 26 years ago for only 4 months in Cambridge. Then I had the great furtune to know sone english people in Sardinia 24 years ago and we are still good friends, we see almost every year. My english is good enough to have a good converasation, but sometimes I do need the dictionary(electronic- easier!) Of course my english level is not high but it’s quite fluent and some times I make mistakes, never mind.. my pronunciation is very very good ,english people say. In 24 years my english hasn’t been improved but it has been kept like this. My son was born 7 years ago and just from the beginning I wanted to speak with him in english. My wife speaks italian only. Then my wife and I realized that Lucas didn’t speak any language and he was amost 4!! We went to the speech therapist. She told me to use my english in definete part of the day for example when we where playing. That was. Now Lucas speaks italian for most of the time, he understands and he always speaks english by himself playing with “Thomas the tank engine”: isn’t that amazing? Of course now that he speaks his mother language we feel better but….after reading your article I’m sure that I’ll use my “poor” english more and more. Please if you can encourage me and other people like me ..do it.
Thank you , Claudio, Lucas and Daniela

By: L.

L. — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 14:08:07 +0000

Adriana,

this is an interesting story!

May I ask you few questions if you don’t mind? Does your husband feel that speaking Spanish to his son has helped him recover his own mother tongue? Does he still speak Spanglish or does he speak Spanish now?

And how about English? I take you live in the US, has your son managed to learn also English? How old is he now?

Thanks for sharing your story!
L.

By: Adriana

Adriana — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:31:53 +0000

Thank you so much for this article. I am NOT a native Spanish speaker. My husband’s first language was Spanish but after being educated in the United States, he lost much of his Spanish and spoke a mixture (Spanlish). We made the decision when I was pregnant with my first son that we would ONLY speak to him in Spanish. Almost four years later, I am proud to say that native Spanish speakers often comment on how well he speaks Spanish. I feel that we are a success story.

By: 10 bloggers and a Carnival, on Bilingualism | Bilingual For Fun™

10 bloggers and a Carnival, on Bilingualism | Bilingual For Fun™ — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:40:36 +0000

[...] Resources « Second Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism 8 reasons why you don’t have to be a native speaker to teach your child a language » [...]