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Maybe by being raised in a bi-lingual family where the parents did not speak each other's language when they met? This is how it is for me and my children: I sp

Maybe by being raised in a bi-lingual family where the parents did not speak each other's language when they met? This is how it is for me and my children: I speak English with my wife and Dutch with my children. She speaks Swedish with them, English with me. I have no problems speaking Swedish but things just ended up this way and it'd feel strange to speak Swedish to her. I often do speak Swedish to my children when there are Swedes around so they can understand as well but for the rest it is Dutch which counts. This has led to them speaking Swedish, Dutch and English at a young age (my youngest daughter is 6, she speaks Swedish and Dutch and is coming along quite well in English (as in 'speaking', she already understands most of what is being said). The younger a child learns a language, the easier it is for them so I can only see advantages in this approach. My oldest daughter now goes to a school with a 'French' profile so she'll end up speaking at least 4 languages, one of them (French) a romance language [1] for some contrast to the three Germanic languages (Swedish, Dutch and English). In other words, speak your native language with your children, you'll be doing them a favour. Just make sure they learn the language of the land as well, preferably at home before they go to school. [1] https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages

bloak 8y ago
In practice the local language always becomes the child's strongest language, whatever you do, so if the local language is the language of the land then you don't need to "make sure they learn the language of the land": it will look after itself. Your problem will be to prevent the local language from completely replacing the other languages.
- Yetanfou 8y ago
  The local language is not always the language of the land. In parts of Sweden the local language is Arabic, children growing up there sometimes don't get to speak Swedish before they go to primary school at the age of 7. They could have the bad luck of ending up at a pre-school where nobody speaks Swedish [1] which makes it even harder for them to learn the language of the land. From the article: "På Missansia förskola har alla barn utom ett vårdnadshavare med ett annat modersmål än svenska. Enda stället där de kan tala eller uppmuntras att utveckla svenska är därför i förskolan. Utbildningsnämnden konstaterar därför att "om då förskolan enbart har personal i småbarnsgruppen som inte kan svenska får dessa barn ingen uppmuntran i det svenska språket". Nämnden utrycker också en oro över att barnen riskerar att få en sämre start än sina klasskamrater i skolan, vilket kan medföra en sämre kunskapsutveckling och ett utanförskap. – Förskolan ska bedrivas på svenska, det är extra viktigt när de talar sitt modersmål hemma. Grunden är att vi måste garantera barns rätt till en bra förskola, säger Olle Johansson." ...which translates to: "At Missansia pre-school all children except for one have parents (the word used is 'vårdnadshavare' which means 'custodians') with a native tongue other than Swedish. This means the only place where they can speak or be motivated to develop Swedish is pre-school. The school board therefore concludes that "if pre-school only has personnel (in the group for the youngest children) who can not speak Swedish this means those children do no get any motivation in the Swedish language" The board also is worried that the children will have a worse start than their classmates in school which can lead to worse results and segregation. – Pre-school has to be run in Swedish, this is extra important when they speak their native tongue at home. The reason is that we have to guarantee the child's right to a good pre-school, says Olle Johansson. [1] http://nt.se/nyheter/norrkoping/ingen-i-personalen-kunde-svenska-om5307212.aspx http://nt.se/nyheter/norrkoping/ingen-i-personalen-kunde-sve...

bloak 8y ago

In practice the local language always becomes the child's strongest language, whatever you do, so if the local language is the language of the land then you don't need to "make sure they learn the language of the land": it will look after itself. Your problem will be to prevent the local language from completely replacing the other languages.

Yetanfou 8y ago
The local language is not always the language of the land. In parts of Sweden the local language is Arabic, children growing up there sometimes don't get to speak Swedish before they go to primary school at the age of 7. They could have the bad luck of ending up at a pre-school where nobody speaks Swedish [1] which makes it even harder for them to learn the language of the land. From the article: "På Missansia förskola har alla barn utom ett vårdnadshavare med ett annat modersmål än svenska. Enda stället där de kan tala eller uppmuntras att utveckla svenska är därför i förskolan. Utbildningsnämnden konstaterar därför att "om då förskolan enbart har personal i småbarnsgruppen som inte kan svenska får dessa barn ingen uppmuntran i det svenska språket". Nämnden utrycker också en oro över att barnen riskerar att få en sämre start än sina klasskamrater i skolan, vilket kan medföra en sämre kunskapsutveckling och ett utanförskap. – Förskolan ska bedrivas på svenska, det är extra viktigt när de talar sitt modersmål hemma. Grunden är att vi måste garantera barns rätt till en bra förskola, säger Olle Johansson." ...which translates to: "At Missansia pre-school all children except for one have parents (the word used is 'vårdnadshavare' which means 'custodians') with a native tongue other than Swedish. This means the only place where they can speak or be motivated to develop Swedish is pre-school. The school board therefore concludes that "if pre-school only has personnel (in the group for the youngest children) who can not speak Swedish this means those children do no get any motivation in the Swedish language" The board also is worried that the children will have a worse start than their classmates in school which can lead to worse results and segregation. – Pre-school has to be run in Swedish, this is extra important when they speak their native tongue at home. The reason is that we have to guarantee the child's right to a good pre-school, says Olle Johansson. [1] http://nt.se/nyheter/norrkoping/ingen-i-personalen-kunde-svenska-om5307212.aspx http://nt.se/nyheter/norrkoping/ingen-i-personalen-kunde-sve...