Do you speak English with your kids at home????

chetavani
i used to talk to my son in 3 languages..the child was confused and it took him time to speak the languages..he was a late starter...Doctor instructed me to speak in one language ....we choose to speak in our mother tongue... that helped!!
But when he started going to school we switched to english.
Now from this year onwards they have hindi books to study.So me and DH decided i will speak in hindi to my son and my hubby will speak in our mother tongue to him (DH has a better command over the mother tongue).
Now the present situation is i speak in Hindi at home...DH speaks in mother tongue and our dearest son speaks in English....National integration you see
But seriously pros of using more than one language at home is that kids never have a problem in communicating...
Heard using more than one language helps in making our brain sharper.
I would not just vote for ENGLISH but mother tongue and also our national language "Hindi"....use all of it at home.

 

As long as parents & kids understand the importance of learning & conversing in their
mother tongue then it is good to learn as many other languages as possible.

When the kid is young wouldn't be able to differentiate the importance of languages,
hence mother tongue would be better so that the kid realizes the importance.

 

Yes I totally agree with GOOGLEGLASS. Both my kids were speaking only in english once they started their schooling though we talk in our mother tongue at home. They can understand but can never talk more than a line in our mother tongue, today my elder daughter is 12 year and my younger son in 8 yrs now. I really regret that i should have forced them in talking in mother tongue at home. They know 3-4 language but they are not fluent in any. So please emphasis on communicating in mother tongue at home.

 

ever since my elder dd started her schooling we have been living in different states.so we decided to speak in our mother tongue and they become fluent in that latter .when my dd reached class 3 we made her to speak in english and we answer her in our mother tongue.this helped her to keep in touch with our mother tongue as well and her spoken english also improved.along with her my younger dd who was not going to school become familiar with english and she herself started to converse in english.now my my dds are fluent in tamil,kannada english hindi and gujarathi.moreover they are able to under stand other south indian languages and sanskrit.
why i am stressing this is knowing ones own mother tongue surely will help to pickup other languages easily.

 

Yes I too have read that talking in ones mother tongue helps learn other languages quickly . Well I speak both nglish nd my mt with my kids .anyways thy are going to learn to speak English only later ..

 

as expats satying away from India we try to teach hindi to kids & fortunately both of them speak good hindi........out of house its English so they learn that also from school & other people.

personally ,i feel your kids will pick up spoken English when there is need.

I came from English medium schools so could speak good English & my hubby who came from Govt schoold can speak better then me because he worked hard to improve his pronunciation ,grammer etc..................so in end where there is will there is always a way.......

 

its always very good to introduce other languages to a child, Dinny´s suggestion that each parent speaks a different language is a perfect way to implement that and recommended by specialists, another way is to fix a specific time each day in which will be just that one language be spoken by everyone, or one language will be spoken inside the house one outside - the important part is to make clear differeciations
On a more private note, my mother didnt speak her mothertongue (just main words for fruits or veggies n such) with me as we stayed in a different area after a certain while du to difficulties i had and my accent... so i pritty much lost it and im now forced to talk in english to my very own family... im recently on the way to study it... two of my cousins have the same problem and i saw it on the two ds of a friend too... loss of parents mothertongue.. i recently met two very nice ladies here and both of them couldnt mangle with us other gals here coz they didnt understand any english despite the fact they had a bachelor degree (one a masters too).. now they are depressed coz isolated and jobless even married with nice guys...

My personal conclution: I bow for the ones here who tought their children several languages as its one of the best gifts you can give to your children to make their life and future easier go ahead with your idea you do great job

 

dear op, your concern is very genuine. i can undertand your situation perfectly well. lots of english medium school in india are not very strict about using only english while conversing in school.

therefore i know lots of indian kids who fumble while speaking english.

in your case its best to use english at home, until they grasp it well, also encourage them to read good foreign author english books.

every sitaution is different, in foreign countries, parents make it compulsory to only speak their mother tongue at home, since they are going to learn english anyway, but there is no other means to learn their mother tongue.

in your case it's the opposite, so please start spaeking eng at home, along with your mother tongue.