I really want my daughter to be able to speak Urdu and our regional language in Pakistan. Right now she is mostly exposed to English and since she will be joining nursery soon I m afraid it will only increase.
If if you have raised a multi lingual child how did you go about it..
what language do you guys speak at home? that will be the dominating language the child speaks. simple.
husband and i speak in english but when we had our first child, we switched to urdu on purpose. we speak both fluently. add grandparents to the equation and midget picked up urdu and that is his mother tongue.
english he learned by watching cartoons in english and from us when we do speak it. danish from school.
so it all boils down to introducing the right language at the right stage and need.
Re: Raising a multilingual child how?
Speak that language at home. She will pick it up.
Re: Raising a multilingual child how?
Talk to her in Urdu at home and don't reply back unless she is speaking in Urdu.
Re: Raising a multilingual child how?
One parent speak in regional language, Urdu and other one speak in English.
He will become fluent in all three languages.
Re: Raising a multilingual child how?
Speak in your mother tongue at home. Thats how my mums done it with my younger siblings.
Re: Raising a multilingual child how?
I also thought about this when IA we have a baby. My family speaks Urdu, Punjabi and English. Hubby's family speaks Pashto. I speak limited (very basic) Pashto and hubby and I communicate with one another in English. I will either have one very confused child OR a very bilingual one (IA). :)
Re: Raising a multilingual child how?
Just keep the exposure on all languages and never forget to introduce literature. It's the best way to develop a vocabulary.
Re: Raising a multilingual child how?
The best way to do it is via the 1-parent-1-language method for instance you speak Urdu to her, your husband can speak the regional language and she will learn english in school. That's what worked for us.
Re: Raising a multilingual child how?
^ I have two friends who do this.
Mom speaks to kids only French, dad speaks to kids only in English.
Children learn German and Luxembourg-ish at school And because mom and dad speak a version of Creole between them, the kids have picked up Creole as well. But the one-parent, one-language method apparently works very well!
Re: Raising a multilingual child how?
One parent speak in regional language, Urdu and other one speak in English. He will become fluent in all three languages.
^ Yep this works. We know a mixed couple where the dad is Gujrati and mom is Chinese. Their kid (almost 8 now) speaks both along with English just fine. The kid also got similar type of exposure with extended family (i.e. grandparents etc. on dad's side spoke to kid and Gujrati and relatives on mom's side spoke Chinese).
Re: Raising a multilingual child how?
My cousins are raising a tri lingual child. My cousin is pakistani but his wife is Iranian. Add the fact that we're punjabi, that's three languages AND then there's english. The mother ONLY speaks farsi with the child so she learns to speak. The father speaks in English and the grand parents speak in Urdu. Mashallah, children are so smart. The kid now knows who to speak which language with. Even if you ask her something in urdu, she can easily reply to you in all three languages are she's only 3 yet. Mashallah. Just keep at it and the kid will learn easily enough :)
Re: Raising a multilingual child how?
We raised both our kids in a Punjabi speaking environment. Some of our friends told us that your kids will have trouble with speaking English later on and that these days even people in Pakistan try to speak English with their children (ridiculous idea IMHO and shows your inferiority complex).
Anyway, we stuck to our Punjabi speaking at home and now both our kids (going to 1st grade and pre-school) speak Punjabi and English fluently (and with an accent, I might add).
I have no regrets raising my children speaking Punjabi and I am proud of it (no Urdu, sorry).
Re: Raising a multilingual child how?
My daughter is just now only starting to babble, but hubby and I always speak in our mother tongue. Actually we've always been doing that so we didn't really need to change anthing for her. She already tries to imitate certain words. She goes to daycare so she will pick up English there anyway.
One area where I do make a conscious effort is to learn nursery rhymes, baby songs in our native language so she is exposed to the color and richness of it. Once she's older I also plan to start reading books to her.