Una in Melbourne!
Aug 8, 2014 22:07:09 GMT 9
Post by Una on Aug 8, 2014 22:07:09 GMT 9
Hi everyone...or Dia daoibh!
I am Irish and living in Australia. My husband grew up in France and we have 2 beautiful daughters who are bilingual English-French. I am a scientist and my interest in languages was pretty minimal until I met my husband! Then I suddenly found myself trying to recall all my school French!
When my first daughter was born we decided to try and speak only French to her and so my French vastly improved as she grew, but I will always be a non-native speaker. Now that she is 4 yrs old our conversations are becoming more complex (requiring convincing and persuasion!) and so we are gradually morphing into a OPOL family. This is not a problem really, only I worry about my second daughter's French exposure as her big sister is now speaking mostly English whenever I'm around. My husband speaks only French to the girls and so I'm sure it will work out alright but this forum will be great if I run into trouble!
I should also mention that I, like all Irish people, was brought up bilingually! Although this depends on your definition of 'bilingual'...the Irish language is taught from the very first day in school all the way through to high school graduation...so we were all exposed to a second language from an early age...I often think how lucky I was as I don't think my improvement in French would have been possible if my brain was not already programmed for additional languages! Just my own thinking on the subject!
Looking forward to hearing about all your bilingual experiences! Thank you Adam!
Una
I am Irish and living in Australia. My husband grew up in France and we have 2 beautiful daughters who are bilingual English-French. I am a scientist and my interest in languages was pretty minimal until I met my husband! Then I suddenly found myself trying to recall all my school French!
When my first daughter was born we decided to try and speak only French to her and so my French vastly improved as she grew, but I will always be a non-native speaker. Now that she is 4 yrs old our conversations are becoming more complex (requiring convincing and persuasion!) and so we are gradually morphing into a OPOL family. This is not a problem really, only I worry about my second daughter's French exposure as her big sister is now speaking mostly English whenever I'm around. My husband speaks only French to the girls and so I'm sure it will work out alright but this forum will be great if I run into trouble!
I should also mention that I, like all Irish people, was brought up bilingually! Although this depends on your definition of 'bilingual'...the Irish language is taught from the very first day in school all the way through to high school graduation...so we were all exposed to a second language from an early age...I often think how lucky I was as I don't think my improvement in French would have been possible if my brain was not already programmed for additional languages! Just my own thinking on the subject!
Looking forward to hearing about all your bilingual experiences! Thank you Adam!
Una
) and the children attend a majority language school. I don't know how much time your husband is able to spend with the children, or what language he uses when he speaks to you, but the "danger" is that the imbalance of exposure between English and French--as well as the lack of real need the children may come to feel with regard to speaking French to him, since I imagine he also speaks English--could result in a tilt toward dominant English and passive French (for your younger child, especially).
