Hallo from Belgique
Oct 5, 2022 5:59:39 GMT 9
Post by Liesbeth on Oct 5, 2022 5:59:39 GMT 9
Hello everyone, I recently joined this forum after a few years of struggling with the bilingual education of my son, currently almost 5 years old.
I am a Dutch native speaker from Belgium and live since several years with my husband in the French speaking part of our country, together with my stepson (15 years) and son. My husband and stepson are both perfect French monolinguals. I know my stepson since he was 5 years old and always spoke French to him. I never felt the need to speak Dutch with him.
Things are of course different with my own son. I have always spoken in Dutch to my son, but since he went to a nursery in French and since everything around us was in French, including the language of daddy and big (step)brother, my son started to pronounce his first words and phrases in French. This gave me an odd and sad feeling, so I began reading and informing myself about the raising of bilingual children. And that's when my battle started... I organized loads of visits to my family in the other part of the country, I found a nursery 1 day/week in Dutch, I found a bilingual school. I also tried to talk quietly in French towards my husband and stepson, which I found very challenging honestly. I am still struggling with this. I feel that I am trying to have as much time as possible alone with my son to be able to transmit the language. And honestly, our family life and my personal balance is suffering.
What is very positive, is that all my actions led to great success. My son has really integrated that we talk in Dutch together, he never says anything in French to me and has great vocabulary.
I however feel quite exhausted and have difficulties to become a bit more relaxed and laid back. I am still focusing on the amount of hours of input per week in my ml. And I am still somewhat anxious to fully talk in French towards my husband and stepson, when my son is around.
I also hear that my son is constantly making the same grammatical errors in ml (he uses constantly the French word order instead of the Dutch one), and I am wondering if this will ever change. I try to gently correct him, which is also quite tiring, since I need to do this every minute...
So as a whole, quite some negative feelings today, even though my bilingual path is clearly going in the good direction. But i am tired ;-)
I am sure that this forum will give support! Looking forward to exchange with you.
I am a Dutch native speaker from Belgium and live since several years with my husband in the French speaking part of our country, together with my stepson (15 years) and son. My husband and stepson are both perfect French monolinguals. I know my stepson since he was 5 years old and always spoke French to him. I never felt the need to speak Dutch with him.
Things are of course different with my own son. I have always spoken in Dutch to my son, but since he went to a nursery in French and since everything around us was in French, including the language of daddy and big (step)brother, my son started to pronounce his first words and phrases in French. This gave me an odd and sad feeling, so I began reading and informing myself about the raising of bilingual children. And that's when my battle started... I organized loads of visits to my family in the other part of the country, I found a nursery 1 day/week in Dutch, I found a bilingual school. I also tried to talk quietly in French towards my husband and stepson, which I found very challenging honestly. I am still struggling with this. I feel that I am trying to have as much time as possible alone with my son to be able to transmit the language. And honestly, our family life and my personal balance is suffering.
What is very positive, is that all my actions led to great success. My son has really integrated that we talk in Dutch together, he never says anything in French to me and has great vocabulary.
I however feel quite exhausted and have difficulties to become a bit more relaxed and laid back. I am still focusing on the amount of hours of input per week in my ml. And I am still somewhat anxious to fully talk in French towards my husband and stepson, when my son is around.
I also hear that my son is constantly making the same grammatical errors in ml (he uses constantly the French word order instead of the Dutch one), and I am wondering if this will ever change. I try to gently correct him, which is also quite tiring, since I need to do this every minute...
So as a whole, quite some negative feelings today, even though my bilingual path is clearly going in the good direction. But i am tired ;-)
I am sure that this forum will give support! Looking forward to exchange with you.
