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I really wish my parents had taught me a second language growing up
- Thread starter SolVanderlyn
- Start date
My wife is Filipina and this seems to be a very common problem with the FilAm diaspora. It really bothers her that she was never taught Ilokano or Tagalog.
Yeah, I was like this as a kid/teen. Mom would always speak to me in Arabic but I'd always reply in English. Came back to bite me in the ass because my Arabic sucks now as an adult.
Spanish is my son's (and mine) native language. However, my son speak better in English than in Spanish. He speaks English with no accent and has trouble with some Spanish verbs and such.
It's OK, OP.
I took Spanish for over 5+ yrs and I still can't really use it in an everyday context so.
Then my Mandarin is extremely limited and it's awk telling people: I need you to stop talking about me like I'm not there. There's no one to speak Mandarin to since I was the only Chinese-American person for decades in classes lol. No real interest to take more courses in the future either. So it goes.
I took Spanish for over 5+ yrs and I still can't really use it in an everyday context so.
Then my Mandarin is extremely limited and it's awk telling people: I need you to stop talking about me like I'm not there. There's no one to speak Mandarin to since I was the only Chinese-American person for decades in classes lol. No real interest to take more courses in the future either. So it goes.
I learned Mandarin informally through my parents. I went to Chinese school once a week like everyone else but it didn't do much. I can listen and speak, but my reading is limited to like 50 characters and my writing is even more dismal.
I'm planning to speak to my kids in Chinese so they'll at least be able to understand it. I'm thinking of getting them a Spanish speaking tutor/nanny as well when they hit about one to two years in age, so they'll hopefully get a very elementary level of Spanish education.
Learning new languages is very difficult once you get past a certain age, honestly, unless you move into full immersion OR you're naturally gifted.
I'm planning to speak to my kids in Chinese so they'll at least be able to understand it. I'm thinking of getting them a Spanish speaking tutor/nanny as well when they hit about one to two years in age, so they'll hopefully get a very elementary level of Spanish education.
Learning new languages is very difficult once you get past a certain age, honestly, unless you move into full immersion OR you're naturally gifted.
I took 11 years of Chinese school, which was every Saturday for two hours. I almost "graduated" from that program. And now I speak nothing. Both my younger sisters who quit way before I did speak way better. Some people are just better at languages. I was always terrible. I think it isn't too late for you OP if you have the interest and aptitude, which I think is more important. Watch a lot of dramas in the language you're interested in as that's why my sisters and my wife can speak to my grandma while I just sit awkwardly in the corner.
This is basically what my grandparents did to my dad. Some combination of "raise him fully American" (Granddad was a WW2 vet so patriotism was running very high) and using Polish as a code language when they didn't want the kids to understand. Which just resulted in the kids learning to decipher it well enough to understand what mom and sad were talking about, but not well enough to speak it for themselves, so it died out there, and my understanding is they all ended up later regretting it.
Grew up with 2 languages in the household and English in school. Yeah it's a huge benefit as kids absorb languages much more quickly.
Agreed.
Did the normal 5 to 6 years of Spanish in school, learned shit in the end.
Worked as a waiter for a year with a large amount of time spent in the kitchen. Not fluent in Spanish, but I could easily hold full on conversations with any of the staff by the end. Put yourself in the situation with the open mind to learn and you'll pick it up, but I always thought how much easier this would have been if I just learned it as a kid.
Did the normal 5 to 6 years of Spanish in school, learned shit in the end.
Worked as a waiter for a year with a large amount of time spent in the kitchen. Not fluent in Spanish, but I could easily hold full on conversations with any of the staff by the end. Put yourself in the situation with the open mind to learn and you'll pick it up, but I always thought how much easier this would have been if I just learned it as a kid.
Languages I learn later in life I always have to translate in my head, whereas languages I've known since I was a kid just parse naturally to me
Big advantage of learning a language younger
Big advantage of learning a language younger
Oh that's crazy, what the hell? It does explain why most I know only know a bit of Spanish or German at most lmao
I agree that learning languages isn't much harder as an adult, it's just that many want to be fluent in what feels like a month & when they of course don't get there that fast they just give up? And it's definitely hard to forgive yourself for making stupid mistakes that you wouldn't have thought about twice as a kid. But yeah, it's definitely not impossible.
Same. You can 'learn' a language later but it will never be the same as if you learned it from a young age. All through high school and most of college, I was in a Spanish class of some kind or other every single semester, but I'm still not fluent. I can read Spanish to some degree and could probably pick it up again pretty quickly, especially since it's mainly vocabulary and not syntax holding me back, but someone half the age I was when I started learning would have gotten much further in far less time.
My big regret regarding learning at a young age is learning how to play an instrument. My mom actually offered to pay for piano lessons when I was really young (like 5 or 6 years old) - it would have been quite a bit of a financial burden since we were relatively poor, but she made the offer. Apparently I told her no. I regret that now.
My big regret regarding learning at a young age is learning how to play an instrument. My mom actually offered to pay for piano lessons when I was really young (like 5 or 6 years old) - it would have been quite a bit of a financial burden since we were relatively poor, but she made the offer. Apparently I told her no. I regret that now.
My dad prevented my mom/grandparents from teaching my brothers and I Hungarian, which I will always see as a missed opportunity. If I ever have children and my partner has the chance to teach them another language, I will totally support it.
I can understand not wanting your children to leave you out of conversations, but at the same time it is so much cooler having people be multi-lingual.
I can understand not wanting your children to leave you out of conversations, but at the same time it is so much cooler having people be multi-lingual.
Good language learning programs use little-to-no language outside of the target language so that the new language becomes attached to concepts & ideas rather than to your original language. Like for example, ULAT is one of the best online language programs I've seen and other than the initial instructions on how the program works, it's all in the language you're trying to learn.
OP
OP
Some very interesting responses in this thread. Surprised that people are surprised that the US doesn't have a very good infrastructure for second language education in schools. It's there if you want it, but not until middle or high school and most people I know who took those classes still speak minimal French or Spanish (the two major languages you can choose from).
Also, for some context, half of my family is Cuban and I was never able to communicate with my grandmother, despite her being a constant chatterbox. She gave me a really sweet letter shortly before she died, translated by my father, about looking forward to being able to talk to me in heaven forever. I still wish I could have understood her in this life.
Apparently trying to teach me and my siblings Spanish as a kid "confused us," especially my brother, who didn't speak for a really long time. I'm not really sure how hard they tried, or if we were just really averse to it, or whatever. My first word was in Spanish but I don't speak any now (I also took it in middle and high school but nearly failed all the time).
Based on this thread alone it seems like entertainment is the easiest way to learn it as a kid, which makes sense as there's intrinsic motivation to understand the language there. Hell, that's why I went to study Japanese and even eventually moved there - because of my weeb phase in high school.
Also, for some context, half of my family is Cuban and I was never able to communicate with my grandmother, despite her being a constant chatterbox. She gave me a really sweet letter shortly before she died, translated by my father, about looking forward to being able to talk to me in heaven forever. I still wish I could have understood her in this life.
Apparently trying to teach me and my siblings Spanish as a kid "confused us," especially my brother, who didn't speak for a really long time. I'm not really sure how hard they tried, or if we were just really averse to it, or whatever. My first word was in Spanish but I don't speak any now (I also took it in middle and high school but nearly failed all the time).
Based on this thread alone it seems like entertainment is the easiest way to learn it as a kid, which makes sense as there's intrinsic motivation to understand the language there. Hell, that's why I went to study Japanese and even eventually moved there - because of my weeb phase in high school.
Yeah I did this as a Swedish kid with Finnish parents, they would mostly speak Finnish at home but I always answered in Swedish.
As a kid we would visit relatives atleast twice per year so I still spoke just fine but nowadays I rarely visit and it's a bit of a bummer how bad it's gotten.
Having Indian/Egyptian ancestry means I grew up with Punjabi (and Urdu to an extent) and Arabic along with English here in the UK. I've found it makes learning other languages a tad easier.
How does that happen? Are you able to respond/understand her French well enough to hold a proper conversation?
The imagery of two people communicating in different languages, but still able to understand each other, is pretty funny, lol
OP
OP
My co-workers and I did this all the time in Japan. They understood English well but didn't like to speak it if they could help it, and I felt the same about Japanese. One guy in particular (an English teacher, too) really avoided speaking English whenever he could.
Understanding is generally a hundred times easier than speaking, so if you both understand both languages, it's easier to just speak in the one you're better at speaking.
It's like the old Soul Edge/Calibur games where everyone magically understands everyone's native language, lol.
I live in Montreal - Canada, my 2 kids were born here, I always spoke Spanish to them my wife is German so she has always spoken German to my kids, they go to School in French and English. They speak the 4 languages no problem, they can start a conversation with me in Spanish then switch to German on the fly to continue the story with their mom, they play with their friends either in French or English same goes for TV. They don't even realize how lucky they are they can fluently speak 4 languages, they didn't have to break their heads learning them, these languages were just coded naturally into them since they were babies.
That sudden realization that I've been doing the same with my own parents.
I mostly answer in English and they mostly answer in their native tongue.
Oh god, lmao
I'm the only one who speaks English around her so I'm the odd one out.
I'm fluent in French, so it's not a problem. But yeah, I talk to her in English and she talks to me in French.
I'm looking forward ro Covid being finished so I can send her off to her grandparents in the states for a loooong linguistic sejour.
I'm actually kind of an exception to this as I was in a French immersion program that essentially meant all of my elementary school and some of my middle school education was in French. I have no clue how widespread this programs are though, I can't imagine there's many outside of metro areas.
I'm grateful to have had parents who cared to pass on their home country, values, and culture to me and spoke to me in both languages which is going to be the same way I'll do for my kids.
I see it a lot with adult Hispanics. Parents know Spanish but for whatever reason never bothered to teach their children spanish. Then it just makes things more difficult as an adult because culturally they're hispanic but at the same time there's this rift between.
A lot of time they're embarrassed because they can't communicate properly or get inside jokes because of the language barriers.
I think knowing another language does help. I'm bilingual and learning japanese in college was pretty easy. Obviously I'm super rusty since I haven't used it since but it did come to me surprisingly easy.
A lot of time they're embarrassed because they can't communicate properly or get inside jokes because of the language barriers.
I think knowing another language does help. I'm bilingual and learning japanese in college was pretty easy. Obviously I'm super rusty since I haven't used it since but it did come to me surprisingly easy.
I'll never understand why one would willingly limit their children in such a major way. I'm a Latino, and what my parents did was they spoke Spanish to my siblings and me while we were learning English in school and speaking it to our non-Latino friends (and amongst my siblings). If and when I have kids of my own, I really hope I'm not too lazy to speak to them in Spanish, seeing as how I know a lot more English than Spanish.
It sucks even more when you've got a multilingual family, but nobody bothers to use their languages with you besides English.
Grandmother spoke 6 or 7 reasonably well but probably felt more comfortable reading them. As an immigrant to the US she felt she should only speak English, so she never taught any of us.
Mom was a Spanish teacher for 30 years. Spoke well enough for a non native speaker that her students assumed it was her first language. Never spoke it at home.
We made sure with our kids they were getting schooled in language from early on at least. I know they've regulalry passed the kanken exams for their grades up through elementary school and I believe junior high, so I think they're doing pretty well.
Sucks when everyone else picks apart your terrible vocabulary and sentence structure though.
Grandmother spoke 6 or 7 reasonably well but probably felt more comfortable reading them. As an immigrant to the US she felt she should only speak English, so she never taught any of us.
Mom was a Spanish teacher for 30 years. Spoke well enough for a non native speaker that her students assumed it was her first language. Never spoke it at home.
We made sure with our kids they were getting schooled in language from early on at least. I know they've regulalry passed the kanken exams for their grades up through elementary school and I believe junior high, so I think they're doing pretty well.
Sucks when everyone else picks apart your terrible vocabulary and sentence structure though.
I concur, I didn't make that mistake with my son. He's bilingual and we're hoping to get him a third language but can't decide on what.
I think about this almost every day and only recently, like RECENTLY within the past few weeks, stopped being self-conscious about it. My whole life, right after being asked what my ethnicity is, the follow up question is "oh do you speak Spanish? No? Well do you speak Japanese? No?" I think that made me develop a complex early on.
But the thing is I'm fourth gen Japanese and Mexican and my parents don't know their respective languages either. They grew up in a time and place in LA when they and my grandparents thought it would behoove them to speak English only to ~blend in~ better and so that mentality kinda got pushed into us. But me and my siblings reject that and are invested in learning more about our heritages while we still have relatives that can pass things down.
But the thing is I'm fourth gen Japanese and Mexican and my parents don't know their respective languages either. They grew up in a time and place in LA when they and my grandparents thought it would behoove them to speak English only to ~blend in~ better and so that mentality kinda got pushed into us. But me and my siblings reject that and are invested in learning more about our heritages while we still have relatives that can pass things down.
I never bother d to keep up with Spanish, so I'm a disappointment to some family members. Kinda wish I had stuck with it, but for myself.
If you ask my parents, the excuse is that they spoke different dialects and couldn't agree on what to teach me. I think the real reason is laziness plus the convenience of being openly able to discuss "hush hush" stuff in front of me.
Americanization is real because now I feel almost zero need to speak anything other than English. I only regret being unable to really talk to my grandparents, but hey I'll get over it lol
Growing up in a bilingual household is a gift I can never be more thankful for. I can't even imagine only knowing and regularly using one language. I remember before I started kindergarten, being really excited to learn English.
Kids can learn anything. If I knew any kids, I'd tell them to learn a language early on because it's the best thing they can learn.
Kids can learn anything. If I knew any kids, I'd tell them to learn a language early on because it's the best thing they can learn.
My parents had a simple system. Speak our native language (Greek) at home, and let the schools handle my English. Worked out, I'm glad they went that route.
Yeah, this is how we do it. Actually we've had our son in both countries - we speak the 'foreign' one at home. He picks up the local language from media or just being outside (before lockdown...).
He's about to turn 3 and can easily translate between both languages, it's pretty incredible.
As a 30+ y/o, learning new language for me (something I wanted to do since last year and finally put my foot down during quarantine) has not been easy. I started learning German last year in bits and pieces and to date, I have not yet been able to complete the "Basic" lessons (still trying though). I did not expect German words to be as tongue twisting as they are turning out to be. And then unlike English, it also has gendered articles. Worst of all, I have no one to speak to in that language and therein lies my biggest challenge when it comes to retention and on the spot correction.
I also started learning Python and that has thrown me for a loop and unlike German, one cannot casually converse in programming language.
All that said, I do feel like it is absolutely worth learning a new language even if it is basic and requires you to translate in your head. With enough repetition that translation layer starts to disappear. So the challenge is repetition.
I also started learning Python and that has thrown me for a loop and unlike German, one cannot casually converse in programming language.
All that said, I do feel like it is absolutely worth learning a new language even if it is basic and requires you to translate in your head. With enough repetition that translation layer starts to disappear. So the challenge is repetition.
This. Im portugues and live in switzerland. Naturally you would assume that my second language was german (german part of ssitzerland). Wrong, the second language i learned was italian because we had just one portuguese channel here which was trash but a lot of italian ones because its one of the official languages in switzerland. Since italian is somewhat similar to portuguese we only watched italian tv. So i first learned portuguese as a native language, then italian and then german in school. Then also french in school but im not good at french. I can communicate a bit but im not fluent. English i learned through videogames and later on i learned it a lot better through youtube and the internet in general. Oh and i also speak spanish, it shares 95% of its vocabulary with portuguese but since i also worked a lot with south americans i speak it better than the average portuguese since working with people who speak it made me learn the dofferences and details better. So yeah, i speak 6 languages (5 of them fluent) and the vast majority of it i learned through media.
I only had my mother speak to me in an Indian language growing up (Bengali) and I spoke back to her in a mixture of both English and Bengali. I never had any interest in learning how to read or write in Bengali, however. The two years of Japanese I took in college, learning grammar/to speak/vocab was a cakewalk but learning kanji and writing was a pain -_-.
Well, what if your parents didn't do it, but TV did?
As a kid, I would get up before some program was on, and while waiting for it, switch over to the French channel, where they had a simple animated Spanish course on. So while I speak neither well, the phrase " ¿por favor?" is probably ingrained in my skull somewhere.
Very European indeed. Klootzak!
It is rather frustrating to realize I'll never 'git gud' at the Romance languages due to the slightly different word order and structure though. I am also very, very uncomfortable with even trying another language except English. Which is sort of weird, considering English is supposed to be 'the weird one' in terms of the Germanic languages. I'm not even comfortable in German, ffs. And then other countries are like: "but Dutch is like German, right?" ... Godnondeju.
As a kid, I would get up before some program was on, and while waiting for it, switch over to the French channel, where they had a simple animated Spanish course on. So while I speak neither well, the phrase " ¿por favor?" is probably ingrained in my skull somewhere.
Very European indeed. Klootzak!
It is rather frustrating to realize I'll never 'git gud' at the Romance languages due to the slightly different word order and structure though. I am also very, very uncomfortable with even trying another language except English. Which is sort of weird, considering English is supposed to be 'the weird one' in terms of the Germanic languages. I'm not even comfortable in German, ffs. And then other countries are like: "but Dutch is like German, right?" ... Godnondeju.
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After a few years of daily Duolingo I'm getting to this point in German (I learned a bit while living in Germany in middle school). I try to read news in German daily and will often encounter new words and be able to figure out their meaning, while having trouble figuring out the equivalent English word. Though that might just be because of how German words are constructed. The big words are usually just made up of smaller German words, as opposed to big English words which are usually of Greek or Latin origin.
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