Hello from London, UK! Intro and trilingual concerns in one
Mar 1, 2020 1:15:04 GMT 9
Post by Vaishali P on Mar 1, 2020 1:15:04 GMT 9
Hello everyone!
I'm new to this forum and new to the fact that online resources for bilingualism/trilingualism exist!
So what follows is long, but it serves as both an introduction to our family and there is a short version at the beginning before the long version starts. I've already emailed Adam separately about this.
2 MONTH - 6 MONTH WINDOW PERIOD PANIC: ENGLISH, SLOVAK AND MANDARIN TRILINGUAL HELP NEEDED
I would be very grateful some feedback on our situation which follows - there is a short version and a long version! Grateful that I realised in Jan 2020 that help actually exists online - for almost 3 years I’ve been doing this alone. Just didn’t realise I could get help before (like I did for other baby/toddler things like breastfeeding etc!)
SHORT VERSION
(I am Mama, by the way!)
(Background:
- Mama is native English speaker with passable Slovak and beginner’s Mandarin. Mama is half Chinese and although a complete beginner in speaking, has knowledge of Chinese calligraphy, some basic characters etc; no living Mandarin or Shanghainese speaking relatives anymore, only Cantonese. She is trying to (re)learn Chinese as she did ‘acquire’ some words as a child and then formally went to classes for a year as an adult, then forgot it all. And vowed to learn properly when she had kids (ie now!)
- Tati is native Slovak speaker with fluent English and no Mandarin at all
- Toddler, age 2.75, nearly 3, is fluent English speaker already and has passive knowledge of Slovak but doesn’t speak much, although understands most things; is beginning to speak with Slovak nanny and Tati; doesn’t speak much Mandarin but understands Mama’s beginner’s Mandarin words). This ’sequential bilingualism’ meant that English came first as mama was quite a relaxed new mother and just spent lots of time NOT researching bilingualism/trilingualism and indulging in English books with her baby, yet still encouraging Tati to speak Slovak, which he did, but also in a relaxed way only and also a bit reluctant as difficult for him to switch between English and Slovak. Now mama is having a mild panic because toddler will go to monolingual English nursery full time in September 2020, and he turns 3 in April 2020 and is afraid has missed the window period of 0-3 - well not missed it entirely, but is kind of late (but not too late) (she hopes!)
QUESTIONS
Can I mix all 3 approaches?
Time and Place
Minority Language At Home
One Person One Language
Time and Place:
- Mama and toddler attend Chinese playgroup lesson once a week for 45 mins
- Mama and toddler have a Slovak nanny twice a week for 2.5 hours (sometimes only once a week); she takes over and speaks Slovak while mama paints but if I want to interact it is all in Slovak; this is his only real definite consistent exposure
- Mama, Tati and toddler try to speak only Slovak on Sundays but inevitably this does lapse into English a lot and we code-switch too
- Mama reads beginner’s Mandarin to toddler daily (because she likes it and learns herself this way)
- Mama tries to read Slovak sometimes too but toddler bit resistant now, as he knows it’s not Mama’s native language, although Mama can read Slovak pretty well according to native speakers
Minority Language at Home:
- Mama sprinkles more and more Chinese in every day as she learns it with toddler; Tati cannot speak Chinese but is encouraging
- Tati tries his best to speak Slovak to mama but gets tired and lapses into English for important info
- Mama also sprinkles Slovak into daily conversations with toddler when alone but prefers to sprinkle Chinese, although her Slovak is much better, with the result that she sometimes code-switches between Chinese and Slovak and Is not sure this is good
One Person One Language:
- Mama speaks English but peppers it with Chinese increasingly as her own Chinese grows; toddler replies in English mostly but also surprises her sometimes. Mama has no embarrassment whatsoever about speaking her basic Mandarin and okay Slovak in public to her toddler as she knows It is correctable by accessible native speakers
- Tati tries his best to speak Slovak to toddler but he is tired from work and depends on his energy levels. When he is motivated toddler learns a lot. Otherwise for important info lapses to English. In public sadly he doesn’t want to speak Slovak when alone with him because of fear of racism (even though we live in London - the Brexit climate is real) which mama totally understands and blames other people, not him
I have just recently heard of the 2P2L (2 parents 2 languages) approach, ie us both speaking Slovak and English to our toddler but I’m not sure we are doing this fully or properly as we do do it, but my Slovak is only 1 step ahead of my toddler’s whereas my husband’s is 100. Plus we lapse into our majority language, English, far more than I like. I know the obvious solution is to improve my own Slovak to advanced level and also get my Mandarin up to speed, but this is a long term solution (am working on it) - what can I do in the short term?
Is there anything urgent I should implement in this critical window period between now, when toddler is with mama (me) and this September 2020, when he starts full time English nursery? (This question refers to the 30% idea I suppose)
Any advice on trilingual journeys on a budget?
We can’t afford London’s immersion schools. We can afford the Slovak nanny, and a Slovak Saturday afternoon nursery when he turns 3, and I will fork out for a Chinese private tutor once a week. I buy books whenever and wherever possible and have no qualms about spending money on books, ever (as I love them too and is part of my work anyway). However, they really do take ages to arrive (from Slovakia and China/Hong Kong).
Lastly, I may have more questions in the future, these are just the main ones for now! Would I also be able to contact you in the future as these come up?
******************************************************************************
LONG VERSION FOLLOWS
My main concern for now is (fairly understandable) spouse tiredness and lapsing into English and the long term concern is losing the minority languages (although I am aware that reading can safeguard the language, so I’m doing this).
BACKGROUND
I have a toddler who is almost 3 and expecting a 2nd baby soon. My husband is Slovak and I am British (grew up in Hong Kong for my childhood). We both speak English fluently but I am a native speaker, he is not, (his native language is Slovak) although it is his ‘main language’ now. I have passive knowledge of a few other languages (that is to say I have a general understanding of how a few languages work and also how they are acquired, and obviously a love for them) but don’t really use them (unless I have to read something for eg academic purposes), because my main goal (! I never actually had a concrete goal before 2020!) is: to raise our kids trilingually in English, Slovak and Mandarin Chinese. My Slovak is intermediate level but I have a higher reading knowledge. Basically if you set me down in Slovakia without my husband I wouldn’t die. And I would be able to find my way home too (my very basic criteria for a general knowledge of a language - can do this in French and Russian too, whereas I would probably die in eg Japan or Hungary). My Mandarin is non-existent, let’s say, so this is a language I am learning myself. I did actually start learning it once but let it ‘rest’, because I was focusing on other languages at the time (French, Russian, Persian, Slovak etc - all Indo-European, and I’ve spent time learning Georgian and now studying Arabic - paused because of Chinese panic). I also consciously decided that I’d ‘save Chinese’ for when I had a kid, so that we could learn together, as I’ve always thought of it as a really fun and rewarding language for kids. So now is the time! Crept up on me. My mother is Chinese and I grew up in Hong Kong, but never picked up Cantonese as both my parents spoke English together and I went to an English International school. But the ‘flavour’ of Chinese is in my bones somehow and I can understand many grammar structures and patterns intuitively. I also have a deep love of Chinese characters and am slowly passing on this love to my son with my own daily Chinese reading and writing (at an extremely slow and basic level). I have known the rudiments of Chinese calligraphy since childhood.
I decided on Chinese and Slovak because they are so different, because Slovak is a really difficult language (gender, number, case etc) and once you’ve got one Slavic language in your brain, it may be easier to acquire another in future (eg my intermediate Russian vastly helped and speeded up my Slovak acquisition).
Chinese is just ‘in my bones’ as above and also increasingly I miss being in the east. Language of the future too but for me is more of a love of the culture and a long-held ambition. English is obviously our main language as we live in England. Both sets of my grandparents (and my husband’s) were multilingual (Shanghainese… Russian…Hungarian, reflecting their histories and travels and the world in their time) so nurturing a ‘love of languages’ is not a problem. My husband is mixed himself (Russian, Czech, Hungarian but grew up in Slovakia speaking Slovak).
My father is Indian with Persian ancestry and speaks Gujarati (he ’lost’ his Swahili) but I didn’t want to add another Indo-European language (yet, let’s say!) as the 3rd language. Both my parents are bilingual and my mother speaks Cantonese, not Mandarin, and knows traditional, not simplified Chinese characters. But she can help me personally with the etymology and grammar and characters I don’t know.
So we are both very proud of our international heritage and feel ourselves and our kids to be citizens of the world. I want to reflect this in our toddler’s language too.
Our parenting philosophy is fairly relaxed/authoritative (not authoritarian but not passive either, we do believe in boundaries). The only 2 parenting books I’ve read that I agree with 100% (and I’ve read loads) are Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and Lawrence Cohen’s Playful Parenting. This is relevant for languages because I can’t implement a totally strict OPOL environment in my family, as detailed below, partly for language/practical reasons but partly also as we are not too strict in general. I do like a Montessori or Waldorf approach to things sometimes too but the main point is that we are artist-designer non-conventional parents so, you get what you get.
We live in London (!!!!! Multilingual paradise I know) so basically there is no excuse.
CURRENT SITUATION
SLOVAK
Slovak nanny comes for 2.5 hours twice a week on a good week. Sometimes once a week, depending. This is his ‘Slovak immersion’ and mine too, as we are always together. She takes over and does most of the speaking to him while I paint. She is his main source of CONSISTENT Slovak (the result of which he speaks Slovak with her, in his limited toddler way, but because I’m there in the room too, I’ve seen this slow incredible blossom). If we interact we also do it in Slovak, and this is the time he calls me ‘maminka’ (showing some sort of brain switch even though I am not Slovak). He has limited vocabulary and can hardly string a sentence together but when he is with her, strangely, I am less worried as I see for myself that he understands completely. He even interacts with me in Slovak during these sessions. However the minute the nanny leaves, he asks me ‘Can you speak English now, mama?’ - although he is getting used to my Slovak ‘out of hours’ too.
My husband: this is my main concern - he is too tired to speak Slovak to our toddler and this is increasing. We tried to initiate Slovak Sundays but due to tiredness this is very ‘relaxed’.
We can afford to go to Slovakia once a year (with my empty suitcase for the books! Their bookshops don’t ship internationally, maybe because there is no demand!) for about a week.
There just aren’t many Slovak kids’ resources (or adults, for that matter! I’ve already bought all the few adult learning resources that are available) (like there are in English, Chinese, Russian and other global languages) maybe because there are only 5 million speakers and hardly anyone learns it who is not Slovak. And many resources are actually translated from the original English or French books or films or whatever. There are some wonderful Czechoslovak resources which we all love. But they are set in a particular time and place (the 50s and 60s!) so wonder how long they will be relevant to a 21st century growing child.
CHINESE
I have been taking my toddler to a ‘Baby/Toddler Chinese’ adult-led playgroup with native Mandarin speakers who are absolutely brilliant - this is 5 star Mandarin immersion for me and him once a week for 45 mins. I am fully aware that it’s not enough but it’s almost the limit of my finances (London is one of the world’s most expensive cities and we both need to be here for work) - yet I don’t underestimate the power of this big input time - I see the results in myself. I am starting a Chinese book collection (so excited about this!) and we have a Chinese library in London. (Not sure if it’s open because of coronavirus though! In fact coronavirus has generally been detrimental to our language learning because of delays and closures of things, not to mention unwillingness to travel to airports now)
I follow Chinese mother blogs which are brilliant (eg. Betty Choi of Chalk Academy) and a source of vital inspiration. I don’t know where I’d be without them, and also the Facebook groups for this.
There are actually loads of Chinese kids’ resources. Some of varying quality but I know they are out there - however for lots of them you have to be able to navigate in Chinese to begin with (eg for Chinese websites).
My toddler doesn’t have a living Mandarin-speaking relative anymore - which maybe has made it more of a personal quest, and perhaps why I have amped up my Chinese goal to match or even surpass the Slovak goal, which wasn’t my initial aim.
I am on maternity leave until December 2020. With the 2nd baby I will start speaking my basic Mandarin from the start and also read basic Mandarin to him and read in Slovak to him.
Part of my PhD (which is otherwise unrelated to languages - it’s in fine art and to do with memory athousandnightsandanight.co.uk/) (and artist website www.vaishaliprazmari.co.uk/) is to learn 1001 Chinese characters, together with my son, and we have tentatively started this. So for my son it’s in a fun playful way of course, recognition first and developing pre-writing skills.
I’ve already overcome the ‘embarrassment’ barrier of speaking and singing to my kid in public in bad Mandarin. (If people can speak to their kids in bad English in London, which I hear all the time, I am allowed too!) I am actively trying to improve my Mandarin. Since I don’t really look fully Chinese, Chinese people ‘forgive’ me anyway and nobody else understands so it’s fine. His ‘godmothers’ (my best friends) are Chinese speakers, one native, but they live in Wales (far from London by British standards) and will move back to China eventually. They are extremely supportive of his Chinese and actually are teachers of Chinese to young kids themselves, but don’t have time to commit to a weekly Skype session. Otherwise we have nobody close to our family who speaks Mandarin.
We are an extremely close family and my husband actively supports my Chinese drive and doesn’t feel at all isolated not knowing a single word. He also wants me to speak in French to our kid but I don’t want to, I only do it on request, as I want to focus on Chinese and Slovak (and English; French he can learn at school and I’ll help him then). Our toddler does ask ‘what’s this in Slovak/Indian/French/Russian/Hungarian?’ so at least he has the love of languages already. I do answer him if I can but don’t offer as I want to focus on the 3. We actually don’t know Hungarian (my husband only knows a few words) so I guess we are modelling that we don’t know things, or in Chinese I go and look stuff up in the visual dictionary which I carry everywhere, so this is becoming normal for him. He even brings it to me if I don’t know a word. My husband works 3-4 days a week but is at home a lot. I am at home for maternity leave now till December and work from home, although I have worked outside of home 1-3 days a week on average before mat leave and will do so after. (Since my work is flexible, I have tried to bring my toddler (then baby) with me, but this won’t be possible after he starts nursery.) So I’m around my toddler most of the time and can influence him. This will change when he starts nursery full-time this September, but obviously there is lots of time around that when I’ll be with him.
Also because I have been doing everything in English now, my toddler’s English is as perfect as a toddler’s English can be and I’m not worried about this at all - in fact I AM worried about it as it’s so good, to the detriment of his minority languages; indeed, I am willing to even forego or ‘relax’ his English progress slightly in order to improve his minority languages, eg: I won’t be teaching him phonics, I’ll leave that to school. I’ll teach him sight words on request (same way as he would learn Chinese characters, by ‘sight’ only - the way I learnt English myself, I don’t remember phonics at all) and I will always read to him in English and also speak in English, but I decided not to push this (after purchasing the entire Puddle Lane series last year which I liked as a kid, hehe). I feel able to provide a rich Chinese language print environment and excited about Chinese.
I can’t stop buying English books, because they are just so good - the best in the world, in my opinion - and I do collect children’s books in other languages that I can read (French and Russian ones I have are excellent but these aren’t target languages) - I go to Slovakia with an empty suitcase but the industry there is not as developed. I am actively building a Chinese library (as finances dictate) and am excited to see that the Chinese children’s book industry is growing (perhaps due to the efforts of all these Chinese mothers online). The illustrations are extremely important to me and the English books are just the best. And I don’t want to stop as I actually love them myself and they are quite cheap. Also, even though it is the majority language, English is part of my life and my own childhood dreams and imagination and I want to share that with my children too, so I don’t want to ignore the magic of English children’s literature completely as it fuelled my own childhood and ultimately led to me being an artist today. It’s also a part of me. It does mean that he is surrounded by the very best, world-class in children’s literature in English and far less so in the minority languages. I guess my strategy is to just match the number of books, ie the quantity, and start to choose factual books in the minority languages rather than English, maybe (although, again, the English ones are just so damn good!)
CONCERNS
However, our financial resources are limited as I am an artist and my husband is a designer.
So that means I can’t afford to send him to a Mandarin-immersion school. I’m not sure I truly like any immersion school that I’ve seen that much anyway (whole child development and education is important, not just language). Secondly, this is the UK, not the US - Mandarin immersion primary schools actually don’t exist. The UK is extremely weak in terms of promoting foreign languages (I’ve witnessed the removal of compulsory languages in my own teenage years growing up here) - it is extremely biased towards monolingual English-only, which I am staunchly against. He will start a standard state English nursery this September, so I’m aware of a ‘window period’ - hence the panic about his 2 minority languages. I mainly work from home and also believe that the parent is primary in the early years.
I have also spoken and read to my toddler in English since he was born, being quite overwhelmed as a new parent I suppose and although I actively wanted him to be trilingual, I accepted that Chinese may be a ‘secondary’ language so I could accept him being bilingual in English and Slovak. This has now changed as he is almost 3 and I want his Chinese and Slovak to be equally good. As Britain sadly leaves Europe I want to forge even closer ties with Europe so I envisage wanting his Slovak and Chinese to be as good as his English (which is so fluent that I’m concerned this has been at the expense of his other 2 minority languages.)
SLOVAK CONCERNS
Main concern is the speaking and listening.
Slovak is an extremely difficult language to speak, because you can’t just clobber words together to make at least some meaning like you can in English and to an extent even in Chinese. Because of the complex grammar, you won’t be understood at all if you don’t have knowledge of this. I’ve seen his language acquisition in all 3 languages and Slovak is certainly the hardest for now because, in layperson’s terms, all the words change all the time. I am no linguist but because I have studied several languages I can see the difficulties for a toddler trying to express his wants and needs without the grammatical structure in his brain first, which he has to acquire naturally and I can’t teach, even though I know how the grammar works, because you can’t explain complex grammar to a toddler like you can to an adult. However - the Slovak he does speak is mostly grammatically correct (toddler brains are amazing!).
My husband is a native speaker but has lived in London for 20 years so English is his main spoken, relaxed language. If he speaks to Slovak speakers (which he does regularly) he relaxes into it too. BUT because my level of Slovak is not up to scratch it is difficult for him to speak to me as he is always correcting me or trying to understand me or just frustrated at my lack of colloquial knowledge (I can only do what I can do, which is to speak like someone who’s learnt from a book and in classes!).
My toddler is aware that I can converse in Slovak but because my husband and I speak English together most of the time due to tiredness, he sometimes asks me to ‘speak English’ too, so resistance is there. He also doesn’t want me to read to him in Slovak, even though I can and did do this in the past (and when I read Slovak I am told that at least I am not bad and pronunciation is fairly good, unlike in Mandarin).
I will never be able to speak numerically in Slovak the way my husband can so the ‘very least’ he could do is teach the numbers (plus gender number case combinations) to our toddler in my view (the numbers are so hard in Slovak, unlike in Chinese and English, where they are easy).
So while we try to do ‘Slovak Sundays’, he gets very tired and frustrated and this is not exactly good for our toddler to see. He speaks a lot of English to our toddler and I’m disappointed by this but I also understand he’s tired. (I’m tired too and it’s even more of a challenge to speak in Mandarin, a language which I don’t actually know, but my perseverance quotient is much higher.)
I’ve told my husband loads about the benefits of multilingualism and actually he is aware and agrees but is just… tired. He also left his country for a reason, so it’s not his favourite language in the world. I feel like there is resistance from both sides sometimes, from husband and toddler - and my reminders becoming nagging, which is not good. That’s why I’ve supplemented the Slovak input with the Slovak nanny, as for me it would be such a huge shame and disappointment to lose the opportunity. She has helped immensely and I see he’s adding to his knowledge week by week.
I wonder if there is such a thing as a ‘relaxed’ OPOL, in that my husband speaks Slovak when he’s in the mood and has energy (and we are around our toddler a lot), and I continue to increase my Mandarin, but my main language is English. I also wonder if it can be combined with a ‘relaxed’ minority-language-at-home, ie relaxed Slovak Sundays where we all speak Slovak as a family, and he just overcomes his grumpiness at my mistakes etc. My husband is a wonderful man but due to bad teachers in his childhood he has a chip on his shoulder about his own language abilities in general; he is very proud of mine but gets frustrated as I just can’t communicate freely and colloquially in Slovak with him like he can with a native speaker - ie he is a very bad language ‘teacher’ (you know how some people are naturally very patient when someone is trying to speak their language…he isn’t, which I’ve found to be the case with other languages maybe because they are not used to people trying to learn their fairly obscure language!- this is not the case with Mandarin where people are so happy I even try).
Also concerned that the quality and breadth of cool and fun and captivating resources for kids (at least that I have access to) don’t match English and Chinese ones.
CHINESE CONCERNS
Main concern is the speaking and listening because I can’t do it for him to the extent he needs.
My spoken basic Mandarin is pretty slow and crappy with the tones (Mandarin is a tonal language). This is bad and I’m working on it. I know that a native speaker could correct it for my toddler plus Chinese audio input.
I can’t afford to take him to China yet although this is a dream and a goal - since I can’t even speak Chinese maybe it’s worth waiting until I actually can. I can’t even afford to take him to my original home, Hong Kong, yet, but that is Cantonese speaking anyway (although it would be a good trip for other reasons).
September 2020 concerns: when he starts English nursery school in England. Of course we are lucky that in London around 50% of the kids will be bilingual in another language anyway so he gets it in his head that this is normal. But the playground and ‘interesting’ interactions will increasingly be in English. So how to keep the minority languages interesting, fun and relevant etc… though that’s for the future and I’ll just have to find a way! And how to get him to continue to actively speak in Chinese and Slovak and not just reply in English and relegate others to passive knowledge only. Chinese is such a cool language for kids, I wonder how to make it continue to be cool for teens… although I’m hopeful that if I set it up, it will be.
Space
We have more (majority English) books than space. I’ve told my husband about the 500 children’s books goal I have but this makes him grumpy (we have around 300 in total, some from my own childhood - also some are part of my research project anyway). I am a book lover without enough shelves.
Time
Never enough.
Have so many ideas, so little time.
Have to focus on my art career plus PhD as well, although I involve our toddler as much as possible (he finds it fun being in the studio).
INITIAL IDEAS (looking for feedback on these and more ideas)
SLOVAK
Continue with the Slovak nanny with whom he has a great relationship for as long as possible.
Call his Slovak relatives more often - perhaps even set up a regular schedule to talk to his cousins in Slovak
When he turns 3 I can enrol him in a Slovak Saturday afternoon nursery (affordable and I’ve found London’s only one - it is really a small pool of speakers).
Reading and writing
I can do this (my husband doesn’t like to) - won’t be as good as a native speaker but I’m told it is good enough. Also I understand 70% of what I read, and more if it’s a children’s book with pictures.
Slovak is extremely easy to read and write (I learnt in one afternoon with a tutor) so this can wait till after he can read and write in English… which is after he can read and write in Chinese!
CHINESE
I am a researcher at a large university so there is a pool of native Mandarin speakers (Chinese students) I potentially have access to… however I’m not sure how good they are with very young children nor how to go about advertising for this. Also, all this has to wait until Coronavirus epidemic is over.
Get a professional Chinese tutor used to young kids - I could afford once a week, and we need to correct our pronunciation - again, don’t know where to start looking as there seems to be so much choice, actually, and I expect quality varies. I don’t want to have to try loads before I find the ‘right one’ as that could negatively impact my toddler.
We are even taking him to a Mandarin speaking church on some Sundays, so he gets some free Mandarin immersion with specialist kid focus. If there were a Buddhist equivalent (I have yet to find) I would also take him there too (in fact any other religion, but it’s unlikely). Again wait for Coronavirus to pass.
(In terms of my own teaching and learning of Chinese characters reading and writing, the rich print Chinese environment etc - I have a whole separate list of ideas about this so won’t go into here - ie I have ideas and strategies and am super excited about gradually implementing)
Talk to his ‘godmothers’ on Skype when I can (they are also busy people).
Buy or borrow translated children’s books in Chinese (eg Eric Carle) and watch popular series (eg Peppa Pig, which I personally don’t like, but it’s not about me) in Chinese only, not English; incredibly, when we watch Chinese Peppa Pig we actually understand most of it, and learn new things! But like all parents I try to limit screens
Incredibly, I found a copy of the kid textbook Chinese Paradise volume 1 IN SLOVAK! If anyone knows where to get the other volumes I would love to know. Also if there are any other Chinese-Slovak resources, this would be gold dust.
Get some Chinese friends his age (don’t know how yet, and not sure if language playdates will work anyway - but nice to have friends in general)
Just save up and make it to China one day!
Long term
I thought of making the siblings having Slovak and Chinese as ‘secret languages’ between them when they are together and don’t want their peers to understand, especially as Slovak is not widely spoken in London, and Chinese characters are mysterious to the uninitiated. I myself think of it as pretty cool that my husband and I can communicate in Slovak in public in front of other people when we need to basically talk about them without them knowing ;-) THIS is the main situation where he himself understands the ‘NEED’.
When he gets new interests I will try to find a way to eg do kung fu lessons IN Chinese, learn cooking IN Chinese etc. I could find ways to set this up myself, although it’s a lot of work… ideally I would make this a parent-child group to improve my own Chinese. Not all parents have my flexible hours though so don’t know how feasible this is. Won’t be able to do this in Slovak I don’t think as is just too niche. In terms of our schedule, yes there are Saturday Chinese classes as well, but bearing in mind that he will be at nursery or school full time and at Slovak nursery 2-5 on Saturday, I don’t want him to have Saturday mornings taken up with classes as well (I want to spend time with him too!) UNLESS I can figure out a way for us BOTH to do Chinese on Saturday mornings, perhaps with other parents and kids.
We can send him to Slovakia for the summer when he’s older but the irony is, I know, that all his peers will speak English and want to practice that with him! I have heard of parents setting ‘rules’ for playdates and speaking Slovak for 1st half, English for other, but I have mixed feelings about parents setting this kind of rule. At the very least, he can speak in Slovak to the older generation and he will be hearing it all the time. For me, though, relying solely on this is a risky option as many people have told me ‘he will just pick it up naturally’ and I just don’t believe them, deep down. I know it will help, not hinder, his Slovak, but I don’t want to just ‘trust in the future summers’- I want to be proactive now.
We sometimes host guests from Slovakia or the Czech Republic (they understand Slovak) so In future I can ‘employ’ him to introduce them and show them round our house in Slovak for money ;-)
STRATEGY
30% goal at nursery/school
If child is awake 12 hours a day (8am-8pm), which he is, then 30% of the 12 hours should be in Chinese and 30% in Slovak. 30% of 12 hours is 3.6 hours. Let’s try to keep it focused and quality, so let’s say 3.5 hours. And let’s just say 3 hours per day per language for an easy round number that feels more achievable anyway.
If he is at school from 9-3 (6 hours) that leaves:
8-9 morning routine 1 hour
3-8 afternoon time and then evening routine 5 hours
Ideal situation to create the 3 hours for both languages is:
8-9 1 hour half Slovak half Chinese exclusively without English
3-8 half Slovak half Chinese exclusively without English, ie 1st half Chinese and 2nd half Slovak.
Realistic situation is:
8-9 mix of English, Slovak and Chinese: initially with Tati making an effort to speak Slovak which will come naturally, and mama sprinkling Chinese words, which will turn into phrases as she gets more fluent herself. Since this is the morning and we will be rushed it is likely to be mostly English, though at breakfast we can make Slovak and Chinese efforts. Mama pre-learns everyday expressions in Slovak and Chinese to at least get those down
3-8 mix of English, Slovak and Chinese:
3-4 coming home and ‘winding down’ from exclusive English, transitioning to Slovak and Chinese (depending on who picks up from school)
4-7 If Mama, then afternoon fun activities and dinner prep cooking together in increasing Chinese increments, first sprinkling with words then phrases (verbs, actions etc). If Mama, then Mama prepares a Chinese activity that is so stimulating, so fascinating and so absorbing in advance that she gets kids excited to dive into it even before they arrive at home. And is already set up at home ready and waiting for them. Use all my teaching skills to do this. Eg Chinese literacy fun activities on kitchen table using all senses. If Tati, then make an effort to speak Slovak as normal. During dinner, Mama and Tati both make an effort to speak Slovak to each other. Tati tired so can lapse into English too.
7-8 Evening routine, play and bath in English and Slovak - Tati makes effort - and Mama sprinkles in Chinese.
Bedtime reading is English but Mama starts off with Chinese books - keep interesting - and Slovak books - keep interesting!
Mama pre-translates our wonderful English books into Chinese and Slovak in advance to support a reading or at least smattering of them in English and Chinese/Slovak at night.
PROFESSIONAL HELP to achieve the 3 hours per day:
- Continue with Slovak nanny twice a week in the afternoon for 2.5 hours. That way both toddler and I get continued practice in Slovak in studio plus I can also get on with my work. From 3.30-6pm: that means dinner strictly at 6pm to leave enough time for bath cartoons books bed at 7pm for bed at 8pm. So dinner needs to be prepped in advance on Slovak nanny days. We are SO not used to this kind of routine as a family, we are so relaxed!
- Get a Chinese equivalent for once a week! And I will be with toddler in studio in the same way, so he is still with me.
- KEEP Slovak Sundays!
- Age 3, go to Slovak Saturday afternoon school 3 hours 2-5pm and use time for ME to catch up my own Slovak, working through and finishing Krizom Krazom Slovak textbook. Then eventually can be divided between Slovak and Chinese learning for me, then divided between all my languages.
- Age 3, go to Chinese nursery at Chinese church Sundays (is only 2 hours and whole family Is together whole day, so I don’t mind). When this is over, possibly up the Chinese nanny/tutor to twice a week like Slovak, hopefully I can afford. Or find a Chinese school as can be temporary, too, only a couple of years, and see how it pans out (he might really like it as modern teaching methods are fun now)
- Once at nursery, get Lele reading pen program to make Chinese reading fascinating, fun and interesting
- Once at reception, get Luka reading robot to make Chinese reading continue to be fascinating, fun and interesting
- Do summer language camps in Chinese
- Go to Slovakia each summer - and each winter too to take advantage of the winter sports when he’s older (I imagine boys like sports even if I don’t - part of strategy of making language cool)
- Save up and go to China when godmothers/best friends are there too for the very first time we go!
HELP for me personally to achieve the 3 hours per day:
Passive, comprehensible input:
- READ BOOKS during the DAYTIME in Slovak and Chinese, to get him interested so I can also read them at NIGHTTIME TOO as bedtime reading; I will still need and want to read English books too, so balance them all equally. As he gets older and learns to read English, leave phonics to school and I teach him to read English using sight word method only (way I myself learnt and taught myself to read English, memory only! As this mirrors Chinese character learning too).
- Work my way through Chinese graded readers for kids at night/spare time, and then read to him progressively
- Buy Panta Rhei Slovak books that look good (every single time I go to Slovakia, and whenever friends go to SK)
- Pre-translate some favourite English books into Slovak and Chinese
- LISTEN to Chinese audio audiobooks, radio and start with kid’s songs
Active learning:
Senses
- Prepare fun Chinese literacy activity Chinese character activity weekly in advance and increase frequency from weekly to daily as he gets older and more interested
Active learning:
Speaking
- Prepare list of words and phrases to use with toddler directly
- Just improve my own Chinese at night and turn my sprinkling Chinese words into sprinkling longer Chinese phrases, and then eventually whole sentences and interactions in Chinese
- Same as above for Slovak, and I will make faster progress in this as my Slovak is already miles better than my Chinese
GOALS
SLOVAK
For him to be able to read and write - this is easy and achievable once he can do it in English as it is totally phonetic.
For him to be able to be proficient, fluent in Slovak - enough to be able to live and work in Slovakia; it can be an advanced level too whereby he has enough Slovak to function and then ‘tops up’ if and when he decides to go there. Functionally bilingual. Or maybe it’s called conversationally bilingual, I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t need to be able to go to university there. And if he gets a job there he can learn on the job too.
For me, to be able to hold and follow a conversation with my family, ie to get to B2 level in Slovak (it’s currently between A2-B1, as I haven’t touched my books for a while, although my reading or passive knowledge is higher and sometimes I understand almost everything).
CHINESE
Originally my own goal was for me to learn 1001 characters (not words) as part of my PhD. It is still a goal, but has since expanded. Since a combination of 2 characters (bigrams) make up majority of words, I want us to start learning actual Chinese words to (reading and writing) as my goal has now shifted from casually learning Chinese as a second language, a ‘hobby’ for us, to being actually trilingual.
It all changed when my grandma passed away I think… slow dawning on me that I have lost our last Mandarin speaking relative (my mother speaks, reads and writes Cantonese, but her English is better)… something changed in me and now I want us both to be conversationally fluent in Chinese. Not to be on a par with kids in China/Taiwan, as we don’t live there and will always be and look ‘foreign’ anyway, but for him to be able to communicate with Chinese friends and make friends and have fun, hopefully to an advanced level. For example, with the 1001 character milestone, I am happy to take it much more slowly than a kid in China/Taiwan would. But we’ll see, as I generally love books and reading. He can continue at his own pace and I believe in being child-led, although in general this idea is initially adult-led. I would love it if he became so passionate about it that he surpassed me in Chinese speaking, reading and writing one day. But the mid-long term goal is for both of us to be able to read simple readers (Chinese library series and Lele reading pen series) and be able to go and enjoy our time in China when we eventually do make it there. I want to spark something in him to awake a passion for it so he is self-motivated to continue. He can already recognise a few characters now and is excited and feels good about this.
I was told about HSK program and that I never would be able to read a newspaper if I didn’t learn 5000 characters. That’s ok, I don’t really want to read newspapers anyway (boring)! I would rather read children’s books for a long time now. We will see. I have no ambitions to do HSK for myself and just want to be able to read those readers, and hold a pleasant conversation in Chinese about things that are important to me. Also to be able to enjoy Chinese classics to an extent, as I’m told that actually these are ‘easier’ than modern fiction and newspapers. Even at an introductory level.
We will start with simplified characters and I myself will go on to study traditional characters to be able to read in Hong Kong, and my child is welcome to learn them too if interested.
I told my mother that once my Mandarin is at a sufficient enough level then I would also finally like to learn Cantonese, as we both lived in Hong Kong (her for much longer).
My grandfather’s dying wish was that someone, possibly me but no pressure, would ‘carry on’ or just learn Shanghainese, his native language, so we will see if that is ever possible for me. (Both my grandparents could speak Shanghainese, Cantonese, Mandarin and English.)
END ESSAY
Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart anyone who gets to this line!!
I'm new to this forum and new to the fact that online resources for bilingualism/trilingualism exist!
So what follows is long, but it serves as both an introduction to our family and there is a short version at the beginning before the long version starts. I've already emailed Adam separately about this.
2 MONTH - 6 MONTH WINDOW PERIOD PANIC: ENGLISH, SLOVAK AND MANDARIN TRILINGUAL HELP NEEDED
I would be very grateful some feedback on our situation which follows - there is a short version and a long version! Grateful that I realised in Jan 2020 that help actually exists online - for almost 3 years I’ve been doing this alone. Just didn’t realise I could get help before (like I did for other baby/toddler things like breastfeeding etc!)
SHORT VERSION
(I am Mama, by the way!)
(Background:
- Mama is native English speaker with passable Slovak and beginner’s Mandarin. Mama is half Chinese and although a complete beginner in speaking, has knowledge of Chinese calligraphy, some basic characters etc; no living Mandarin or Shanghainese speaking relatives anymore, only Cantonese. She is trying to (re)learn Chinese as she did ‘acquire’ some words as a child and then formally went to classes for a year as an adult, then forgot it all. And vowed to learn properly when she had kids (ie now!)
- Tati is native Slovak speaker with fluent English and no Mandarin at all
- Toddler, age 2.75, nearly 3, is fluent English speaker already and has passive knowledge of Slovak but doesn’t speak much, although understands most things; is beginning to speak with Slovak nanny and Tati; doesn’t speak much Mandarin but understands Mama’s beginner’s Mandarin words). This ’sequential bilingualism’ meant that English came first as mama was quite a relaxed new mother and just spent lots of time NOT researching bilingualism/trilingualism and indulging in English books with her baby, yet still encouraging Tati to speak Slovak, which he did, but also in a relaxed way only and also a bit reluctant as difficult for him to switch between English and Slovak. Now mama is having a mild panic because toddler will go to monolingual English nursery full time in September 2020, and he turns 3 in April 2020 and is afraid has missed the window period of 0-3 - well not missed it entirely, but is kind of late (but not too late) (she hopes!)
QUESTIONS
Can I mix all 3 approaches?
Time and Place
Minority Language At Home
One Person One Language
Time and Place:
- Mama and toddler attend Chinese playgroup lesson once a week for 45 mins
- Mama and toddler have a Slovak nanny twice a week for 2.5 hours (sometimes only once a week); she takes over and speaks Slovak while mama paints but if I want to interact it is all in Slovak; this is his only real definite consistent exposure
- Mama, Tati and toddler try to speak only Slovak on Sundays but inevitably this does lapse into English a lot and we code-switch too
- Mama reads beginner’s Mandarin to toddler daily (because she likes it and learns herself this way)
- Mama tries to read Slovak sometimes too but toddler bit resistant now, as he knows it’s not Mama’s native language, although Mama can read Slovak pretty well according to native speakers
Minority Language at Home:
- Mama sprinkles more and more Chinese in every day as she learns it with toddler; Tati cannot speak Chinese but is encouraging
- Tati tries his best to speak Slovak to mama but gets tired and lapses into English for important info
- Mama also sprinkles Slovak into daily conversations with toddler when alone but prefers to sprinkle Chinese, although her Slovak is much better, with the result that she sometimes code-switches between Chinese and Slovak and Is not sure this is good
One Person One Language:
- Mama speaks English but peppers it with Chinese increasingly as her own Chinese grows; toddler replies in English mostly but also surprises her sometimes. Mama has no embarrassment whatsoever about speaking her basic Mandarin and okay Slovak in public to her toddler as she knows It is correctable by accessible native speakers
- Tati tries his best to speak Slovak to toddler but he is tired from work and depends on his energy levels. When he is motivated toddler learns a lot. Otherwise for important info lapses to English. In public sadly he doesn’t want to speak Slovak when alone with him because of fear of racism (even though we live in London - the Brexit climate is real) which mama totally understands and blames other people, not him
I have just recently heard of the 2P2L (2 parents 2 languages) approach, ie us both speaking Slovak and English to our toddler but I’m not sure we are doing this fully or properly as we do do it, but my Slovak is only 1 step ahead of my toddler’s whereas my husband’s is 100. Plus we lapse into our majority language, English, far more than I like. I know the obvious solution is to improve my own Slovak to advanced level and also get my Mandarin up to speed, but this is a long term solution (am working on it) - what can I do in the short term?
Is there anything urgent I should implement in this critical window period between now, when toddler is with mama (me) and this September 2020, when he starts full time English nursery? (This question refers to the 30% idea I suppose)
Any advice on trilingual journeys on a budget?
We can’t afford London’s immersion schools. We can afford the Slovak nanny, and a Slovak Saturday afternoon nursery when he turns 3, and I will fork out for a Chinese private tutor once a week. I buy books whenever and wherever possible and have no qualms about spending money on books, ever (as I love them too and is part of my work anyway). However, they really do take ages to arrive (from Slovakia and China/Hong Kong).
Lastly, I may have more questions in the future, these are just the main ones for now! Would I also be able to contact you in the future as these come up?
******************************************************************************
LONG VERSION FOLLOWS
My main concern for now is (fairly understandable) spouse tiredness and lapsing into English and the long term concern is losing the minority languages (although I am aware that reading can safeguard the language, so I’m doing this).
BACKGROUND
I have a toddler who is almost 3 and expecting a 2nd baby soon. My husband is Slovak and I am British (grew up in Hong Kong for my childhood). We both speak English fluently but I am a native speaker, he is not, (his native language is Slovak) although it is his ‘main language’ now. I have passive knowledge of a few other languages (that is to say I have a general understanding of how a few languages work and also how they are acquired, and obviously a love for them) but don’t really use them (unless I have to read something for eg academic purposes), because my main goal (! I never actually had a concrete goal before 2020!) is: to raise our kids trilingually in English, Slovak and Mandarin Chinese. My Slovak is intermediate level but I have a higher reading knowledge. Basically if you set me down in Slovakia without my husband I wouldn’t die. And I would be able to find my way home too (my very basic criteria for a general knowledge of a language - can do this in French and Russian too, whereas I would probably die in eg Japan or Hungary). My Mandarin is non-existent, let’s say, so this is a language I am learning myself. I did actually start learning it once but let it ‘rest’, because I was focusing on other languages at the time (French, Russian, Persian, Slovak etc - all Indo-European, and I’ve spent time learning Georgian and now studying Arabic - paused because of Chinese panic). I also consciously decided that I’d ‘save Chinese’ for when I had a kid, so that we could learn together, as I’ve always thought of it as a really fun and rewarding language for kids. So now is the time! Crept up on me. My mother is Chinese and I grew up in Hong Kong, but never picked up Cantonese as both my parents spoke English together and I went to an English International school. But the ‘flavour’ of Chinese is in my bones somehow and I can understand many grammar structures and patterns intuitively. I also have a deep love of Chinese characters and am slowly passing on this love to my son with my own daily Chinese reading and writing (at an extremely slow and basic level). I have known the rudiments of Chinese calligraphy since childhood.
I decided on Chinese and Slovak because they are so different, because Slovak is a really difficult language (gender, number, case etc) and once you’ve got one Slavic language in your brain, it may be easier to acquire another in future (eg my intermediate Russian vastly helped and speeded up my Slovak acquisition).
Chinese is just ‘in my bones’ as above and also increasingly I miss being in the east. Language of the future too but for me is more of a love of the culture and a long-held ambition. English is obviously our main language as we live in England. Both sets of my grandparents (and my husband’s) were multilingual (Shanghainese… Russian…Hungarian, reflecting their histories and travels and the world in their time) so nurturing a ‘love of languages’ is not a problem. My husband is mixed himself (Russian, Czech, Hungarian but grew up in Slovakia speaking Slovak).
My father is Indian with Persian ancestry and speaks Gujarati (he ’lost’ his Swahili) but I didn’t want to add another Indo-European language (yet, let’s say!) as the 3rd language. Both my parents are bilingual and my mother speaks Cantonese, not Mandarin, and knows traditional, not simplified Chinese characters. But she can help me personally with the etymology and grammar and characters I don’t know.
So we are both very proud of our international heritage and feel ourselves and our kids to be citizens of the world. I want to reflect this in our toddler’s language too.
Our parenting philosophy is fairly relaxed/authoritative (not authoritarian but not passive either, we do believe in boundaries). The only 2 parenting books I’ve read that I agree with 100% (and I’ve read loads) are Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and Lawrence Cohen’s Playful Parenting. This is relevant for languages because I can’t implement a totally strict OPOL environment in my family, as detailed below, partly for language/practical reasons but partly also as we are not too strict in general. I do like a Montessori or Waldorf approach to things sometimes too but the main point is that we are artist-designer non-conventional parents so, you get what you get.
We live in London (!!!!! Multilingual paradise I know) so basically there is no excuse.
CURRENT SITUATION
SLOVAK
Slovak nanny comes for 2.5 hours twice a week on a good week. Sometimes once a week, depending. This is his ‘Slovak immersion’ and mine too, as we are always together. She takes over and does most of the speaking to him while I paint. She is his main source of CONSISTENT Slovak (the result of which he speaks Slovak with her, in his limited toddler way, but because I’m there in the room too, I’ve seen this slow incredible blossom). If we interact we also do it in Slovak, and this is the time he calls me ‘maminka’ (showing some sort of brain switch even though I am not Slovak). He has limited vocabulary and can hardly string a sentence together but when he is with her, strangely, I am less worried as I see for myself that he understands completely. He even interacts with me in Slovak during these sessions. However the minute the nanny leaves, he asks me ‘Can you speak English now, mama?’ - although he is getting used to my Slovak ‘out of hours’ too.
My husband: this is my main concern - he is too tired to speak Slovak to our toddler and this is increasing. We tried to initiate Slovak Sundays but due to tiredness this is very ‘relaxed’.
We can afford to go to Slovakia once a year (with my empty suitcase for the books! Their bookshops don’t ship internationally, maybe because there is no demand!) for about a week.
There just aren’t many Slovak kids’ resources (or adults, for that matter! I’ve already bought all the few adult learning resources that are available) (like there are in English, Chinese, Russian and other global languages) maybe because there are only 5 million speakers and hardly anyone learns it who is not Slovak. And many resources are actually translated from the original English or French books or films or whatever. There are some wonderful Czechoslovak resources which we all love. But they are set in a particular time and place (the 50s and 60s!) so wonder how long they will be relevant to a 21st century growing child.
CHINESE
I have been taking my toddler to a ‘Baby/Toddler Chinese’ adult-led playgroup with native Mandarin speakers who are absolutely brilliant - this is 5 star Mandarin immersion for me and him once a week for 45 mins. I am fully aware that it’s not enough but it’s almost the limit of my finances (London is one of the world’s most expensive cities and we both need to be here for work) - yet I don’t underestimate the power of this big input time - I see the results in myself. I am starting a Chinese book collection (so excited about this!) and we have a Chinese library in London. (Not sure if it’s open because of coronavirus though! In fact coronavirus has generally been detrimental to our language learning because of delays and closures of things, not to mention unwillingness to travel to airports now)
I follow Chinese mother blogs which are brilliant (eg. Betty Choi of Chalk Academy) and a source of vital inspiration. I don’t know where I’d be without them, and also the Facebook groups for this.
There are actually loads of Chinese kids’ resources. Some of varying quality but I know they are out there - however for lots of them you have to be able to navigate in Chinese to begin with (eg for Chinese websites).
My toddler doesn’t have a living Mandarin-speaking relative anymore - which maybe has made it more of a personal quest, and perhaps why I have amped up my Chinese goal to match or even surpass the Slovak goal, which wasn’t my initial aim.
I am on maternity leave until December 2020. With the 2nd baby I will start speaking my basic Mandarin from the start and also read basic Mandarin to him and read in Slovak to him.
Part of my PhD (which is otherwise unrelated to languages - it’s in fine art and to do with memory athousandnightsandanight.co.uk/) (and artist website www.vaishaliprazmari.co.uk/) is to learn 1001 Chinese characters, together with my son, and we have tentatively started this. So for my son it’s in a fun playful way of course, recognition first and developing pre-writing skills.
I’ve already overcome the ‘embarrassment’ barrier of speaking and singing to my kid in public in bad Mandarin. (If people can speak to their kids in bad English in London, which I hear all the time, I am allowed too!) I am actively trying to improve my Mandarin. Since I don’t really look fully Chinese, Chinese people ‘forgive’ me anyway and nobody else understands so it’s fine. His ‘godmothers’ (my best friends) are Chinese speakers, one native, but they live in Wales (far from London by British standards) and will move back to China eventually. They are extremely supportive of his Chinese and actually are teachers of Chinese to young kids themselves, but don’t have time to commit to a weekly Skype session. Otherwise we have nobody close to our family who speaks Mandarin.
We are an extremely close family and my husband actively supports my Chinese drive and doesn’t feel at all isolated not knowing a single word. He also wants me to speak in French to our kid but I don’t want to, I only do it on request, as I want to focus on Chinese and Slovak (and English; French he can learn at school and I’ll help him then). Our toddler does ask ‘what’s this in Slovak/Indian/French/Russian/Hungarian?’ so at least he has the love of languages already. I do answer him if I can but don’t offer as I want to focus on the 3. We actually don’t know Hungarian (my husband only knows a few words) so I guess we are modelling that we don’t know things, or in Chinese I go and look stuff up in the visual dictionary which I carry everywhere, so this is becoming normal for him. He even brings it to me if I don’t know a word. My husband works 3-4 days a week but is at home a lot. I am at home for maternity leave now till December and work from home, although I have worked outside of home 1-3 days a week on average before mat leave and will do so after. (Since my work is flexible, I have tried to bring my toddler (then baby) with me, but this won’t be possible after he starts nursery.) So I’m around my toddler most of the time and can influence him. This will change when he starts nursery full-time this September, but obviously there is lots of time around that when I’ll be with him.
Also because I have been doing everything in English now, my toddler’s English is as perfect as a toddler’s English can be and I’m not worried about this at all - in fact I AM worried about it as it’s so good, to the detriment of his minority languages; indeed, I am willing to even forego or ‘relax’ his English progress slightly in order to improve his minority languages, eg: I won’t be teaching him phonics, I’ll leave that to school. I’ll teach him sight words on request (same way as he would learn Chinese characters, by ‘sight’ only - the way I learnt English myself, I don’t remember phonics at all) and I will always read to him in English and also speak in English, but I decided not to push this (after purchasing the entire Puddle Lane series last year which I liked as a kid, hehe). I feel able to provide a rich Chinese language print environment and excited about Chinese.
I can’t stop buying English books, because they are just so good - the best in the world, in my opinion - and I do collect children’s books in other languages that I can read (French and Russian ones I have are excellent but these aren’t target languages) - I go to Slovakia with an empty suitcase but the industry there is not as developed. I am actively building a Chinese library (as finances dictate) and am excited to see that the Chinese children’s book industry is growing (perhaps due to the efforts of all these Chinese mothers online). The illustrations are extremely important to me and the English books are just the best. And I don’t want to stop as I actually love them myself and they are quite cheap. Also, even though it is the majority language, English is part of my life and my own childhood dreams and imagination and I want to share that with my children too, so I don’t want to ignore the magic of English children’s literature completely as it fuelled my own childhood and ultimately led to me being an artist today. It’s also a part of me. It does mean that he is surrounded by the very best, world-class in children’s literature in English and far less so in the minority languages. I guess my strategy is to just match the number of books, ie the quantity, and start to choose factual books in the minority languages rather than English, maybe (although, again, the English ones are just so damn good!)
CONCERNS
However, our financial resources are limited as I am an artist and my husband is a designer.
So that means I can’t afford to send him to a Mandarin-immersion school. I’m not sure I truly like any immersion school that I’ve seen that much anyway (whole child development and education is important, not just language). Secondly, this is the UK, not the US - Mandarin immersion primary schools actually don’t exist. The UK is extremely weak in terms of promoting foreign languages (I’ve witnessed the removal of compulsory languages in my own teenage years growing up here) - it is extremely biased towards monolingual English-only, which I am staunchly against. He will start a standard state English nursery this September, so I’m aware of a ‘window period’ - hence the panic about his 2 minority languages. I mainly work from home and also believe that the parent is primary in the early years.
I have also spoken and read to my toddler in English since he was born, being quite overwhelmed as a new parent I suppose and although I actively wanted him to be trilingual, I accepted that Chinese may be a ‘secondary’ language so I could accept him being bilingual in English and Slovak. This has now changed as he is almost 3 and I want his Chinese and Slovak to be equally good. As Britain sadly leaves Europe I want to forge even closer ties with Europe so I envisage wanting his Slovak and Chinese to be as good as his English (which is so fluent that I’m concerned this has been at the expense of his other 2 minority languages.)
SLOVAK CONCERNS
Main concern is the speaking and listening.
Slovak is an extremely difficult language to speak, because you can’t just clobber words together to make at least some meaning like you can in English and to an extent even in Chinese. Because of the complex grammar, you won’t be understood at all if you don’t have knowledge of this. I’ve seen his language acquisition in all 3 languages and Slovak is certainly the hardest for now because, in layperson’s terms, all the words change all the time. I am no linguist but because I have studied several languages I can see the difficulties for a toddler trying to express his wants and needs without the grammatical structure in his brain first, which he has to acquire naturally and I can’t teach, even though I know how the grammar works, because you can’t explain complex grammar to a toddler like you can to an adult. However - the Slovak he does speak is mostly grammatically correct (toddler brains are amazing!).
My husband is a native speaker but has lived in London for 20 years so English is his main spoken, relaxed language. If he speaks to Slovak speakers (which he does regularly) he relaxes into it too. BUT because my level of Slovak is not up to scratch it is difficult for him to speak to me as he is always correcting me or trying to understand me or just frustrated at my lack of colloquial knowledge (I can only do what I can do, which is to speak like someone who’s learnt from a book and in classes!).
My toddler is aware that I can converse in Slovak but because my husband and I speak English together most of the time due to tiredness, he sometimes asks me to ‘speak English’ too, so resistance is there. He also doesn’t want me to read to him in Slovak, even though I can and did do this in the past (and when I read Slovak I am told that at least I am not bad and pronunciation is fairly good, unlike in Mandarin).
I will never be able to speak numerically in Slovak the way my husband can so the ‘very least’ he could do is teach the numbers (plus gender number case combinations) to our toddler in my view (the numbers are so hard in Slovak, unlike in Chinese and English, where they are easy).
So while we try to do ‘Slovak Sundays’, he gets very tired and frustrated and this is not exactly good for our toddler to see. He speaks a lot of English to our toddler and I’m disappointed by this but I also understand he’s tired. (I’m tired too and it’s even more of a challenge to speak in Mandarin, a language which I don’t actually know, but my perseverance quotient is much higher.)
I’ve told my husband loads about the benefits of multilingualism and actually he is aware and agrees but is just… tired. He also left his country for a reason, so it’s not his favourite language in the world. I feel like there is resistance from both sides sometimes, from husband and toddler - and my reminders becoming nagging, which is not good. That’s why I’ve supplemented the Slovak input with the Slovak nanny, as for me it would be such a huge shame and disappointment to lose the opportunity. She has helped immensely and I see he’s adding to his knowledge week by week.
I wonder if there is such a thing as a ‘relaxed’ OPOL, in that my husband speaks Slovak when he’s in the mood and has energy (and we are around our toddler a lot), and I continue to increase my Mandarin, but my main language is English. I also wonder if it can be combined with a ‘relaxed’ minority-language-at-home, ie relaxed Slovak Sundays where we all speak Slovak as a family, and he just overcomes his grumpiness at my mistakes etc. My husband is a wonderful man but due to bad teachers in his childhood he has a chip on his shoulder about his own language abilities in general; he is very proud of mine but gets frustrated as I just can’t communicate freely and colloquially in Slovak with him like he can with a native speaker - ie he is a very bad language ‘teacher’ (you know how some people are naturally very patient when someone is trying to speak their language…he isn’t, which I’ve found to be the case with other languages maybe because they are not used to people trying to learn their fairly obscure language!- this is not the case with Mandarin where people are so happy I even try).
Also concerned that the quality and breadth of cool and fun and captivating resources for kids (at least that I have access to) don’t match English and Chinese ones.
CHINESE CONCERNS
Main concern is the speaking and listening because I can’t do it for him to the extent he needs.
My spoken basic Mandarin is pretty slow and crappy with the tones (Mandarin is a tonal language). This is bad and I’m working on it. I know that a native speaker could correct it for my toddler plus Chinese audio input.
I can’t afford to take him to China yet although this is a dream and a goal - since I can’t even speak Chinese maybe it’s worth waiting until I actually can. I can’t even afford to take him to my original home, Hong Kong, yet, but that is Cantonese speaking anyway (although it would be a good trip for other reasons).
September 2020 concerns: when he starts English nursery school in England. Of course we are lucky that in London around 50% of the kids will be bilingual in another language anyway so he gets it in his head that this is normal. But the playground and ‘interesting’ interactions will increasingly be in English. So how to keep the minority languages interesting, fun and relevant etc… though that’s for the future and I’ll just have to find a way! And how to get him to continue to actively speak in Chinese and Slovak and not just reply in English and relegate others to passive knowledge only. Chinese is such a cool language for kids, I wonder how to make it continue to be cool for teens… although I’m hopeful that if I set it up, it will be.
Space
We have more (majority English) books than space. I’ve told my husband about the 500 children’s books goal I have but this makes him grumpy (we have around 300 in total, some from my own childhood - also some are part of my research project anyway). I am a book lover without enough shelves.
Time
Never enough.
Have so many ideas, so little time.
Have to focus on my art career plus PhD as well, although I involve our toddler as much as possible (he finds it fun being in the studio).
INITIAL IDEAS (looking for feedback on these and more ideas)
SLOVAK
Continue with the Slovak nanny with whom he has a great relationship for as long as possible.
Call his Slovak relatives more often - perhaps even set up a regular schedule to talk to his cousins in Slovak
When he turns 3 I can enrol him in a Slovak Saturday afternoon nursery (affordable and I’ve found London’s only one - it is really a small pool of speakers).
Reading and writing
I can do this (my husband doesn’t like to) - won’t be as good as a native speaker but I’m told it is good enough. Also I understand 70% of what I read, and more if it’s a children’s book with pictures.
Slovak is extremely easy to read and write (I learnt in one afternoon with a tutor) so this can wait till after he can read and write in English… which is after he can read and write in Chinese!
CHINESE
I am a researcher at a large university so there is a pool of native Mandarin speakers (Chinese students) I potentially have access to… however I’m not sure how good they are with very young children nor how to go about advertising for this. Also, all this has to wait until Coronavirus epidemic is over.
Get a professional Chinese tutor used to young kids - I could afford once a week, and we need to correct our pronunciation - again, don’t know where to start looking as there seems to be so much choice, actually, and I expect quality varies. I don’t want to have to try loads before I find the ‘right one’ as that could negatively impact my toddler.
We are even taking him to a Mandarin speaking church on some Sundays, so he gets some free Mandarin immersion with specialist kid focus. If there were a Buddhist equivalent (I have yet to find) I would also take him there too (in fact any other religion, but it’s unlikely). Again wait for Coronavirus to pass.
(In terms of my own teaching and learning of Chinese characters reading and writing, the rich print Chinese environment etc - I have a whole separate list of ideas about this so won’t go into here - ie I have ideas and strategies and am super excited about gradually implementing)
Talk to his ‘godmothers’ on Skype when I can (they are also busy people).
Buy or borrow translated children’s books in Chinese (eg Eric Carle) and watch popular series (eg Peppa Pig, which I personally don’t like, but it’s not about me) in Chinese only, not English; incredibly, when we watch Chinese Peppa Pig we actually understand most of it, and learn new things! But like all parents I try to limit screens
Incredibly, I found a copy of the kid textbook Chinese Paradise volume 1 IN SLOVAK! If anyone knows where to get the other volumes I would love to know. Also if there are any other Chinese-Slovak resources, this would be gold dust.
Get some Chinese friends his age (don’t know how yet, and not sure if language playdates will work anyway - but nice to have friends in general)
Just save up and make it to China one day!
Long term
I thought of making the siblings having Slovak and Chinese as ‘secret languages’ between them when they are together and don’t want their peers to understand, especially as Slovak is not widely spoken in London, and Chinese characters are mysterious to the uninitiated. I myself think of it as pretty cool that my husband and I can communicate in Slovak in public in front of other people when we need to basically talk about them without them knowing ;-) THIS is the main situation where he himself understands the ‘NEED’.
When he gets new interests I will try to find a way to eg do kung fu lessons IN Chinese, learn cooking IN Chinese etc. I could find ways to set this up myself, although it’s a lot of work… ideally I would make this a parent-child group to improve my own Chinese. Not all parents have my flexible hours though so don’t know how feasible this is. Won’t be able to do this in Slovak I don’t think as is just too niche. In terms of our schedule, yes there are Saturday Chinese classes as well, but bearing in mind that he will be at nursery or school full time and at Slovak nursery 2-5 on Saturday, I don’t want him to have Saturday mornings taken up with classes as well (I want to spend time with him too!) UNLESS I can figure out a way for us BOTH to do Chinese on Saturday mornings, perhaps with other parents and kids.
We can send him to Slovakia for the summer when he’s older but the irony is, I know, that all his peers will speak English and want to practice that with him! I have heard of parents setting ‘rules’ for playdates and speaking Slovak for 1st half, English for other, but I have mixed feelings about parents setting this kind of rule. At the very least, he can speak in Slovak to the older generation and he will be hearing it all the time. For me, though, relying solely on this is a risky option as many people have told me ‘he will just pick it up naturally’ and I just don’t believe them, deep down. I know it will help, not hinder, his Slovak, but I don’t want to just ‘trust in the future summers’- I want to be proactive now.
We sometimes host guests from Slovakia or the Czech Republic (they understand Slovak) so In future I can ‘employ’ him to introduce them and show them round our house in Slovak for money ;-)
STRATEGY
30% goal at nursery/school
If child is awake 12 hours a day (8am-8pm), which he is, then 30% of the 12 hours should be in Chinese and 30% in Slovak. 30% of 12 hours is 3.6 hours. Let’s try to keep it focused and quality, so let’s say 3.5 hours. And let’s just say 3 hours per day per language for an easy round number that feels more achievable anyway.
If he is at school from 9-3 (6 hours) that leaves:
8-9 morning routine 1 hour
3-8 afternoon time and then evening routine 5 hours
Ideal situation to create the 3 hours for both languages is:
8-9 1 hour half Slovak half Chinese exclusively without English
3-8 half Slovak half Chinese exclusively without English, ie 1st half Chinese and 2nd half Slovak.
Realistic situation is:
8-9 mix of English, Slovak and Chinese: initially with Tati making an effort to speak Slovak which will come naturally, and mama sprinkling Chinese words, which will turn into phrases as she gets more fluent herself. Since this is the morning and we will be rushed it is likely to be mostly English, though at breakfast we can make Slovak and Chinese efforts. Mama pre-learns everyday expressions in Slovak and Chinese to at least get those down
3-8 mix of English, Slovak and Chinese:
3-4 coming home and ‘winding down’ from exclusive English, transitioning to Slovak and Chinese (depending on who picks up from school)
4-7 If Mama, then afternoon fun activities and dinner prep cooking together in increasing Chinese increments, first sprinkling with words then phrases (verbs, actions etc). If Mama, then Mama prepares a Chinese activity that is so stimulating, so fascinating and so absorbing in advance that she gets kids excited to dive into it even before they arrive at home. And is already set up at home ready and waiting for them. Use all my teaching skills to do this. Eg Chinese literacy fun activities on kitchen table using all senses. If Tati, then make an effort to speak Slovak as normal. During dinner, Mama and Tati both make an effort to speak Slovak to each other. Tati tired so can lapse into English too.
7-8 Evening routine, play and bath in English and Slovak - Tati makes effort - and Mama sprinkles in Chinese.
Bedtime reading is English but Mama starts off with Chinese books - keep interesting - and Slovak books - keep interesting!
Mama pre-translates our wonderful English books into Chinese and Slovak in advance to support a reading or at least smattering of them in English and Chinese/Slovak at night.
PROFESSIONAL HELP to achieve the 3 hours per day:
- Continue with Slovak nanny twice a week in the afternoon for 2.5 hours. That way both toddler and I get continued practice in Slovak in studio plus I can also get on with my work. From 3.30-6pm: that means dinner strictly at 6pm to leave enough time for bath cartoons books bed at 7pm for bed at 8pm. So dinner needs to be prepped in advance on Slovak nanny days. We are SO not used to this kind of routine as a family, we are so relaxed!
- Get a Chinese equivalent for once a week! And I will be with toddler in studio in the same way, so he is still with me.
- KEEP Slovak Sundays!
- Age 3, go to Slovak Saturday afternoon school 3 hours 2-5pm and use time for ME to catch up my own Slovak, working through and finishing Krizom Krazom Slovak textbook. Then eventually can be divided between Slovak and Chinese learning for me, then divided between all my languages.
- Age 3, go to Chinese nursery at Chinese church Sundays (is only 2 hours and whole family Is together whole day, so I don’t mind). When this is over, possibly up the Chinese nanny/tutor to twice a week like Slovak, hopefully I can afford. Or find a Chinese school as can be temporary, too, only a couple of years, and see how it pans out (he might really like it as modern teaching methods are fun now)
- Once at nursery, get Lele reading pen program to make Chinese reading fascinating, fun and interesting
- Once at reception, get Luka reading robot to make Chinese reading continue to be fascinating, fun and interesting
- Do summer language camps in Chinese
- Go to Slovakia each summer - and each winter too to take advantage of the winter sports when he’s older (I imagine boys like sports even if I don’t - part of strategy of making language cool)
- Save up and go to China when godmothers/best friends are there too for the very first time we go!
HELP for me personally to achieve the 3 hours per day:
Passive, comprehensible input:
- READ BOOKS during the DAYTIME in Slovak and Chinese, to get him interested so I can also read them at NIGHTTIME TOO as bedtime reading; I will still need and want to read English books too, so balance them all equally. As he gets older and learns to read English, leave phonics to school and I teach him to read English using sight word method only (way I myself learnt and taught myself to read English, memory only! As this mirrors Chinese character learning too).
- Work my way through Chinese graded readers for kids at night/spare time, and then read to him progressively
- Buy Panta Rhei Slovak books that look good (every single time I go to Slovakia, and whenever friends go to SK)
- Pre-translate some favourite English books into Slovak and Chinese
- LISTEN to Chinese audio audiobooks, radio and start with kid’s songs
Active learning:
Senses
- Prepare fun Chinese literacy activity Chinese character activity weekly in advance and increase frequency from weekly to daily as he gets older and more interested
Active learning:
Speaking
- Prepare list of words and phrases to use with toddler directly
- Just improve my own Chinese at night and turn my sprinkling Chinese words into sprinkling longer Chinese phrases, and then eventually whole sentences and interactions in Chinese
- Same as above for Slovak, and I will make faster progress in this as my Slovak is already miles better than my Chinese
GOALS
SLOVAK
For him to be able to read and write - this is easy and achievable once he can do it in English as it is totally phonetic.
For him to be able to be proficient, fluent in Slovak - enough to be able to live and work in Slovakia; it can be an advanced level too whereby he has enough Slovak to function and then ‘tops up’ if and when he decides to go there. Functionally bilingual. Or maybe it’s called conversationally bilingual, I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t need to be able to go to university there. And if he gets a job there he can learn on the job too.
For me, to be able to hold and follow a conversation with my family, ie to get to B2 level in Slovak (it’s currently between A2-B1, as I haven’t touched my books for a while, although my reading or passive knowledge is higher and sometimes I understand almost everything).
CHINESE
Originally my own goal was for me to learn 1001 characters (not words) as part of my PhD. It is still a goal, but has since expanded. Since a combination of 2 characters (bigrams) make up majority of words, I want us to start learning actual Chinese words to (reading and writing) as my goal has now shifted from casually learning Chinese as a second language, a ‘hobby’ for us, to being actually trilingual.
It all changed when my grandma passed away I think… slow dawning on me that I have lost our last Mandarin speaking relative (my mother speaks, reads and writes Cantonese, but her English is better)… something changed in me and now I want us both to be conversationally fluent in Chinese. Not to be on a par with kids in China/Taiwan, as we don’t live there and will always be and look ‘foreign’ anyway, but for him to be able to communicate with Chinese friends and make friends and have fun, hopefully to an advanced level. For example, with the 1001 character milestone, I am happy to take it much more slowly than a kid in China/Taiwan would. But we’ll see, as I generally love books and reading. He can continue at his own pace and I believe in being child-led, although in general this idea is initially adult-led. I would love it if he became so passionate about it that he surpassed me in Chinese speaking, reading and writing one day. But the mid-long term goal is for both of us to be able to read simple readers (Chinese library series and Lele reading pen series) and be able to go and enjoy our time in China when we eventually do make it there. I want to spark something in him to awake a passion for it so he is self-motivated to continue. He can already recognise a few characters now and is excited and feels good about this.
I was told about HSK program and that I never would be able to read a newspaper if I didn’t learn 5000 characters. That’s ok, I don’t really want to read newspapers anyway (boring)! I would rather read children’s books for a long time now. We will see. I have no ambitions to do HSK for myself and just want to be able to read those readers, and hold a pleasant conversation in Chinese about things that are important to me. Also to be able to enjoy Chinese classics to an extent, as I’m told that actually these are ‘easier’ than modern fiction and newspapers. Even at an introductory level.
We will start with simplified characters and I myself will go on to study traditional characters to be able to read in Hong Kong, and my child is welcome to learn them too if interested.
I told my mother that once my Mandarin is at a sufficient enough level then I would also finally like to learn Cantonese, as we both lived in Hong Kong (her for much longer).
My grandfather’s dying wish was that someone, possibly me but no pressure, would ‘carry on’ or just learn Shanghainese, his native language, so we will see if that is ever possible for me. (Both my grandparents could speak Shanghainese, Cantonese, Mandarin and English.)
END ESSAY
Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart anyone who gets to this line!!
), the amount of success that any parent experiences is largely in proportion to the amount of persistence they exhibit on a daily basis, year after year after year. There's nothing "wrong" with being less consistent than this, but it's also true that the less consistent we are, the less progress we'll make. So, finally, realizing a bilingual or multilingual dream, to the degree of strong fluency in the minority language(s), is the result of maintaining efforts that match the scale of your aim.
I don't know how to motivate my husband. The only thing I am doing is being the model of a person who is also tired and still just speaking Slovak even if it is a translation of an English sentence straight after. This is slowly starting to work just by sheer peer pressure from wife to husband. Wish I could guilt him into it a bit more. 
