Tuesday, May 19, 2009

A Question of Language

One of the blogs which I enjoy is Correr Es Mi Destino, by Zhu. Zhu is a French lady who lives in Ottawa, Canada. Her hubby is a Chinese Canadian. Zhu speaks four languages – French (of course), English, Chinese and Spanish.

Of late, I have been thinking of these questions: If Zhu were to have kids, what language(s) would they speak? If I were in the same situation as her, what would I do?

Imagine that I live in Ottawa. I would like my kids to be able to communicate with the neighbors. There, English and French are the dominant languages, so they must be given priority. Oh yes, I definitely would encourage my kids to learn Chinese, but that might come later.


The multilingual Zhu

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18 comments:

  1. Anonymous5/19/2009 2:00 AM

    Hi there!

    You know, I actually wondered the same... English is basically a given, since it's the language we use the most at home.

    But my parents don't really speak it, so I guess my kids would have to learn French. Besides, French is important in Canada.

    But then, my in-laws don't really speak English, so they would communicate in Mandarin...

    At home, we speak a mix of everything. English, mostly, but some Chinese, and even a bit of French because Feng picked it up with me.

    Guess I have to wait a bit before we have kids, I'm not ready to yell at them in four different languages! :D

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  2. Kikey Loo5/19/2009 2:19 AM

    I will let my kids learn the languages that I can speak! :p

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  3. Tekkaus5/19/2009 4:56 AM

    Hey! I think I agree with you. It's essential to equip the kids with the mother tongue at that particular place first...then later just pick up the other language! ;D

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  4. 花木兰5/19/2009 9:49 AM

    当然是自己的母语好。不过多学几种语文也不错。

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  5. Anonymous5/19/2009 9:51 AM

    I agree with you guys, but what's the mother tongue?

    For example, in our case, the kids would have at least two: my hubby's English and my French!

    Plus, I'm not even sure I even consider French as my mother tongue anymore, since I don't really speak it everyday.

    ReplyDelete
  6. khengsiong5/19/2009 12:17 PM

    zhu
    Haha... guess your kids are going to struggle with a few languages.

    kikey
    That's understandable. If you want them to speak a language you can't speak, you gotta send them to school.

    tekkaus
    Actually I am referring to the specific case of Canada.

    花木兰
    其实我们的母语是方言，不过现在的小孩都说华语。华人说什么『母语教育』其实是骗人的。。。

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  7. xin5/19/2009 2:51 PM

    its great that her kids can be exposed to more languages and learn more right? it will be so useful everywhere they go

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  8. foongpc5/19/2009 3:38 PM

    Learn all the 4 languages! Children tend to pick up languages faster than adults, son it's not difficult for them.

    Me? One language already I'm in a big headache - Mandarin language!

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  9. khengsiong5/19/2009 4:53 PM

    xin
    Yes, being exposed to more language is good.

    foongpc
    If you can speak Mandarin, that's good enough :)

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  10. JL5/19/2009 6:50 PM

    Zhu does have a point when it comes to her case. As for me if I could, I'd have liked to learn Chinese and English first before thinking about other languages. Korean has helped me learn Chinese indirectly.

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  11. Calvin Foo5/19/2009 11:48 PM

    Kids have no problem with languages. they can digest anything you throw to them.

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  12. khengsiong5/20/2009 8:53 AM

    JL
    Wondering how Korean helped you learn Chinese. I do know that Chinese helped me learn Japanese.

    Calvin
    So that means teaching of Maths and Science in English is not a problem?

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  13. Anonymous5/20/2009 9:09 AM

    Chinese does help a lot for Japanese, thanks to the kanji. I love showing off by reading basic kanji... and I call the rest (hiragana and katakana) "drunk Chinese", because the characters look so simple compared to Chinese :D

    I think learning Mandarin does help for a lot of things, such as drawing and visual memory. Plus, at least for Westerners, we have to think totally differently, which is kind of cool. It's a different way of seeing the world!

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  14. kyh5/20/2009 11:27 PM

    i'd want my kid to speak 1 specific language to each parent. if i were to live in an english speaking society, i wont speak to him/her in english bcos he'll be exposed to the language once he goes to school or when making friends.

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  15. JL5/20/2009 11:41 PM

    Korean uses a lot of Chinese vocabulary, what's more unlike Japanese, their pronunciation of Chinese vocab is quite close to many Chinese dialects so sometimes I can guess the Chinese by hearing the pronunciation. Koreans also still use Chinese characters in their written work sometimes.

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  16. khengsiong5/21/2009 9:31 AM

    zhu
    Thanks for speaking from the perspective of Westerners :)

    kyh
    You've a point. Your kids won't speak with Malaysian accent :P

    JL
    OK, I understand now.

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  17. Katherine5/23/2009 12:17 AM

    Having many languages at times can be disadvantageous. Like becoming an expert of none.

    But of course that will depend on how Zhu will handle the communication at home! :-)

    ReplyDelete
  18. khengsiong5/26/2009 9:26 AM

    Baoru
    I know you are good in many languages too. Maybe kids need to start young.

    ReplyDelete

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