Time for the community language
When my daughter had to see a speech therapist because of her speech delay (NOT due to her multilingualism but probably to an auditive processing disorder, but that is another story), I have had to build in little “islands” of German conversation during the day in which we had to practice various exercises, games and stories which the therapist gave us.
I’d make a “time-out” sign and indicated to Isabella that we would speak German now. She’d follow my lead willingly. We played those games (e.g. memory), and I made sure to repeat the game again in English. That usually worked quite well.
She is doing rather well now with her German, despite an occasional glitch in grammar.
As for Dominik, what can I say: he speaks German with an accent, like a foreigner! But what I noticed lately, is that he is definitely picking up the Austrian dialect, a lot more so than my older daughter did. And it sounds rather cute.
What to do, though, when they speak to you in the majority language?
We had this problem for a short while when Isabella was maybe 3, 4 years old. No matter what language you spoke to her, whether English or Spanish, she’d reply in German (or her version thereof).
She snapped out of this quickly when she realized that I would keep speaking English to her no matter what. I’d repeat back to her what she just said to me, in English. Every. Single. Time.
This takes nerves of iron and the patience of a saint! But it worked!
So as far as the majority language being “evil” – well. I would say you need to keep an eye on it like one eyes a pacing tiger, who remains, preferably, behind those bars. I wouldn’t panic just yet. Unless you open those doors and you let it pounce on you, for supper.
Photo credit: Chris Metcalf
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
And here I was hoping that my kids would have a lovely English accent
Well, they might.
Interesting what you say about the gender issues and things like that. Are you sure it’s due to your kids multilingualism? What I mean is, maybe all kids who speak German have issues with gender at some point or another, or grammar. I know Spanish ones do. There’s always exceptions to the rule that kids do wrong at first, and eventually learn, without involving other languages to blame for it.
Oh no, and I thought I was being clear that I did NOT think it was because of our multilingualism!!!! But because of the vexing nature of the German language (she doesn’t do this in English, of course). So of course I agree with you 100% that there are also monolingual kids who do the same.
We are, as of this date, not sure WHY Isabella had those problems. I got all sorts of interesting answers to that from professionals, from auditive processing disorder, to a lack of “linguistic talent” (would you believe it???), and so forth. In retrospect, and I know this sounds odd and contradictory, but it could simply have been a LACK of exposure to the majority language. I know this is the case with Dominik right now (I don’t worry about it, though, because as I learned from Isabella, they do quite fine by the time they reach school age).
Your article had me chuckling, I’m definitely keeping an eye on the pacing tiger”!!!!
Wow I loved the thought of an island in the middle of the day for the majority language. And the idea of repeating words they say in the majority language into the other every single time. Good stuff!
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