I often hear that child refuses to speak minority or parent's/grandparent's native language in public (more on this later). However, I also came across instances when the child
refuses to speak the minority language altogether.
I get many people praising how our oldest is capable to switch into three different languages. His younger brother is too young for actual speaking ( for a multilingual child - yes mine do speak late...more on this later) but even him now switches the limited words he has three-way depending to whom he is speaking to. Yes, kids are individuals and we have been very lucky but also there are some approaches that we have tried and tested.
Well, this is what has worked for us:
We made it a need for both LingoBabas to speak in the minority languages. This means I make it obvious that it is an absolute necessity to speak to their parents in a respective language. With a toddler that is about to start speaking, we affirm the new word (said in the majority language) in the native language. Please refer to the earlier
post.
With a bigger child (
3 years upwards), I make it clear that I do not receive or initiate any communication with her in English ( the majority language). LittleLingo tried to speak to me in English when he returned from his nursery session. I simply say that I do not speak English and why does not he try in my native language. It has been as simple as that. He tried to speak in English to LingoPapa. At such instance it was me reminding him that dad speaks in Urdu.
I do say that "I do not understand" (
'Nerozumim' ) or simple "Excuse me, what did you say?" ...and he switches into minority language.
What is really important is to praise the child when he uses the desired language to describe what he has done for example in nursery. Show your enthusiasm! I tend to say : " Great job! You can speak really good Czech and it sounds so nice, thank you now I fully understand."
What to look for is that the child might pick up
new vocabulary at school or totally new topic. Which is brilliant. What we do is that when LittleLingo wants to share what he learnt or did he tries to explain as much as he can in the minority language and he asks for translation of words he does not know.
For example: While LittleLingo can speak a about a animals in the minority language because we speak about animals a lot. So he does have large vocab on this topic. But when they spoke about bats ( nocturnal animals) at nursery he got stuck telling me all about them and asked: "Mami, jak se řekne "upside down". ( Mummy, how do you say "upside down"). And this way he expands his vocab in hisminority language.
The same applies when he speaks to his father and is run out of vocab in his other minority language. He asks and papa provides the translation and maybe adds some synonyms.
It is a fact that
you will definitely end up talking to your child more if you decide to raise her with more than one language. You need to speak and try to have conversations a lot. LingoPapa struggled with this and there are ways to help you develop this skill and props you can use.
Create a need for the child to speak in the minority language. Some people say that is it only about the need to speak. I believe that fondness for the language, pride in the cultural heritage and being comfortable to use the language goes a long way...for us anyway.
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