Broccoli Posted April 14, 2009 Share Posted April 14, 2009 We are a trilingual family. My husband's native language (Hindi), mine ( German) and English. We both speak our language with our daughter and English to each other. For now, she's 2 and a half it looks like English will be her dominant language overall, then German, then Hindi. One of the reasons to homeschool is to ensure she will be able to grow fluent in both our native languages,too. So how would you approach the logistics of this? I was thinking of hiring a tutor in Hindi, I only understand basic Hindi and don't write it at all. Though my husband makes an effort he's not consistent and sometimes is very busy at work. Would she be too confused if I start talking in English to her for schooling purposes or do you think it will work out just fine because by the time we actually do schooling she'll be able to comprehend why I'm doing it? Someone help me think through this... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Friederike in Persia Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 Hi Broccoli, we're trilingual in our family and it's worked out well so far, though it's a lot of work! Dh speaks English to them, I speak German and everywhere else we speak Tajik (a close relative to Farsi). Until we started to school in a formal way (quite early on, since the British system starts the year they turn 5) I would only every speak German to them and they would reply in that language. When I started to school them in English, they considered it weird for a day or two and then just got on with it. After a few months of schooling in English that became their dominant language and it has stayed that way, even when we spend longer times in Germany (they will always skip back to English when talking to one another). Once they turned 6 I added German to our lesson plan (it's the easiest ever to learn reading a totally phonic language after having mastered English!!) and even though they don't quite sound like natives, they do fine in German school when they attend for a few weeks (I tend to stick them into local schools wherever we are, but don't tell, I might get kicked off this board :001_smile:). Tajik they learn from playing with neighbours, going to nursery and the older ones to school. This is very time intensive, but it means that they are well grounded in the language and culture. Back to you. I think that hiring a Hindi tutour sounds like a very good idea! Husbands, even the ones with good intentions, get so busy, that it would be tough to rely on them soley for a whole language. Would you be interested in learning along with your dc? In that case you could keep understanding what dh says to dc, which would help family communications a lot! Once one parent doesn't understand any more, what the other one is saying to the children, that language tends to get dropped. I hope that helped some, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebastian (a lady) Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 Just out of curiosity are your kids also learning to read and write Tajik? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Friederike in Persia Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 Just out of curiosity are your kids also learning to read and write Tajik? Yes, my two girls do read and write Tajik. That was one of the main reasons for putting them into local school. I think that you've 'got a language properly', when you can read and write it, not just understand and talk. I've read somewhere (books on multilingual raising of children) that it's good to wait a year before starting to read and write a new language, so we started with English, added German a year later and then they went to Tajik school and learned cyrilic a year after that. Yet another year later they got Russian as a subject in local school, but that's a whole other story. As I said before, it's all a lot of work and as my youngest is about to start up Tajik school, the oldest will stop next month, after having finished primary school. It's getting too much and 'Western" WTM type education will take priority for her from now on. Tajik and Russian will happen via a tutor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VanessaS Posted April 24, 2009 Share Posted April 24, 2009 We're going to be trilingual, as well: German, English, and Spanish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C_l_e_0..Q_c Posted April 27, 2009 Share Posted April 27, 2009 Well we're hoping for trilingualism one day, but for now we have to be content with bilingualism. The kids' Spanish is really a foreign language now, far from being usable in school... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renai Posted April 29, 2009 Share Posted April 29, 2009 Well we're hoping for trilingualism one day, but for now we have to be content with bilingualism. The kids' Spanish is really a foreign language now, far from being usable in school... We're also hoping to be trilingual one day, but not sure which language. Both German and Japanese are foreign languages, and like Cleo, far from being usable in school. I guess I should decide which language to do: I like Japanese, but dd is leaning more towards German because I lived in Germany and she loves to hear my stories about there. Maybe I could learn to tell the stories in German :tongue_smilie:. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Broccoli Posted May 10, 2009 Author Share Posted May 10, 2009 Hi Broccoli,we're trilingual in our family and it's worked out well so far, though it's a lot of work! Dh speaks English to them, I speak German and everywhere else we speak Tajik (a close relative to Farsi). Until we started to school in a formal way (quite early on, since the British system starts the year they turn 5) I would only every speak German to them and they would reply in that language. When I started to school them in English, they considered it weird for a day or two and then just got on with it. After a few months of schooling in English that became their dominant language and it has stayed that way, even when we spend longer times in Germany (they will always skip back to English when talking to one another). Once they turned 6 I added German to our lesson plan (it's the easiest ever to learn reading a totally phonic language after having mastered English!!) and even though they don't quite sound like natives, they do fine in German school when they attend for a few weeks (I tend to stick them into local schools wherever we are, but don't tell, I might get kicked off this board :001_smile:). Tajik they learn from playing with neighbours, going to nursery and the older ones to school. This is very time intensive, but it means that they are well grounded in the language and culture. Back to you. I think that hiring a Hindi tutour sounds like a very good idea! Husbands, even the ones with good intentions, get so busy, that it would be tough to rely on them soley for a whole language. Would you be interested in learning along with your dc? In that case you could keep understanding what dh says to dc, which would help family communications a lot! Once one parent doesn't understand any more, what the other one is saying to the children, that language tends to get dropped. I hope that helped some, That was very helpful, thank you. I got it right that before you started schooling you primarily talked in German to them, correct? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
momof165 Posted May 10, 2009 Share Posted May 10, 2009 (edited) I hope some day we will be more than trilingual in our house since we are (as well) a truely international family. Dh is from the Ukraine (fluent in Ukranian and Russian, as well as two more languages), I am from Germany (studied Spanish in college, as well a Latin). However, as hard as we try, our ds 9 just does NOT want to learn Russian or Ukranian. He is bilingual (English/German), we have added Latin last year, and I am going to add Spanish for 4th Grade. I wish I could tell you how to go ahead implementing all your languages. I am really interested in HOW other families have done so and love to read all those posts. I really would love for my son to speak one of my husband's native languages - but "sigh" - I don't think this is going to happen! :001_unsure: I love the idea of a tutor - if you can afford a tutor I would really consider this as an excellent option for your dd. Unfortunately, we can't afford a tutor - so, this is not an option in our house. Just wanted to let you know that you are not alone trying to conquer this subject! :D Sonja Edited May 10, 2009 by momof165 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cathmom Posted May 11, 2009 Share Posted May 11, 2009 the book The Bilingual Edge might help with making sure you get all the languages supported. It does not specifically address homeschooling though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Friederike in Persia Posted May 11, 2009 Share Posted May 11, 2009 That was very helpful, thank you. I got it right that before you started schooling you primarily talked in German to them, correct? Yes that's right, before we started to school I would ALWAYS talk German to the children and dh ALWAYS English. One parent one language. If they would answer me in English I would repeat their answer in German and then continue with the conversation. The exeption is when Tajiks are around, then we all speak Tajik, so that they can understand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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