What is your primary communicative language at home?

SGBV · Mar 19, 2015

Hello ILites,

This is regarding the primary language that is used for communication at home.

As I know English is must; so many parents would want their kids' to converse in English before they go to School. Which result them either to completely forget their root/native language or to think in English.
Both are not good as per social and scientific reasons.

However, speaking only in native language at home will leave the kid helpless at School and outside where English is important.

Speaking both languages will confuse the child, and cause speech delays and other problems during his early childhood development.

What is the best option to handle this, as I have 2 children who may benefit from this discussion.

swaran · Mar 19, 2015

Hi OP

I have a 5 year old and till date I have never used english to converse with her...
Not just me,none of my family members speak English with her..I am completely against it...

I have seen many parents speaking only in english with their kid,and I have seen kids struggling to speak basic few sentences in their mother tongue because of the english intrusion in their life

I personally feel,English could be learnt easily compared to our Indian languages.
Mother tongue is very very important I personally feel my daughter should never search for words or join english words while talking/writing in my mother tongue

I am planning to teach her to write soon...

Infact many people have asked why I dont talk to her in english and its very important..I dont feel so

She goes to school,yes she did have some problem initially...now she speaks better english ,still we dont converse in english..we only clarify some words for her..

We have been in different citites and my daughter without we teaching knows kannada/hindi as well(though she is not fluent in those)...she learnt these in matter of just 3-4 months..I become very happy when she picks up any Indian language

How were we when we were kids?...I am sure majority of our parents would have spoken only in our native language when we were kids...did/are we facing great problem in english?...If we could learn english so easily,kids of this generation who are smarter than us could learn in less time..

IMO,Not knowing english is not a crime/shame,but not knowing to read/speak your mother tongue is a shame
English is not must but mother tongue is our culture/tradition..if we speak less,our kids will not speak at all..

Sorry for the long post,I just cannot control myself when I see such topics

SGBV · Mar 19, 2015

Thanks for your wonderful insight about this. I am also sailing the same boat as you are.
I learnt English only as the 4th language in School after my mother tongue, the other language of the country and French. But after the secondary school everything was in English only.
Thanks to my grandma, who was fluent in both oral and written English then to teach me polish my English skills.
Though it was a little tough initially, it wasn't a big issue then because all my peers had the same experience from switching from mother tongue to English at the same time.

However, now i am confused. The more I wanted to speak in native language with the kids, the worst I feel insecure about my kids' struggles at School against English speaking peers. I don't want my tiny kids lose self confidence at the very early stage of their life just because of it.

My 4 yr old son speaks very fluently in native language, and now he started picking up English too. I am sure he can manage very well at School when he joins next year.

However, after seeing other kids of his age and younger I feel I didn't teach him good English earlier. Even the not-so educated parents try their level best to speak in English with their kids as a fashion.
I really feel irritated at times to see their kids speak broken English and poor native language even at the age of 6.

I always wanted to teach my kids the native language first till the become fluent in that, so later English and other language can be taught. They are still small to grasp as much as new words in diff language now - but one after the other. But now, given the fact that he needs to face School interviews and new environment soon, I am more confused. I feel language should not affect my kids' self confidence. Specially their world is gonna be very different from ours. I have a small child, who has just begun to speak now... Hence this thread.

heron · Mar 19, 2015

We speak to kids in our regional language so that he knows the words. My son however prefers more to talk on english coz he says his friends can only understand English. I get his point.. I dont want to force him but will kerp talking in our language because knowing more language only comes handy... I am not very keen on protecting our ( me and my husband have different mother languages) languages inside him, but will let him know what different words mean... I am fine with this set up.

Dont force it, they will slowly learn to acknowledge.. Chill

swaran · Mar 19, 2015

@SGBV:: Its good to know you too like to train your kid in your native language first rather than english..dont worry...see in school, that too for a 6 year old,the teachers cannot force(incase they are) that they should have known english..infact if such situations happen,I am all ready to fight with the school as well...

kids as such they get facinated with english because kids around them speak,their parents speak..my daughter at home tries to converse in english and asks us to do the same for which I explain her...so even if she wants to talk,I tell her not to and respond in my mother tongue only.
You can hold the pride that you are passing on your mother tongue properly to your kids while the fashionable parents might not have it

PN::I dont wish to comment on parents who stay abroad where english might be a must /something required for your living...

jskls · Mar 19, 2015

Hi OP
I taught both my kids our regional language (my mother tongue is different and me and DH use regional language only). Both went to school without knowing a word in English and by the end of first year both were fluent in english. And as time passed by while the elder one retained the regional language, younger one did not. She refused to speak in regional language though we do not speak English at home.

Both kids can read/write in regional language but younger one seldom speaks though she knows. A big difference was my LO went to child care at the age of 4 while older one didn't use extended care until 7 years. Using regional language at home did not affect their English learning skills and they are learning a third language at school. Kids can learn easily.

Lavanya30 · Mar 19, 2015

Hi SGBV,

Nice thread, in fact I had this question for my son's doc when I went for this 2 years well baby check up. The professionals ( she gave me the reports of genetic study conducted by a famous hospital in USA) say that kids who are exposed to multi languages tend to be more smart, even though they struggle initially. Their brain is wired to understand and speak 5-6 languages at a time , this information was a surprise to me.

I was concerned as we speak three different languages at home, me and DH have different regional language and of course there is English which comes in quite often. The Doctor insists that we speak to him in all the three languages
Do not worry children are very smart they will learn English eventually as they will be more exposed to it when they go to school. I also insist that my child learns regional language too.

hrastro · Mar 19, 2015

Whats the harm in speaking multiple languages?

I taught my son 4 languages - even when he was 6 months old - I would talk to him constantly and show him pictures and real life objects and name them in all the languages - Our primary language is Telugu but I was staying in Tamil nadu when he started speaking - so Tamil, and Hindi and English

I would act out rhymes and songs in all 4 languages - and translate each into the native language and other languages too ...

I had all the 4 alphabet charts on a wall that he faced while eating - he would point at some picture and I would tell it in all 4 languages!

I made up a song with a nice tune that I would sing - that would tell him an animal's bird's or vegetable's name in all 4 languages...

I NEVER used the babyish language - so he never lisped ! His name has 3 syllables (in sanskrit) and each syllable is one and half letter (mixed letter) !!! He could say it before many adults could say it

He started speaking complete sentences at 1 year and 2 months (and hasnt stopped talking still at 10 :spin)

By the time he was 2, he had more than 200 proper nouns in just his english vocabulary (animals, birds, vegetables, fruits ) and almost the same in the other languages too and could recognize and say it from a picture - even in unfamiliar books - I even added the scientific names of some of the animals and plants )

And by 3, he could chant Om and sing many many slokas ! And identify and tell the story of Ram, Hanuman, Krishna etc - he even won a bhagavad gita competition at 4

When he was 4, I noticed that my son could identify the "dialect" - My FIL was from interior Andhra and my sister's husband was born and brought up in Tamil Nadu and spoke a different telugu.
I generally use a lot of english words and hindi words for many objects in my speech - and my DH speaks only Telugu words when he speaks in telugu!
Even at 4, he would use the right words with each person !
For instance, if he was speaking to me, he would tell (for 'in the kitchen') "Kitchen lo" but with my DH he would use the word "Vantagadi lo" (Telugu), to my sister's DH he would say "Vantillo" and with the servant maid - "samayal roomile"

So I would suggest let them absorb as many words as they can - they are capable! And even if they make mistakes - be cool and gently correct them, dont get worried - they wont remember these specific words or language their entire life - but the neurons that get connected in their brains at this age will make it easier to learn throughout their entire life!

Since we shifted to another state, at 10, my son speaks Telugu, English and Hindi fluently, learns Sanskrit as his second language but just remembers a few tamil words

He could recognize about 80 different types of dinosaurs at 4 years of age - he could tell whether they are carnivore/herbivore, their teeth, their legs, the bigger, biggest, their protective aspect and some of their scientific names too - Ask him now - nope, he hardly remembers 10-15
But that's not important !

Because I should tell you he grasps concepts very quickly - If there are 10 steps to a solution, he moves from 1st to 5th to 10th step and gets/understands stuff, while I might have to explain every single step to another child !

jskls · Mar 20, 2015

OP, as @hrastro mentioned keep those neurons firing....

You never know when multi lingual skills would come handy

Laks09 · Mar 20, 2015

@SGBV - If I had only my DD, native tongue would have won hands down! She spoke only our native language and started day care at age three. She picked up English in no time. She can read/write/speak our language and she is good at two other Indian Languages. She is an honor's student in English and she has been taking the French Exams since last year. She is truly a linguist. She hears conversations in German among cabin crew on planes and then once they move away translates it for me word by word. Who knows where she finds the similarity but she tells me it's just like French.

Now with my son, I stuck to my language. When we started therapy we did both languages. I still didn't give up on my language even when parent after parent switched completely to English. I made a mistake. I should have switched to English last year. His brain is just not capable of deciphering complex things like language. Now something like a locked door and he'll find a way to unlock it!

Today I say, it depends completely on the child. A lot of time I took pride in my DD's language skills. I kept telling people that's because we speak two Indian languages regularly at home. That isn't the case. Some kids are genetically programmed to pick up languages in a jiffy(I know you are one such person). Some just don't have the ability.

Do whatever works for your kids. English is supposed to be easy if they have mastered some native tongue.