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This is a thing I saw a lot when growing up in Toronto. It's bizarre to go to something like a BBQ at your friend's house and they'll introduce you to someone l
by morkalork 3y ago
This is a thing I saw a lot when growing up in Toronto. It's bizarre to go to something like a BBQ at your friend's house and they'll introduce you to someone like their grandma who only speaks Portuguese or Mandarin but your friend only speaks English. Often times it's the middle generation that is bilingual because they were raised in their native language at home but they aren't confident enough to do the same with their own children, or they married outside of their culture so only one of the parents knows the language and it doesn't get passed on.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- aerio 3y agoI am one of these relationships, my partner is Australian and I am Norwegian. We both want our kid to learn Norwegian of course, but it's clearly going to be hard, as we keep forgetting to speak Norwegian at home ourselves.
- morkalork 3y agoAfter some life experience, I honestly believe the default mode is to lose the second language. Both my parents could speak French but as an adult I'm basically starting from scratch on my own. What they didn't do is the extra effort. When I was young, I knew kids that were Jewish and had to go to Hebrew Sunday school even though they hated it. As an adult I know families that send their kids off to Bulgaria and Hungary during the summer to live with their extended families. Francophones in Ontario enroll their kids into French immersion classes, and others sign their kids up for after school calligraphy classes for Arabic. Another example is a local private school that is run by a Greek orthodox church which has Greek as a core language, the students' experience culminates in a class trip to Greece. It is a real uphill battle that takes time, money, effort, and access to some kind of community to maintain.