Hello from Finland
Nov 14, 2014 7:26:40 GMT 9
Post by Nadya on Nov 14, 2014 7:26:40 GMT 9
Hello everyone!
I am very happy to be part of this community and share my experience and feelings. Thank you Adam for recommending me this forum!
My name is Nadya, I am a Russian mother of two wonderful children aged 3.5yrs and 10 months old. I was born in Moscow and moved to Finland 6 years ago. My husband is Finnish and speaks in Finnish to our children, I speak to them in Russian. I speak Finnish, learnt it during my staying here, but I still try to use English when speaking to my husband in the presence of my children.
I didn't realize till my first child started to speak, how demanding, sometimes stressful and frustrating, and eventually rewarding it can be to make your child speak to you in minority language. However, I can be proud with my daughter's Russian language proficiency. She has started to talk her first words at the age of 1 year and 3 months, and they were mostly Finnish words. Finnish words are actually much more easier for a small kid to pronounce that Russian ones, they have easier phonetics, they are shorter and many words have similar endings. Those were the first moments I started to be jealous that Finnish is so much easier for her that Russian, even if she hears more Russian from me (while I was on maternity leave with her then and now with my younger son) and I read her much more than her Dad in Finnish. I still often feel jealous when watching how easy it is to get my daughter interested in Finnish children songs and books, watch Finnish cartoons and talk to Finnish adults and children around her so bravely. Of course, she sings also in Russian (together with me or listening to a CD I burned for her). But for that, I first have to learn those songs' words by heart and sing them to her now and then, so that she understands and remembers them and then can also sing herself.
It feels frustrating to wake up in the mornings and listen to my daughter playing CDs with Finnish songs. And then she won't listen to you, what you tell her, what you want to play with her, because she is like living in her own world of those favourite Moomie songs. In those moments, I feel helpless because I know I cannot force a child to listen or speak my language. In those moments it feels exhausting to have to constantly "fight" over her attention...
Well, now it has become easier, at least for a while, because I can talk and read to my 10 month old son in those moments of Finnish songs. And then sometimes also my daughter gets engaged in what we are reading or playing or laughing...
Of course, there are many sweet moments that we play with my daughter different role games and other stuff. Like doing different intellectual tasks for toddlers, simple mathematics, drawing, cutting papers etc. But I have recently thought, especially when watching mothers of monolingual children, that I would probably not play that much with my children if I didn't live abroad, outside of Russia. I feel that this bilingualism has created some kind of even more tighter and special bond between me and my children.
Here, living outside of Russian-speaking community, I feel sometimes lonely being away from my home, and when I see and hear my child speaking Finnish, it just adds to my loneliness, sharpens my feelings and make me ready to do anything that she always speaks and wants to speak to me in my native language. I think I am sometimes too obsessed with this language matter...but this obsession has yielded satisfactory results so far. My daughter has learned to read simple 2-3 syllable words in Russian, (we started to learn alphabet at the age of 2). Also, for some reason she has never mixed the languages and always spoken Russian to me and Finnish to her Dad, starting from 1.5 yrs old. I don't even know why she never mixed languages, I don't take it as a good or bad sign...it just never happened.
I have been reading many children's rhymes aloud to my younger son, while he is on the floor playing. Now it's easy age for reading aloud (10 months old compared to 3.5yrs), I can choose what to read and when to read.
I am glad to be able to share my thoughts and feelings here. As you have probably noticed, my moods and feelings are going up and down all the time. But I think those loneliness feelings and down moods have just made me stronger and made me be proactive to meet our goals regarding minority language.
ps I am sorry for my English language mistakes...
I am very happy to be part of this community and share my experience and feelings. Thank you Adam for recommending me this forum!
My name is Nadya, I am a Russian mother of two wonderful children aged 3.5yrs and 10 months old. I was born in Moscow and moved to Finland 6 years ago. My husband is Finnish and speaks in Finnish to our children, I speak to them in Russian. I speak Finnish, learnt it during my staying here, but I still try to use English when speaking to my husband in the presence of my children.
I didn't realize till my first child started to speak, how demanding, sometimes stressful and frustrating, and eventually rewarding it can be to make your child speak to you in minority language. However, I can be proud with my daughter's Russian language proficiency. She has started to talk her first words at the age of 1 year and 3 months, and they were mostly Finnish words. Finnish words are actually much more easier for a small kid to pronounce that Russian ones, they have easier phonetics, they are shorter and many words have similar endings. Those were the first moments I started to be jealous that Finnish is so much easier for her that Russian, even if she hears more Russian from me (while I was on maternity leave with her then and now with my younger son) and I read her much more than her Dad in Finnish. I still often feel jealous when watching how easy it is to get my daughter interested in Finnish children songs and books, watch Finnish cartoons and talk to Finnish adults and children around her so bravely. Of course, she sings also in Russian (together with me or listening to a CD I burned for her). But for that, I first have to learn those songs' words by heart and sing them to her now and then, so that she understands and remembers them and then can also sing herself.
It feels frustrating to wake up in the mornings and listen to my daughter playing CDs with Finnish songs. And then she won't listen to you, what you tell her, what you want to play with her, because she is like living in her own world of those favourite Moomie songs. In those moments, I feel helpless because I know I cannot force a child to listen or speak my language. In those moments it feels exhausting to have to constantly "fight" over her attention...
Well, now it has become easier, at least for a while, because I can talk and read to my 10 month old son in those moments of Finnish songs. And then sometimes also my daughter gets engaged in what we are reading or playing or laughing...
Of course, there are many sweet moments that we play with my daughter different role games and other stuff. Like doing different intellectual tasks for toddlers, simple mathematics, drawing, cutting papers etc. But I have recently thought, especially when watching mothers of monolingual children, that I would probably not play that much with my children if I didn't live abroad, outside of Russia. I feel that this bilingualism has created some kind of even more tighter and special bond between me and my children.
Here, living outside of Russian-speaking community, I feel sometimes lonely being away from my home, and when I see and hear my child speaking Finnish, it just adds to my loneliness, sharpens my feelings and make me ready to do anything that she always speaks and wants to speak to me in my native language. I think I am sometimes too obsessed with this language matter...but this obsession has yielded satisfactory results so far. My daughter has learned to read simple 2-3 syllable words in Russian, (we started to learn alphabet at the age of 2). Also, for some reason she has never mixed the languages and always spoken Russian to me and Finnish to her Dad, starting from 1.5 yrs old. I don't even know why she never mixed languages, I don't take it as a good or bad sign...it just never happened.
I have been reading many children's rhymes aloud to my younger son, while he is on the floor playing. Now it's easy age for reading aloud (10 months old compared to 3.5yrs), I can choose what to read and when to read.
I am glad to be able to share my thoughts and feelings here. As you have probably noticed, my moods and feelings are going up and down all the time. But I think those loneliness feelings and down moods have just made me stronger and made me be proactive to meet our goals regarding minority language.
ps I am sorry for my English language mistakes...
