Hi from Luxembourg!
Jan 31, 2016 19:35:23 GMT 9
Post by Ecio on Jan 31, 2016 19:35:23 GMT 9
Hi All,
I am the father of a 4-month-old nice girl called Giulia.
I am Italian, my wife is Italian too and we live in Luxembourg since a couple of years.
Our challenge is to raise our daughter (and other kids, if any ) in this "peculiar" environment.
Luxembourg has 3 official languages, Luxembourgish, French and German, but almost half of the population is composed either of 1st-2nd generation immigrants (mostly Portuguese but also French and Italian) or UE nationals working for European institutions (+ Chinese for Chinese banks and any nationality for multinational companies like Amazon). So quite a melting pot!
So, even though "real" Luxembourgish speak mostly Luxembourgish and German, typically French is the social language, especially in the main city.
To further explain, the Luxembourgish public school system starts with Luxembourgish as a social language in the pre-school, then adds German as main language in the primary school and finally adds French after few years. On the other hand, there are private schools that are either French, or in English (British or International/American) and finally we have the European school where you typically study in our mother language and then it adds one of FR/DE/EN at 1st year of primary school (at 6 yo) and another one around 12 yo.
Now, back to my family, we are both Italians and my plan is to talk both Italian with our daughter. My wife would like me to talk to the baby in English, but I am not comfortable enough to do it (especially due to the Italian accent, but also for the possible mistakes that I would do). She said that she has read somewhere (Internet) that it would still be fine because the kid will adapt to the right accent thanks to external sources (TV, school, etc.) but I am not convinced.
Now we are in the process of selecting the nursery school and to somehow plan for long term future (so school even after that). My personal opinion is that learning good English would be far better than learning French (especially because we don't plan to live here our whole life) but I cannot ignore the fact that she needs to know at least one "local" language. We have seen few nurseries, a couple French only (but maybe with 1-2 hours of English a week), one English only (1-2 hours a week for French), one mixed (changing language every week, good for this but slightly worse for some other aspects). Probably at 6 yo she'll go the the European school, where she'll use Italian as main language and either FR or EN as second language, and she'll only introduce a third language at 12. So on one hand I'd like to put her in an English nursery and then choose English as 2nd language in the school; on the other hand I can't expect her to ignore French until she's 12.
Another option would be to put her in a French nursery, so she learns French, and only later introduce English (and use it as 2nd language at school). In this way I would expect her to have a basic spoken French that could be used around while focusing on English (and Italian) for studies and life.
Though choices
Any opinion?
As a side note, I speak English (acceptable as my working environment is English-speaking, but far for being really good) and have just a really basic French, while my wife speaks French, English and German (without excelling in any of them).
I am the father of a 4-month-old nice girl called Giulia.
I am Italian, my wife is Italian too and we live in Luxembourg since a couple of years.
Our challenge is to raise our daughter (and other kids, if any
) in this "peculiar" environment.Luxembourg has 3 official languages, Luxembourgish, French and German, but almost half of the population is composed either of 1st-2nd generation immigrants (mostly Portuguese but also French and Italian) or UE nationals working for European institutions (+ Chinese for Chinese banks and any nationality for multinational companies like Amazon). So quite a melting pot!
So, even though "real" Luxembourgish speak mostly Luxembourgish and German, typically French is the social language, especially in the main city.
To further explain, the Luxembourgish public school system starts with Luxembourgish as a social language in the pre-school, then adds German as main language in the primary school and finally adds French after few years. On the other hand, there are private schools that are either French, or in English (British or International/American) and finally we have the European school where you typically study in our mother language and then it adds one of FR/DE/EN at 1st year of primary school (at 6 yo) and another one around 12 yo.
Now, back to my family, we are both Italians and my plan is to talk both Italian with our daughter. My wife would like me to talk to the baby in English, but I am not comfortable enough to do it (especially due to the Italian accent, but also for the possible mistakes that I would do). She said that she has read somewhere (Internet) that it would still be fine because the kid will adapt to the right accent thanks to external sources (TV, school, etc.) but I am not convinced.
Now we are in the process of selecting the nursery school and to somehow plan for long term future (so school even after that). My personal opinion is that learning good English would be far better than learning French (especially because we don't plan to live here our whole life) but I cannot ignore the fact that she needs to know at least one "local" language. We have seen few nurseries, a couple French only (but maybe with 1-2 hours of English a week), one English only (1-2 hours a week for French), one mixed (changing language every week, good for this but slightly worse for some other aspects). Probably at 6 yo she'll go the the European school, where she'll use Italian as main language and either FR or EN as second language, and she'll only introduce a third language at 12. So on one hand I'd like to put her in an English nursery and then choose English as 2nd language in the school; on the other hand I can't expect her to ignore French until she's 12.
Another option would be to put her in a French nursery, so she learns French, and only later introduce English (and use it as 2nd language at school). In this way I would expect her to have a basic spoken French that could be used around while focusing on English (and Italian) for studies and life.
Though choices
Any opinion?
As a side note, I speak English (acceptable as my working environment is English-speaking, but far for being really good) and have just a really basic French, while my wife speaks French, English and German (without excelling in any of them).
