Mei in Hiroshima, Japan

Hi, Mei. You are not alone. I am Malaysian speaking both English and Mandarin to my 2 years old son. Currently he is speaking to me in 3 languages. No matter how much I wish to return to work, for the reason that I want him to speak to me in Mandarin and English, I decided to return to work after he becomes 3 years old. I do not speak Japanese at home, only my husband speaks to us in Japanese. I do not care what my in-laws said about my way to raise trilingual child. I just insist my way. Please feel free to e-mail to me and we can talk sometimes. I live in Nagoya.

Hi Alice,

Nice to 'meet' you! I am so glad to find another friend who lives here too. May I know how did you manage to join an English playgroup? Did you start one yourself?

Mei, yes, read to your son every day, day after day, throughout childhood. Reading aloud is a vital routine for promoting the minority language and should be a cornerstone of our efforts.

And I agree, I suspect that your in-laws will come around as time goes by. In the meantime, continue to do what you feel is best for your son and your family, but try to be understanding and patient with their point of view.

Just email me when you'd like to pay us a personal visit and borrow children's books and other resources!

Hi Fish,

Thanks for your sympathetic reply and your thought-provoking questions. I actually never seriously thought about it but I believe code-switching is not really such a baaaaaad thing. I grew up in a multilingual environment with everybody speaking English or their mother tongues to each other so I've never cared so much about code-switching before I came to Japan. It's just something that comes naturally to me. For example, if I am back home and I'm buying something from a Malay person, I would use English to communicate with her instead of Japanese or Mandarin. I mean, that makes sense, right? If I know Malay, I'd probably use that. My brain automatically switches to a language which I think is appropriate according to the person I'm speaking to. If not, I'll be babbling like a crazy person here, speaking English or Mandarin to the Japanese around me.

That said, I've been code-switching while my baby was in my belly and now, I'm still doing it in front of him. I speak to his daddy in "Japlish" (a mixture of Japanese and English), his grandparents (and our neighbors, the cashiers in the supermarts, some mummies who I meet during the play dates, basically everybody) in Japanese, and my parents in Mandarin during our Skype chats.

The thing is, even if it's not a bad thing to code-switch, I just worry about my son speaking to me only Japanese once he's exposed to lots of it when he goes to a local school. I want him to speak to me only in English, if possible. Then when I feel that his level of proficiency is already pretty solid, I want him to learn Mandarin too. In addition, there's a problem of children learning by modeling after their parents so if he sees me code-switching so often, he might start getting mixed up and begin mixing up his languages even before he's proficient in any one.

About your question on how my parents dealt with bilingualism in our house, I think my parents didn't really think about it too much. They only speak Mandarin to my sister and me and I spoke English mostly at school. They don't care that my sister and I love reading books in English or listening to English music etc. I also never felt their displeasure when my sister and I talk to each other in English. I think the situation is unique in Singapore where we learn English as a First Language and our mother tongue as a Second Language. So my parents accepted that and didn't discourage our usage of another language in front of them. As long as we can communicate with them in Mandarin, they are happy.

I'm also interested to hear more stories about your adventures with your little one! Do share! Does he use Japanese with you now that he's in the preschool? Oh, and do you use "Japlish" or a special language with your wife too?

Mei

I am not a specialist but I think code-switching is not the "problem" itself but in which environment you are code-switching. If you live in a country where everybody is code-switching as more than one language is co-existing in everyday life in that country, then kids just learn both languages as the code-switching is not giving advantage to any of the languages because both are spoken by most of the people. They learn that for each place, person...there is a language you have to use as everybody else is doing. Something else is a situation like yours (and most of us, I think) where the code-switching by the ml speaker between ml and ML would mean that the exposure to ml will decrease and it will not be compensated by anybody else as it does not occur when code-switching is the norm. I am not sure if I am explaining myself well, so I'll try with an example.

For example, in the area of Catalunya, in Spain, Catalan and Spanish co-exist in everyday life and most people code-switch the whole day depending on where they are and to who they talk to. A child living there would hear the code-switching continually but as his exposure to both languages would be high, he would learn both and he would learn also when to code-switch.

Another completely different situation is yours, English in Japan. Every time the ml (English), code switch to japanese (ML), means that a chance for exposure to the ml is lost. This loss is lost forever as nobody else is code-switching to English. Everybody speaks Japanese and every sentence said in ML by the parent who speaks the ml would be one sentence less that the child hears in ml.

This thought has made me be very strict about not code-switching with my kids. I only speak Spanish to them. I may translate to people around us if I think it's necessary but the communication between us is in Spanish. People look strange at the beginning but I do not care. I just explain to them that the only way for my kids to learn my language is this way. Most of the time it's older people who make comments so I always ask them how they would feel if their kids would move to another country and would not talk Dutch to their grandchildren. When they would come to visit, they would not be able to communicate with them, wouldn't that be sad? I have given up trying to convince people and I take for granted some people don't like it, but I don't care, I know why I do it and that it's very important for me, so I keep on going. After 7 years being the only source of ml, I have to say this approach is paying off and the Spanish of my kids is great.

I have seen a close friend code-switching between Dutch (ML) and Spanish (ml) continuously. Her kids did not code-switch but just chose the easiest way and concentrated on the ML (Dutch) forgetting the ml (Spanish). Over the years, her kids have got into the habit of turning their ears off when she speaks Spanish as they know the Dutch version is coming after. At the moment they do not speak or understand much Spanish.

That is really good to hear. I'm glad that the situation has changed for the better for you, Millie. Thank you for sharing. As for me, I can only hope that my parents-in-law will eventually change their thinking and stop trying to control how I communicate with my baby.

Thanks, Fish, for your reply. It made me laugh! I was looking at the photos of you and Ollie from Adam's thread and thinking how cute he is. I'm sure you guys had a great time at Adam's house.

Yes, it's true. The balance of languages in Japan is definitely unbalanced. If I'm not around, our son is probably not going to hear ANY English at all each day. I'm glad you had a nice chat with Adam and that your partner and preschool teachers are helping you out a little by using English with your baby. Ollie's really lucky in that sense.

Now that I think about it, our baby does get a bit of English exposure at his nursery school. An English teacher goes to his school once a week to sing songs and read stories to them. I hear from his teachers that he's responding pretty well to the teacher.

Let's venture on in our journey raising bilingual children in a monolingual environment!