Post by Patrick on Jan 3, 2021 17:31:18 GMT 9
Hi everyone. I’m a new father living in Japan, and to be honest I have some questions about the whole bilingual education thing, particularly the extent the ML needs to be sidelined. I’m American (English native language) and my wife is Japanese, and our sole language of communication is Japanese, which I have studied since college. My wife speaks little English. As such, Japanese has been the sole language of our relationship.
In addition, most of my interests (reading literature, comics, tv, anime, music, etc.) are done in Japanese (my impetus for studying the language in the first place; I guess you could say I’m kind of an otaku for Japanese media), and as such much of my social life is also rooted in the language. In particular, my passion for reading has been greatly shaped by reading Japanese literature in its original language. It’s been a virtuous cycle for acclimating to and enjoying life in Japan, to be sure, but it also means few of the books, music CDs, etc. in my home are English language. As such, my wife and I initially had the strategy that while I would speak to my son in English, the rest of our life would continue to be mostly in Japanese.
However, reading this site and message board, it seems like many don’t experience clear results unless the ml parent forgoes showing any real ability of knowing/using the ML in front of the child or the ML is excluded from the home to the greatest extent possible. It sounds like the kid knowing the parent speaks ML can be a real killer to motivation to use the language. I suppose this makes sense, since surrounding myself with Japanese things and forcing myself into Japanese language-only groups and situations aided greatly in my own study of the language.
While I do want to make a serious effort at teaching English and have been speaking mostly just English to him, if I’m being honest the idea of restricting Japanese as much as possible seems difficult. I’m not really sure how I’d talk to my wife in front of my son without Japanese and purging Japanese things from my space at home and avoiding them when out together to give the impression that I can only understand English also seems difficult, like it would just be easier to give up Japanese interests for English ones...but that also doesn’t feel personally satisfying and feels like it would be putting on a false front for the kid, in a way.
Has anybody else navigated a situation like this? How do you square the circle of maintaining communication with a nearly ML-only spouse and maintaining a personal connection to and passion for the ML culture while also encouraging the child to want to use the ml? Is giving the child engaging kid-friendly ml resources and speaking to the child in the ml enough, or do we really do have to rearrange our lives to be as ml-centric as possible to have any real shot of succeeding?
In addition, most of my interests (reading literature, comics, tv, anime, music, etc.) are done in Japanese (my impetus for studying the language in the first place; I guess you could say I’m kind of an otaku for Japanese media), and as such much of my social life is also rooted in the language. In particular, my passion for reading has been greatly shaped by reading Japanese literature in its original language. It’s been a virtuous cycle for acclimating to and enjoying life in Japan, to be sure, but it also means few of the books, music CDs, etc. in my home are English language. As such, my wife and I initially had the strategy that while I would speak to my son in English, the rest of our life would continue to be mostly in Japanese.
However, reading this site and message board, it seems like many don’t experience clear results unless the ml parent forgoes showing any real ability of knowing/using the ML in front of the child or the ML is excluded from the home to the greatest extent possible. It sounds like the kid knowing the parent speaks ML can be a real killer to motivation to use the language. I suppose this makes sense, since surrounding myself with Japanese things and forcing myself into Japanese language-only groups and situations aided greatly in my own study of the language.
While I do want to make a serious effort at teaching English and have been speaking mostly just English to him, if I’m being honest the idea of restricting Japanese as much as possible seems difficult. I’m not really sure how I’d talk to my wife in front of my son without Japanese and purging Japanese things from my space at home and avoiding them when out together to give the impression that I can only understand English also seems difficult, like it would just be easier to give up Japanese interests for English ones...but that also doesn’t feel personally satisfying and feels like it would be putting on a false front for the kid, in a way.
Has anybody else navigated a situation like this? How do you square the circle of maintaining communication with a nearly ML-only spouse and maintaining a personal connection to and passion for the ML culture while also encouraging the child to want to use the ml? Is giving the child engaging kid-friendly ml resources and speaking to the child in the ml enough, or do we really do have to rearrange our lives to be as ml-centric as possible to have any real shot of succeeding?
