Comments on: Hanging on to German in the USA

By: Hongyan

Hongyan — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 02:35:41 +0000

Christof, thank you for the interesting posting! Raising bilingual kids is rewarding on a long run. My daughter came to Sydney 3 years ago at the age of 6 and started her English-Chinese bilingual overseas life. Before she came here, she just finished Kindy in China and knew some very simple Chinese characters, Pinyin system and easy English words of fruits. I have been very strict with her bilingual learning, especially Chinese, which made both of us suffered at the beginning. I don’t worry about her English at all but I keep telling her that she can’t study in China if her Chinese is not good. Learning Chinese and Math textbooks everyday after school has been family routine. She is now quite interested in both languages. She has got awareness of comparing the words and expressions of Chinese and English. She tries to pronounce English in OZ and UK accent! She once told me she wanted to learn French, Japanese and Korean because English is NOT ENOUGH for her to be an international kid!

By: khan

khan — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 22:37:38 +0000

Thanks very much indeed for sharing such valuable first hand experiences of raising children bilingually interlaced with analysis that helped me see the nature of links between society and bilingualism. Your post reminds me of Heller’s and Ingrid’s work in the area. They take a truly socio-political approach to bilingualism which then intersects with global politics.
As a student of sociolinguistics, I often say, to the dismay of many of my respected professors, that world history tell us that the fate of the languages have never been permanent and that they have nearly always been tied to political power of the times.
Best wishes for Aline and Kyra for their wonderful journey of experiencing two civilizations, cultures, modes of thinking and expression. I would like to read more of your blogs. Thanks once again.
Khan
karachi Pakistan

By: Jean Cho

Jean Cho — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 00:32:35 +0000

Christof, thank you for the great posting, which is very relevant to my life project of raising my 3-year-old boy as a bilingual. His bilinguality was reasonably good until he turned 2, when he started going to a English childcare centre and English became suddenly dominant. He is now behaving like a typical migrant teenager – answering back in English when I talk to him in Korean 🙁 I absolutely agree to your point about no (or little depending on where you live) public education infrastruture that supports languages other than English and hope that things will turn around in my generation. BTW, Ingrid, your comment “They don’t think English is a language” is so true. Whenever I introduce myself as an interpreter, some local people ask me which language interpreter I am. I used to wonder why they looked still puzzled after I said “I am a Korean interpreter” and soon realized they were looking for something else (e.g. Japanese-Korean), since English doesn’t need to be interpreted!

By: Ingrid Piller

Ingrid Piller — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 08:06:10 +0000

Thank you, Christof, and welcome to Language-on-the-Move! I think if you get them past the usual hurdles, children actually love their languages. When my daughter was 4, she would refuse to speak German in public in Australia, saying: “Mummy, German hurts my throat!” 😉 … a few years on, now at 9, she loves to show off her languages and consistently speaks German in the presence of others. Some of her friends express these pangs of envy when they come to our house and hear her speak German. I’ve overheard them say things like “You are so lucky to be able to speak a language!” It always cracks me up the way they don’t think English is a language … her French teacher does the same and admonished her the other day that she should do better because “you have a language background.”