Hello from Japan!
Oct 27, 2015 0:23:07 GMT 9
Post by Sothea on Oct 27, 2015 0:23:07 GMT 9
Hello everyone! I have been long following this forum! I'm so excited to finally become part of the group. 
My name is Sothea. I and my husband are both Cambodian living in Japan. I speak Khmer (mother tongue), English and a little Japanese while my husband is trilingual. I am a stay-at-home mum and our daughter is now 15 months. We plan to put her in kindergarten when she is 3. Because we plan to go back to Cambodia for good after some years, we decided that my husband speaks to her in Japanese while I speak to her both Khmer and English. My husband usually arrives home when she is already asleep. So her exposure to Japanese is quite limited. To help expose her to Japanese-speaking environment, what I do is I bring her to a play date at least 2 times a week and we go to supermarket everyday.
Last weekend we brought her to a playground in a mall. It seemed to us she wanted to play with other kids. She would approach them and look at them but then she would back off and turn to us. I'm wondering if this has anything to do with language barrier or is it natural for toddlers her age? She is overall a happy kid, though.
As I stated above we plan to put her in kindergarten when she is 3 thinking that it wouldn't be a problem for her to pick up the Japanese then. Now that we think about how she interacts with other kids and stuff, we're not sure if it is better to consider daycare sooner.
I am looking forward to hearing from other members especially those who have similar experience. I find raising multilingual kids challenging and I seem to get frustrated sometimes. But I am not giving up.
Looking forward to hearing from you. Thanks!
Sothea
My name is Sothea. I and my husband are both Cambodian living in Japan. I speak Khmer (mother tongue), English and a little Japanese while my husband is trilingual. I am a stay-at-home mum and our daughter is now 15 months. We plan to put her in kindergarten when she is 3. Because we plan to go back to Cambodia for good after some years, we decided that my husband speaks to her in Japanese while I speak to her both Khmer and English. My husband usually arrives home when she is already asleep. So her exposure to Japanese is quite limited. To help expose her to Japanese-speaking environment, what I do is I bring her to a play date at least 2 times a week and we go to supermarket everyday.
Last weekend we brought her to a playground in a mall. It seemed to us she wanted to play with other kids. She would approach them and look at them but then she would back off and turn to us. I'm wondering if this has anything to do with language barrier or is it natural for toddlers her age? She is overall a happy kid, though.
As I stated above we plan to put her in kindergarten when she is 3 thinking that it wouldn't be a problem for her to pick up the Japanese then. Now that we think about how she interacts with other kids and stuff, we're not sure if it is better to consider daycare sooner.
I am looking forward to hearing from other members especially those who have similar experience. I find raising multilingual kids challenging and I seem to get frustrated sometimes. But I am not giving up.
Looking forward to hearing from you. Thanks!
Sothea
