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I have a friend who grew up in a home where her mom and grandma spoke to her only in Spanish and her dad only spoke to her in English. She was surprised when s

I have a friend who grew up in a home where her mom and grandma spoke to her only in Spanish and her dad only spoke to her in English. She was surprised when she went to Kindergarten and her teacher spoke English. She thought Spanish was what women spoke and that English was for men.

tsuyoshi 12y ago
I am American and my wife is Cambodian. We live in a Cambodian neighborhood in the United States. We have a daughter, born in Cambodia, who is now 4. I speak to her in English and her mother (and everyone else in the neighborhood) speaks to her in Cambodian. Until she started preschool last September, virtually everyone except myself talked to her in Cambodian. Not too long ago, she asked me why some person (I think it was a waiter at a restaurant) spoke English and not Cambodian. For her, everyone spoke Cambodian, and then some of them also spoke English. I tried to explain that in America, most people actually speak English and not Cambodian. After that explanation, she kept asking "is this place America?" everywhere we went for a few days.
jedc 12y ago
I know a German couple where both parents speak English and German. (Though the wife is much more comfortable with English than her husband.) The way they interact with their daughter is that the father always speaks German to her, and the mother always speaks English. At one point, the mom had to tell her daughter that "you have to have daddy read you that book, because it's in German." :) It's working pretty well so far for their daughter; she's certainly comfortable and fluent (for her age) in both languages.
mootothemax 12y ago
She thought Spanish was what women spoke and that English was for men. I know a woman who grew up in Germany, and whose parents spoke Polish at home. As a child she was convinced that German was for children, and Polish is the language you speak when you've grown up.
frooxie 12y ago
Generalizing from a single case can be tricky. I read this somewhere: "I had a friend growing up whose mom is white and dad is black. Apparently when he was little, he asked his mother why white people had vaginas."

tsuyoshi 12y ago

I am American and my wife is Cambodian. We live in a Cambodian neighborhood in the United States. We have a daughter, born in Cambodia, who is now 4. I speak to her in English and her mother (and everyone else in the neighborhood) speaks to her in Cambodian. Until she started preschool last September, virtually everyone except myself talked to her in Cambodian. Not too long ago, she asked me why some person (I think it was a waiter at a restaurant) spoke English and not Cambodian. For her, everyone spoke Cambodian, and then some of them also spoke English. I tried to explain that in America, most people actually speak English and not Cambodian. After that explanation, she kept asking "is this place America?" everywhere we went for a few days.

jedc 12y ago

I know a German couple where both parents speak English and German. (Though the wife is much more comfortable with English than her husband.) The way they interact with their daughter is that the father always speaks German to her, and the mother always speaks English. At one point, the mom had to tell her daughter that "you have to have daddy read you that book, because it's in German." :) It's working pretty well so far for their daughter; she's certainly comfortable and fluent (for her age) in both languages.

mootothemax 12y ago

She thought Spanish was what women spoke and that English was for men. I know a woman who grew up in Germany, and whose parents spoke Polish at home. As a child she was convinced that German was for children, and Polish is the language you speak when you've grown up.

frooxie 12y ago

Generalizing from a single case can be tricky. I read this somewhere: "I had a friend growing up whose mom is white and dad is black. Apparently when he was little, he asked his mother why white people had vaginas."