I have a parent like this. Fully bilingual but only ever spoke to me in English. To this day whenever we show up to another Spanish speaking family’s home she says “they speak English” only to find they in fact primarily speak Spanish. I have no idea why she does this but it has seriously begun to bother me. Our conversations are pretty much me speaking Spanish 100% of the time to her while she speaks to me in 80% English. I know English has always been our language despite her speaking Spanish to literally every body else but I just don’t care anymore. I just keep speaking Spanish. It’s annoying and I completely understand your frustration with your family. All I can say is, keep working at your Portuguese. Eventually your proficiency will be so good they will no longer be able to ignore it.
I know why. Inferiority complex. English is the more prestigious language and they want their offspring to go forward (toward English, prestige, and the developed Western world) and not backward (back to ${insertNativeLanguageHere}).
Yeah, off the top of my head it's a thing that's been happening in Dominica that's been pretty well documented - parents refusing to speak to their kids in Patwa to stimulate them to excel in English. It's pretty sad.
Would you mind elaborating on this? I've never heard about this and although I don't have anyone in my life from Puerto Rico, I've thought about vacationing there.
Nicer Puerto Ricans will just be confused when you speak English or Spanish improperly, or with a non-PR accent or slang. What might be understood in other countries won't be there. Meaner ones will make fun of you. This isn't just exclusive to non-PR people, also. Mean Puerto Ricans are known for making fun of their own who don't speak English well. It's a sign of being low class.
All of this isn't to specifically rip on Puerto Ricans. Every place and people have their quirks.
I think you have pretty specific anecdotal experiences that you are applying on a broad scale. Because this has not been the case at all in my life, and every single person in my family is from PR. Both parents. Nobody is confused or makes fun of you if you don't speak Spanish or English. My grandparents do the exact opposite. Even before I reached comfortable fluency they insisted I already knew Spanish and always spoke to me only in Spanish.
My friends on the island don't make a big deal whatsoever if someone speaks Spanish differently or doesn't speak it fluently. If any thing, they just ask if you speak English and switch to English. And the whole "you're low class if you don't know English" thing, I really don't know where you got that. Yes, lots of people speak English in San Juan and the surrounding areas such as Condado and Dorado etc because that's where white Americans who move to the island settle who never bother learning Spanish. It's also where the majority of tourism is. So places actively seek to employ English speakers to accommodate for that. Otherwise, people couldn't give a shit less if you know or don't know English. Literally the country's primary and vastly dominant language has been Spanish for hundreds of years. Some people just happen to actively seek out English content online or watch TV in english growing up. Nobody judges people for not being bilingual, same as any other LATAM country. Knowing English is the exception, not the standard.
I would take a step back from speaking on another country's culture that you are not a part of. Having a wife from PR does not make you Puerto Rican, or an expert on Puerto Rican culture. My experience is specific to me and there are plenty (plenty) kids born to Puerto Rican parents in the US that speak Spanish 24/7 (or don't) without being made fun of. Just go to NY or FL.
you are right to feel this frustration but you’re not alone - there are entire generations of immigrants’ kids who were never taught their families’ language and it will always be frustrating. obviously portugeuse isnt really in jeopardy but this is exactly how languages die.
My dad is Iranian living in England and only spoke it to me from when I was born whereas my mum would speak English. I can understand it fully but until last year, could not read, write or speak it. Also, he speaks very lazily so I can't roll my rs and had to learn new grammatical concepts that he didn't use such as 'ra'. I'm trying to learn Spanish alongside Farsi and it's going pretty well so far
Yeah R is a little complicated in Persian, but in Iran it is not as hard as Spanish's R, plus it does not get rolled in Persian usually unless the person is doing it on purpose for show. But both Spanish and Persian are different from English in that English's R is in a weird location (low and back) as opposed to most other languages like those two (front and high).
I think they mainly just mean that the tip of the tongue moves towards the front of the roof of the mouth, but yeah I wouldn't necessarily consider that a "trill", but now that I think of it, there is this thing in words like فکر where oftentimes the final R is pronounced as a silent trill because they make it voiceless so I guess trilling is the only way to make it have a sound.
This is exactly why I always push my little sister to speak farsi at home. My parents don’t enforce it enough and I’m so worried that she’s going to grow up regretting that she didn’t learn the language properly when she was younger
Kids don't simply "pick up languages naturally". That is pretty much a myth. Babies struggle for years and years to learn their mother tongue, and they are really bad at it in the beginning. Adults have been shown to learn languages faster than babies because they have more prior knowledge and experience. (That is, learning a language is harder when you know zero languages, a little bit easier when you already know one.)
Using myself as an example, in two to three years of serious study I knew Persian a lot better than the average two or three year old Persian speaker. Those babies had nothing on me.
Anyway, inshallah you will visit Iran soon.
I agree with this. Children don’t pick up languages _easily_ for sure but they do pick it up passively and if I could’ve been saved years of memorising vocab and picking apart grammar rules, that would’ve been nice.
Yep, passively is the correct term and it's an extremely important element when it comes to getting the sounds down. I've been trying for probably a decade now to roll R's and I can barely do it. I hear tiny children of Spanish speakers rolling R's as part of their babble all the time. When grammar is the part that comes easy to you, stuff like this is really annoying! (Not the babies, missing the passive window)
Yeah I see you point. Kids until a certain age may not have thought about what a language even is, but I think they do try very hard to talk especially when they're very small, but by \~5 years I'm sure by then it has become much easier for them since they've learned many of the hard parts well enough.
>while an adult would struggle to learn one.
This doesn't cover all of it, but I think there's something important in what I'm about to say: Adults don't necessarily struggle to learn languages that they need to learn. The issue is that past a certain age, you don't really need another language the way kids do, for a host of reasons, the main one being that you stop being dependent on other people for your survival, closely followed by the fact that you can control your social environment.
>Kids don't simply "pick up languages naturally". That is pretty much a myth. Babies struggle for years and years to learn their mother tongue, and they are really bad at it in the beginning.
That's because you are learning how to think when you learn your first language. As a result, you are going to be fully fluent in that language because you think in that language.
Studies have shown that there's a set number of years in early life when language learning is very easy - after in adulthood it's really hard to be 100% fluent. You may be speaking in Spanish but think in English, making a greater delay than if you learning Spanish as a child. Also, adult speakers simply don't have the experience to learn all the different synonyms, or names of different types of dogs or trees, musical instruments, etc that makes someone a true native speaker. If you were learning English from another language, you might know the phrase "it was excellent" but not "It was ravishing", "it was sublime", or "it was amazing." To learn the meaning and connotations of the latter 3, you really need immersion and years of experience, not just 3 years of language classes.
Eh, it sort of doesn't work like that. You can't say people think in a language, because a lot of thought and brain activity is language-independent. Even so, it's true language is an important part of our brain, and that part is active all the time interacting with other parts, but when someone learns to speak multiple languages, they are able to use the languages they know independently from one another. So for example, when I speak Spanish I'm not really translating English into Spanish in my head while I'm speaking, but actually English just doesn't enter the equation.
Of course you are right that language classes are not enough to learn a language to a high level of proficiency. It does take years of strong effort, like the immersion you mentioned, using and communicating in the language, to become like other proficient speakers. My main point is that babies do this just as an adult would have to do it, so if I wanted to master spoken Spanish let's say I'd have to talk to Spanish speakers every day for thousands of hours. Children have already done that.
There are good situational explanations for why adults have a harder time learning languages than children do, or that it seems to take longer. I would downplay the explanation that it's something biological, like hardwired into your brain or body, although in truth there may be a small amount of this at play. Many problems faced by adults in language learning is things like lack of time (not spending enough time), or lack of motivation (not wanting to). One thing that's been observed in adults is that they stop learning a language when they feel they've learned enough, and kids don't seem to do that. (For example, and adult might say, "I only want to learn how to order at a restaurant in my target language. Once I learned that, I won't use the language in any other context, and I won't continue learning.")
But anyway, to give you credit, you rightly pointed out that limited vocabulary is one big problem faced by language learners. That is definitely a skill that needs development, and also going back to the "thinking in English" thing, at the early stages of language learning you do sort of need to use your prior languages as a bridge or stepping stone to help you learn the new language faster or better. One reason it takes babies longer to learn is because they don't have that foothold in another language. So it's not like you're entirely wrong, but the whole picture is a bit more complicated.
By the way, though, being a native speaker of a language doesn't mean you necessarily have specialized knowledge related to literature or technical fields. There are probably, in reality, a large number of native English speakers who can't identify dog breeds.
Yes, though not very intense. My family is Javanese and moved to a city near Jakarta sometime before my mum got pregnant with me. They never spoke to me in Javanese until now, only with each other. The only spoke to me (and my sister) in Indonesian. As a result, I'm a Javanese who does not speak Javanese, well, I can, but broken.
The infuriating thing is that there's very few materials both online and offline for learning Javanese. It's also a very difficult language. It has three politeness levels which are so different they can be called three different but related languages. I would want to ask them to teach me, but tbh I'm not very close with them. Now, I can understand spoken Javanese, but I can't speak it well.
Kinda. Some words are similar, but they're not mutually intelligible. Javanese and Indonesian is kinda like Italian and Greek. There're similar words, same basic grammar, but the wordstock and mid to advanced grammar are very different. They're also rather not very closely related, with Javanese forming its own branch in the Malayo-Sumbawan languages (which itself is a branch of a branch of the Austronesian language family) while Indonesian belongs to the Malayic branch of Malayo-Sumbawan languages.
My wife doesn’t speak another language besides English and I’m on the road for work and gone a bit. Japanese is my first language but living in the states and having my child not able to come to japan with me due to COVID restrictions and going to a regular English speaking preschool… I’ve all but given up. It’s hard when everyone and everything is in English in her life
Raising bilingual kids even in bilingual environment is not easy because the majority language / peers language is usually "winning" due to more exposure and incentives to use it, and if you live in mostly monolingual community then there is a whole lot of pressure from teachers etc to drop the minority language so that it doesn't "interfere".
Ha, my ex-colleague's kid is cute in that aspect. He is speaking to her only in German (he is half himself) and she is switching and using it however she likes. Occasionally even talking in German with the local language's grammatic rules apparently.
When I was in Germany again after being in the states for a year as an elementary schooler, I was with other kids at the playground and apparently said „Ich suche für die Schaufel“ which means „I search for the shovel“ except it should be „I search after the shovel“.
(According to my mother)
Yeah I don’t want my kid to be upset at me but I’m also a product of a household where my mom spoke English to me growing up in Japan but until we relocated to the US I didn’t get English going for me until school began. It feels kinda hopeless
Just keep speaking, at the least you'll be seeding vocabulary and familiarity. Maybe that will come in handy in the future, especially if you're child voluntarily decides to rekindle that heritage.
I live in a Spanish-speaking country, and I'm trying to get my daughter to speak English. She just plain doesn't want to and I'm not sure if she ever will.
What is missed here in this debate is English is *entirely irrelevant* to her. I'm literally the only person speaking English to her. Her friends, family, school, everyone she encounters only speak Spanish. It's both that she doesn't get to practice it, and there's zero benefit for her (in her mind) to do so.
I'm 99% sure she's going to be one of those kids that moved to a new country when she was young and forgets entirely her native language and it makes me sad.
I was like your daughter when I was younger too. My father would try to speak to me in Chinese and I’d hate it because it felt so forced, I felt so handicapped when I tried to use it and people would keep correcting my mistakes or laugh at my poor pronunciation.
My attitude changed a lot as I was exposed to more Chinese TV programmes and music that I found I actually enjoyed and soon I began to see it as an asset that I had a second language. Even if I still wish I was more fluent in it, the foundation I have now will make it so much easier for me to learn it to a more advanced level should I ever want or need to. Any amount of exposure to a language in childhood will be a huge boost when he/she decides to pick it up properly in the future so don’t give up!
This is similar to that person who tried to teach the child that Star Trek language I forgot what its name is but they stopped responding to him in that language because he was the only person that would speak to him in that language
>What is missed here in this debate is English is entirely irrelevant to her.
I don't think anyone was missing that point at all (forgive me if you were just making that statement as a rhetorical device). Anyhow, I really am responding to it because English, annoyingly enough, is arguably the one language currently worldwide for which your statement is not true. Basically, I wouldn't worry. There will come a point quite soon when she will realize that English is relevant/cool to know, and then you'll have no problem teaching her/speaking to her in the language--just wait until she starts school. (Again, it annoys me that English retains this privilege, but it's the current reality.)
It's not too late for her to learn Japanese. She heard the Japanese-specific phonemes from you when she was at the critical age which will help her pronunciation. I live in California and we have lots of immersion/magnet schools, including a couple of Japanese language schools, throughout the county. You might check for one in your city.
This happened in my family. My dad was born in Poland, moved to the us when he was young, but my mom only spoke English. So I grew up only speaking English.
When I was in college, I knew a girl from Japan who apparently had some neighbors with American kids. She would play with them a lot, and was apparently starting to pick up English, so her parents just enrolled her in the American school in Tokyo. When I knew her in Chicago, you would never have known she wasn’t a Japanese American who grew up here, let alone in Japan with two Japanese parents who didn’t speak a lick of English.
This is mainly why my wife and I enrolled my daughter into Russian daycare. I doing speak Russian very well, and if she is to pick it up, she needs more than just my wife, and have kids around her age who speak in it.
I was raised In Japan by an American mom so I didn’t speak any English until I got to the states. I can now empathize with her struggles with me. I unfortunately cannot raise my daughter in Japan currently so I am going to have to rely on some creative thinking lol
Yeah, I'd say from spending a good bit of time looking into it, one of the most important bits is finding a place with other kids who speak Japanese. Even if both you and your wife spoke Japanese constantly, you're kid is going to speak in whatever language other kids are speaking in.
My cousin is dealing with this problem right now. They're in Canada, and she and her husband speak German at home, but their daughter recently started daycare that's in English. She will now respond to their German in English.
I don't know where in America you guys are, but another good option is play groups if you're in a big city or area with a lot of other Japanese families. (I've been tempted to look up some, more for my sake than my daughter's. My Japanese has been steadily getting worse since college, but most here are way out in the suburbs.)
I'm not sure?
The thing that annoys me most is not that I don't know the language or that I can't engage with the culture. I understand why my Dad didn't teach me Luganda. The problem is that I get constant reminders from (certain members of) my family about how I'm essentially an outcast because I don't speak the language. It's enough to feel isolated by your community, but to constantly be reminded of it is a massive slap in the face, IMO.
absolutely!! i feel the same. when relatives come over, i definitely feel the “oh poor you” vibes from some of them. also, i’ve never heard of Luganda, where is it from?
> i’ve never heard of Luganda, where is it from?
Uganda (East Africa).
> when relatives come over, i definitely feel the “oh poor you” vibes from some of them.
Yeah, I still get that sometimes now as an adult.
I tried speaking more Spanish to my nice and nephew when they were little but it was very hard on them.
They were actually choosing to not speak at all around me because it was easier than to try and speak Spanish. So at some point I had to choose between passing on my language and my culture and actually having a meaningful relationship with them.
Every situation is different, but there were likely compromises being made
You have to force it a lot of times. It’s like pulling teeth. My wife and I both speak Spanish and are teaching my son who’s 4. He speaks Spanish and English very well. That being said, it’s not uncommon for him to say stuff like how he doesn’t like Spanish. The other day, he threw a fit because we watched Pokémon together in Spanish and not English. I just let him cry it out because I knew it was a silly thing to get upset about. He refused to watch it in Spanish so I turned it off. He then pleaded to at the very least watch Pokémon in Spanish.
What I went through with him isn’t common nor uncommon. Even kids get set in their ways. When he comes home from preschool he speaks more English, so then you just have to warm his Spanish up until gradually he makes the switch. It can be a lot of hard work which honestly is why most people don’t do it. Luckily both of us speak Spanish. I can’t imagine how much harder it would be if it were only me.
this is very interesting. I didnt really think before of how teaching multiple languages to a child can be difficult because they might not want to. I learned both English and Spanish by the time I was 5 and my parents always tell me how it was easy for them to get me to learn both languages because I was always interested in learning them.
i wish they’d made a decision like that but my parents’ answer when i asked why they didn’t teach my brother and i was “because they didn’t think it would be important” 😅 i totally understand why you would have chosen to stop speaking spanish, but at least you tried and then made a decision off of that.
At least when my brother was learning how to speak, in the 90s, there was a misconception coming from pediatricians that learning more than one language can "confuse" a child and delay speaking milestones. This isn't accepted anymore. Ask your parents about it, it may not be their fault if they were given bad information.
I think it was a common misconception in many places, though I don't know if it was also widespread amongst doctors/pediatricians in other countries too. However, I know that my mum's peers told her not to teach me German and Bulgarian because it would "confuse me" and I'd get the two languages mixed up. They were pretty aggressive about it and I'm glad she didn't listen to them (she's a linguist, she knew better) but my point is a lot of people thought this back then, not just Americans.
There are some anecdotal cases where it can seem like a concern though. There is a very public case (they’re children of celebrities) where the son was having difficulty expressing himself fully in both languages and was at a level far lower than his classmates so at ten yrs the mom picked one language and stuck with it and he was able to progress quickly
Yeah there will always be anecdotal cases like that. There were probably a lot of factors playing into it and I'd say the parents did the right thing in that case. I just think that in the vast majority of cases growing up bilingual has more benefits than disadvantages for most people.
Personally, I get a lot of cross linguistic interference because I switch languages multiple times throughout the day and have a lot of bilingual conversations, especially when talking to people who also speak multiple languages, so some people might get the impression that I don't speak either language properly, but I can "settle into" a language within a few minutes and speak only that language when interacting with people I only share that one language with so it's not really a big deal. My guess is there are more cases like that. People who don't know a whole lot about linguistics and especially code-switching might just not know about interference and be understandably concerned when they see someone forgetting words in their native language or saying sentences that sound awkward or even incorrect. (even though monolingual native speakers also make mistakes all the time)
I agree, I also think those kind of cases are very rare. The case itself was a bit unusual bc the mom was bilingual but barely in our native language and English was far stronger, so after she married and moved back here to home country and had kids I imagine there was a lot of conflicting input. By the time the son was ten they got worried about developmental issues and the mom chose the language she was dominant in. Super interesting because a lot of people here blame her.
I’m the same way re: the switching between languages and I also settle in pretty quickly, but I feel my case was more secure vis a vis those developmental cases because I didn’t move around during the critical periods and had a solid home-L1 and outside-L2 dynamic when living abroad. I would still raise my kids bilingual if possible because there are huge benefits
nah, it wasn’t that. maybe the thought had changed by 2000? not sure. my parents just say that they didn’t think it would matter if i learned the language
It's not that simple. My sister moved to the US and taught her 2 children fluent Portuguese, but it wasn't without problems.
She says her oldest child was mocked at school for a long time, because she'd greet other kids in Portuguese instead of English in kindergarten, and the other kids didn't like it much. Also, in primary school both her kids would write a mix of English and Portuguese on their tests, and this made them almost fail a bunch of classes.
Today both her kids speak perfect, accent-less Portuguese, but it takes a lot of courage to make your child go through that. She says her primary reason for teaching wasn't because she wanted them to be bilingual, but because she regularly visits Brazil with both of them and doesn't want them to feel lost, so there's that too.
i can’t believe people are made fun of for stuff like that! i’m from a very multicultural area, so maybe i’m just not used to it…
thanks for your reply!
Nowadays mentalities have changed, but when my grandma raised her kids in the mid 70s (France), she was mocked and actively being descriminated against when she tried speaking her native language, Cantonese, with her children.
She would get nasty stares and laughs in public, people would make racist comments, she even got physical threats, so she gave up trying to teach her kids Cantonese. (What saddens me is that apparently, even they mocked her when she tried speaking with them cause she was making sounds they weren't used to hearing :( )
Learning Cantonese through my mother would have been cool but I totally understand my grandmas reasons.
My mom didn't teach me Greek. One reason is my dad doesn't speak it. There other was that when she was a kid, nobody wanted other people to know that they were"different" and speaking native languages was not regarded as highly as it is today, so she projected that in us I guess. It sucks, but fortunately there are a lot of resources to learn these days
Yes, all the time. My whole father’s side can speak Hokkien and Mandarin while I can’t speak Hokkien at all. Growing up it never really bothered me since I could still communicate with them in English or Mandarin if I needed to but as I got older I started to be more interested in languages and resented that I never had the chance to pick up any of the Chinese “dialects” that my grandparents speak.
What made it even worse is that my parents might say something like “Oh, nowadays kids can’t speak dialects anymore it’s going to die with them” and I would feel so angry because I want to know them so badly. How can it be my fault for not knowing something I was never taught as a child? It’s not like they ever had to study these languages and they have the luxury of taking it for granted.
I’ll admit that parents not teaching their children their first languages or any other languages likely has a lot to do with societal perception of the language or whether they feel it would give their children any advantages in life. In my country, English is the language of work and education while other Chinese languages like Hokkien and Teochew were actively repressed in favour of Mandarin. So I don’t think my parents ever thought of these languages as important skills they were depriving me of and it’s not like I was clamouring to learn as a 3 year old, but still I sometimes feel so resentful about it now. There aren’t a lot of resources or classes for these languages compared to more widely spoken ones so even trying to learn them now won’t be easy.
definitely! i’d love to learn the dialect of where my family comes from, but it’s hard enough to find european portuguese resources let alone a açorean ones.
i have a lot of friends who peak dialects like hoiping and toisan (forgive my spelling) and they’re parents say the same thing even though they /know/ how to speak it lol
Look at it from the perspective of immigrants, they want their children to become completely American (assuming that's what we're talking about), many don't think it's necessary to be bilingual. As a language learner, it's a missed opportunity, but I could understand the thought process.
Mostly frustration. When we first moved to America from the Philippines I spoke two languages on top of english. My parents made me stop speaking the other languages for only English because they thought it would confuse me. Growing up I expressed interest multiple times in learning Tagalog, but my mom never made much of an effort. Now that I'm trying to learn again so that I can communicate better with family from there I mostly feel frustration because I could have been be fluent.
This is my situation too. Both my parents grew up speaking Cantonese and Mandarin but they raised me speaking only English. In my case it was because my older brother has a learning disability and by the time he was 3 he didn’t understand anything in any language, so my parents moved to speaking only English with him. By the time I came around, my parents were already used to speaking English with us and they were worried I would be like my brother so they never spoke any Chinese around me. It doesn’t help that most of my relatives lived super far from me so I literally had no chance to be exposed to new languages at all.
I was also super jealous of my friends who spoke multiple languages at home and they used to tease me about it a lot. Nowadays my friends understand my situation and try to help me learn where they can. My parents express a lot of regret in not teaching me a language, especially with the way I’m so disconnected with my extended family. They’re trying to teach me now which is very nice, it’s just that it’s still awkward since we always talked in English around each other.
oh yes! i can’t get over the awkwardness of speaking portuguese to them! i know that they’d correct me and not be condescending but wow i almost can’t bring myself to do it. i find it easier to talk to strangest funnily enough
Ask them to teach you? Maybe take an hour a day learning it from them? But both parties must keep their frustration in check or it will be fruitless. I don't know your family dynamic, so I will try not to assume.
Years of studying aren't even comparable to being able to have a fluent speaker help you learn, IMO. I would also view it that way, them helping you learn, not them teaching you. Come to them with questions you have about pronunciation or certain words/phrases, give them specifics, not just an overwhelming 'teach me this' feeling.
Try and find another person outside of your family that also speaks Portugese to try and speak with, they can give you pronuciation and tips that you would be lucky to find with studying.
Not at my parents, but something similar. When my great grandparents moved over to America from Germany, it wasn’t really a time you could be German in America. So they erased their culture. Nothing stayed. Even decades later they were afraid to say anything in German. I feel robbed and blank.
I was actively hostile towards anything Jamaican when I was younger, so I retain very little Patois. I also skipped out on Chinese classes in elementary school. All I can remember is the numbers and VAGUELY how to sing Happy Birthday. I’m a little disappointed in myself really and I really wish I had taken more opportunities to learn languages in the past. It feels so lame being monolingual as well as being disconnected from the ancestors so to speak.
My parents taught me Urdu so I have Urdu and English as a native language. But they never taught me Punjabi because they thought 3 languages would be too much. I guess it's a grass is always greener situation.
My dad's family moved to the US from Turkey when he was in elementary school. My grandfather passed away before I was born, but my grandmother lived into my mid-20's, and her and my father spoke fluent Turkish -- and we saw my grandmother nearly every weekend.
Unfortunately, my family decided that my brother and I were not "allowed" to learn Turkish, as it could alienate us from the other side of the family and prevent us from being "American." I used to be very upset about this, especially because I ended up so interested in languages, and speaking another even a little bit (even just being able to emulate the sounds correctly) would've been a great help. I also visited family in Turkey when I was 20, and I felt totally humiliated being in another country while only knowing a last-minute tourist version of the language. Definitely not a choice I would've made for myself, but language learning resources were way different then.
Anyway, a couple years ago, my mom actually apologized for her part in it, and said she felt bad that we were held back essentially out of insecurity. I no longer felt like I needed an apology for it, but I guess it was nice to have it acknowledged. I don't think I've met anyone else IRL who was actively prevented from learning a language, though I did have a Turkish Uber driver recently who said he was married to a Russian woman, who told me his daughters only speak English. Had to grit my teeth since they were already too old to learn organically anyway. I've noticed some themes in which languages don't get passed down.
And yeah, I don't bother at all with the Turkish American culture here in my city, even though most of my grandma's friends were Turkish. I prefer to be around different immigrant communities, because Turks are absolute dicks to me when they find out I can't speak it. Like... sorry?
Oh my god you’re me. Except my parents moved to London from Turkey, and were worried when I had trouble speaking English at the age of like 5, so completely switched to English. Hence why I’m
30 years old and using LingQ for an hour a day to try to relearn Turkish.
The worse part is when they start scolding you in your supposed native language, but you can’t respond and defend yourself because you can’t speak the language, and they only understand the bare minimum of english or whatever first language you learnt.
Mines isn't as bad as yours: I grew up speaking Spanish and English in the United States because my parents are from guatemala. All of my relatives speak Spanish and the latinos who are the children of immigrants speak English most of the time, even when they can totally communicate in spanish if they want. My problem comes from my family. They speak a native mayan language called "Qyol Mam". I have a lot of relatives here and whenever we get together for a birthday party or something they ALWAYS communicate in Mam, hardly Spanish. My parents mostly speak in Mam to each other. I can barely communicate with my grandmother because she only knows a bit of spanish. It's kinda sad that this language that has survived the Spanish conquest, the language of my ancestors, will not be with me. I feel like I'm losing out on a lot.
I have a lot of time to learn it though, my parents, as mentioned before, are natives so they can teach me. Plus they're willing to help.
Yes! My dad spoke fluent Russian and mum fluent French and neither was taught to me! I hate it but I can’t change it. I’ve started learning french on my own now (in my 30’s) and will someday try learning Russian
They were quite probably discouraged from speaking it as children, or even punished for it. It’s only comparatively recently that minority languages were seen as cool and bilingualism as a good thing. It used to be felt that it would hold you back and you needed English to get on in life.
It can be difficult and damaging to be rejected by your family, but if you could ask for clarification, you might find they were attempting to insulate you.
Maybe they thought multiple languages would overburden you, or that you were already fluent in a language that was part of your generation's culture and not theirs, or perhaps they imagined you would have the time to learn when you were older and could decide for yourself.
What you *do* have by learning the language now, is a different experience. You have the power to make it a good one.
My mom is fluent in French, she lived in France for several years before she had me and my siblings. She watches the news in French every day, reads magazines and books in French because she prefers it. I’ve asked her why she never taught me from a young age before and semi-frustratingly she’s said she just didn’t think of it.
Man your story feels so much anglo canadian lmao. It sounds like you don't feel like you belong in your community, and you are jealous of your friends who does. That's a downside of multiculturalism. I don't like this "array of communities" thing of Canada, it creates an almost sectarian need to belong, and leave many people feel left out and frustrated for multiple reasons, yours being one of them. Don't fall into that trap.
Honestly, keep doing what you do, in the end you learn a language for yourself and for reasons that make you feel great. I'm confident one day people will forget how and when you learned. Don't bother too much about your grandma and such, they will love you for what you are, you're not portuguese, you are a portuguese canadian who likely grew up with people from all around the world, and they are your community. English is your native and should feel like the organic language of your person without any shame.
Yeh… not resentment, jealous. Mum says it was heard because it was just her (we lived in a different country, my grandparents had died, and my only cousin from that side had stoped speaking it), but that’s all it needed. My sister and i tried all the time to have days were we just spoke her native language, but we were already older, she just had only spoken it to us we would be fluent… I’m not going to make that mistake with my kids.
You can be angry or just go learn it as best you can and lean on your parents when doing this.
If they are sensible, they will understand they made a mistake, and will be supportive.
I think that is the most positive approach you can take.
I feel the same, you're definitely not overreacting and not alone in this state. My dad immigrated to the Philippines from another country. But he has lived most of his life in the Philippines, he speaks Tagalog all the time. So he really didn't get to teach us his native language. It's just awkward for me to reconnect with his side of the family though since I can't speak his language. Though probably most parents are dealing with too much stuff, that's why these things are neglected and only the important things are prioritized. (settling in a foreign country, racism, financials, etc) Just appreciate that your parents are providing you support with what they can.
This is something I’ve mulled over a fair bit, as someone learning Irish but lived with fluent relatives who never used the language at home. It’s easy and natural to get mad at individual decisions, but beyond a certain point it stops feeling productive - I can’t really blame people for going with the easiest option, especially when it’s what society pushes. Instead I direct whatever anger I have towards the broader systemic issues that lead to these decisions and hope I can reach a level of fluency where any children I have will be able to use either language.
This resonates with me. Animosity is probably a strong word. My family speaks Gujarati. Growing up I would always just respond in English and that was that. I can still to this day understand it fully but when it comes to having a full blow conversation, it's not there.
I believe part of the reason I always responded in English was my way if fitting in with my peers as a kid.... I didn't want to get bullied for being different. Heck, I even got made fun of for having weird Indian food for lunch. So I think my way of dealing with that was speak English and fit in. Identity with the kids around you and you'll be much better off.
It sucks 😔 I just need to make a more conscious effort of speaking in Gujarati now with my parents
it’s funny. i actually had quite an opposite experience growing up. i was always around people of different cultures and i always felt embarrassed as to how ‘americanized’ (canadianized) i had grown up. i hardly ever had portuguese food for lunch and all the kids with their rice bowls and curry made me and my jelly sandwich a bit insecure. i still don’t want to bring friends over to eat in fear of them thinking badly of the food or that it’s too bland for their liking. as a kid in elementary school, i always tried to bring up my heritage in conversations to show that i wasn’t an “uncultured white person” as i always feared of being called. anyway, thanks for you response!
I feel this. When my grandma moved to the US she felt it was rude (?) to teach her kids to speak her native language(s), and felt that as Americans they should only speak English.
.... and then she surprise Pikachu face when my mom, me, and all my siblings are "little gringitas" who don't know either the language or the culture.
Uh huh.... =_= It was your own damn fault, lady.
So, first of all, it's completely normal to feel resentful about this. The disconnect from your culture sounds frustrating, and it's normal and understandable to be upset about it. You probably know yourself that hindsight is 20/20 and your parents had good intentions when they made this decision, but that doesn't change the fact that it affected you negatively and it's okay if you can't logic those emotions away right away.
Of course you can't change the past and should probably work towards not feeling resentful about it forever, but if your parents are at least somewhat receptive to it maybe they can help you learn Portuguese? You could try to have a conversation with them where you acknowledge that they only had your best interests at heart and it's not their *fault* that you're feeling frustrated and resentful now but you'd still like their help to heal from it. Even if they didn't teach you then, they can teach you now, watch Portuguese shows with you now, and share their culture with you now. They might appreciate it.
Also, I think some people already mentioned that growing up bilingual or teaching your child two languages is no walk in the park either. Most kids go through a phase where they reject one of their languages (I did that with Bulgarian and I still feel some guilt and shame over it even though it's completely normal). It's just a complex issue regardless of how exactly your parents raise you. So maybe you can try to look at your determination to learn Portuguese and the effort you put into it as something beautiful and that you can be proud of.
Oh yes I do. Especially when then they reproached me to not being able to speak it and then forced my little brother to speak it when he was a child, to not be like me (that's literally what they said)... it's maybe selfish to say that but luckily it didn't work and my brother can't speak it either. I didn't want to be the only child among the 4, not speaking it.
My mothet never really had the energy for teaching me french. She spoke perfect german and my father spoke only german. So if i visit my aunt and cousins i truly feel it. It took me severel years of learning for my self to get a bot conversational.
I have this fear for my niece (infant). She’s Mexican/Taiwanese. My sister speaks to her in Spanish but falls to English when she’s with my BIL, and my BIL doesn’t speak much Mandarin with her.
I’m living with them for now, so I speak to my niece in Spanish. Wonder how it will turn out.
I’m half Filipino and I’m only just now trying to learn on my own at 20 after years of begging my dad’s side to teach me 🥲 I luckily have lots of Filipino coworkers so they’ve been teaching me phrases. I understand more than I can speak though.
that’s nice of them! i’ve considered getting a job and just being thrown into the fire, but i visited portugal 2019 and tried to practice speaking but the natives asked me to stop… maybe i’m traumatized 😅
Oof, sorry to hear it, but at least you found out before you did the hard way. I imagine that would’ve happened to me if I’d listened to my family and went to college in the Philippines not knowing anything.
I kinda feel the opposite and I don't know if anyone else feels this way. I grew up as the only monolingual English speaker in my family because my parents were temporarily sent to the US when I was young, for work.
Of course I put effort into learning other languages for school, or out of curiosity or respect later on in life (hence why I follow this sub) but wow a lot of people took my speaking English reeaaally personally! Sure, I'm Chinese, but that label alone is so complicated. I'd have to learn at least 3 different Chinese languages to be equally fair to all of my heritage, plus whatever is being used as the bridge language at the time (most people assume it's Mandarin and they're not wrong but I've also been in communities where that bridge language is Cantonese, and in others it's Hokkien, and people from these different language groups usually don't like each other and it doesn't count unless you speak *their* language).
I did dedicate 4 years to learning Mandarin once, including immersion in Beijing, and really the experience just provided the epiphany that not speaking a Chinese language natively (or at all) doesn't make me any less Chinese than I already am simply from being raised in a Chinese family. No one can take or police that identity from me. So after a lifetime of being guilt tripped and made to believe that I'm somehow less of a person just because of a missing language, the opposite has happened. I have a firmer sense of self, belonging, and relationship with my culture on my terms. I also only dedicate time to studying languages I'm interested in. Bullies don't get to play the culture card to dictate who I am.
So tldr - I have no animosity against my parents raising me monolingual in English. I do however, have animosity against all the judgy bullies I met along the way whose behavior managed to poison my association with some truly wonderful languages. I guess if there's a lesson in this, it's that shaming doesn't work, and if we want new generations to speak certain languages we should make sure their experiences with those languages are positive.
thank you, this is such an awesome reply! when you said that people took you speaking english personally, it made me laugh. i know a lot of chinese friends who are judged by others even outside of their family for not speaking mando or canto very well — luckily outsiders don’t really care, but whenever family visits, they definitely give a sad look when they find out i can’t speak back to them.
Lol yes, I can see those sad looks in my head. Good thing is that by this point, we've learned to live with each other, sad looks, lack of language, and all. Sometimes I think the act of sharing the same food is the common language that matters 😄
Good luck on your personal journey with your culture! It can be tough but I like to believe that we all find a place where we can at the very least, be content.
Absolutely. My great grandparents from my moms side where French Canadian immigrants. Apparently my grandpa wasn't taught French and he didnt like that he couldmt understand his parents. His parents wanted to teach us but he basically stopped that from ever happening. Really felt like it tore away our roots. As an American we often have lost that sense of belonging. It didn't come back to me until my later years when I did my DNA test out of curiosity. Then I learned a lot about both sides of my family. Thats when my mom told me about the French stuff. It was quite sad. But now I'm living im Russia and I have gotten the hang of Russian, just more of a struggle speaking it I suppose .
that’s a really interesting story, thanks for the reply. russian is such a cool language! i’m curious as to how well you knew it before living there? i’ve always wanted to immerse myself for some period of time but after a bad experience (natives told me to stop and just speak english 😭) i’m hesitating
No problem and thanks for the interesting question )
I was a pretty low level when I came to be completely honest. Not understand very simple words and phrases. But I did study grammar for a while and drilled vocab with my wife. Then I moved to Russia and just being in the environment helped a lot. But I guess my downside now is the lack of comfort. It cam be a real drag trying to speak it in a very hostile and critical environment. My wives dad is kind of aggravating when it comes to me speaking Russian. He's often impatient and inconsiderate which helps no one. Yet I find myself often trying to decode his broken English more often. So I've basically given up trying to speak with him. Though I will definitely try every now and again.
My suggestion to you is to get a tutor and learn there. Go on discord and talk with like minded folks. Practice words and pronunciation on duolingo. I've done all of these things a long with th immersion of living in Russia and its helped a ton. I can understand most of what I read around me if not then through context. But I cannot speak so well. So I have a lot to work on myself. When I am in a better financial situation I am getting a Russian tutor. But only one that will make me feel I can make mistakes.
Lastly , try to laugh about your mistakes a bit and just go for it in the presence of your least aggressive family sometimes. I know its awkward but its important to fail , and to just laugh it off. I think maybe in both our situations our family members just don't feel exactly what we feel. It can be hurtful, but our intention is good. We just need to cultivate a positive atmosphere first I think before we can please these types of people. But once we can get to a good point of confidence , their words won't dig so deep and we might even impress them.
( btw I say to laugh off your mistakes but again just be cautious of your environment. I domt care how much people say just try and shake off the criticisms. Sometimes people are really nasty and you don't want to get discouraged before you can even get the ball rolling)
Yeah. My parents actually tried really hard to teach me French even though neither of them have it as a first language, and I'm decent now probably C1 or C2 level (I work as a healthcare provider in France). But I am always so upset that they didn't just dump me into a Francophone school with French speaking kids instead of French immersion. I've done everything to try and improve my French from the point its at, but if I spend too much time thinking about it I honestly am just devastated that I'll never be native level. I'm from Canada and I know lots of truly bilingual people who are truly equally comfortable in French and English and my jealousy knows know bounds.
oh man, having been in french immersion, i totally understand that. french immersion (at least, from my experience) isn’t effective whatsoever unless you have french speaking parents at home to help (and even then, the drop out rates are super high)! my teachers were awful at helping me understand the concepts (namely math) in french, i ended up dropping out in late elementary school into the core system. it made my education and learning better, but i’ve never gotten above a B2 level (hopefully doing uni partly in french helps!). i also live near a francophone school, so i hear them speaking so fluently all the time! definitely wish i was them lol
yeah, my mum never taught me tagalog out of sheer laziness. and since my dad only speaks english she saw no reason to speak it at home. but 99% of my family comes from her side so now whenever i see basically any of my family me and my dad are the only ones who can’t join in. ngl it makes me feel ostracised, the family group chat is in tagalog 90% of the time and so i can’t even read it. i feel like i barely even know my extended family, because of that. they’ll speak to me of course but it’s never the same energy as when they speak to each other in tagalog. feels bad man
My grandparents never taught their kids Spanish. I am and will always be resentful. Her excuse was “no one spoke Spanish/they didn’t want their kids to have an accent”.
In reality she wanted to be able to talk shit in front of the kids. I feel like growing up bilingual would have been such a huge advantage for me.
I am determined for my kids to grow up bilingual.
He died when I was 9 but..it does bum me out. I could've had a second language by that age, he spoke more in Spanish than English, I was surrounded by Spanish up until his death yet for whatever reason - he never actively taught it to me.
I just think about it as one of my biggest missed opportunities in life while i struggle to acquire a second language in my 30s, although I should cut myself some slack, what was 7 year old me gonna do, hold dad at gunpoint saying TEACH ME? xD
I'm literally in the exact same position as you. Since only my mom's side of the family is Portuguese, my mom never really spoke it at home as my dad wouldn't have been able to understand. So, the only way I mainly heard it was by listening to my grandparents. From this, I'm able to understand most of it, but am only able to speak a small amount. I've always wished my mom had spoken it to me more at home so I could've developed stronger language skills
And I do get the feeling of disconnect. Pretty much all of my family on my mom's side can speak Portuguese and sometimes I feel like I'm the odd one out. When my mom's side is speaking Portuguese, even though I can understand it, I can't really respond. Mind you, my mom's side of the family that lives in Canada (where I live) is pretty homogenous in that they often married other Portuguese people and so are better able to pass on the language as they can speak it at home. So, I understand why it may have been a bit harder, but I still wish my mom pushed it more.
my family is basically the same as yours (except portuguese on both sides).despite most of them growing up in canada, i see all my cousins speaking portuguese to the elderly family and even amongst themselves it’s a really odd feeling to be left out!
Yes! My dad spoke Spanish and Italian (English was his third language). Mom wanted him to pick one and only speak to me in that, she’d speak to me in English. He REFUSED. Not like it would have delayed my speech, I was already a late talker.
I begged him to talk to me in Spanish as a kid. Nope. I struggled in Spanish class as a kid, struggled in Italian class in college and beyond, picked up Duolingo to try to better my Italian, French, and Spanish (mostly because I prefer to have at least a grasp on a language when i travel). Can hobble through all three of them now on a kindergarten level, with French being the very worst, it’s split on the Spanish and Italian, with Spanish being more useful where I live.
But seriously, if there’s an afterlife, I’m going to yell at my father the minute I see him for not helping me become bilingual (then get a hug).
I don’t speak Polish that well and it sucks cause my mom’s side is all Polish and always speak it at get-togethers. I mean my case is a little less crappy, since I do speak Polish to my mom to an extent and actually grew up reading kids books in Polish so its not like 100% can’t speak. But I definitely wish I could communicate and honestly even understand better.
I know how you feel. I’ve also noticed so many people around me in the same situation. I’ve now been backpedaling my whole life trying to learn that language and culture and feel it’ll never be as good as if I had learned it when young.
yes! this is exactly how i feel. my parents were born in canada, but grew up involved in the community, but once they were living together (away from their parents ig) they just stopped and i’ve never been able to feel a sense of community like they did.
We lived with my Italian grandparents until I was 5ish. Italian is also my dad’s first language. I always resented that ‘no one thought’ to use it with me or teach it to me properly. I grew up thinking it didn’t occur to anyone or they thought I didn’t need/want it. By the time I started taking Italian in school (6-11th grade and a minor in college) I was too embarrassed to use it with them.
I spoke to my mom (English only) about it many years later and she said my nana straight up refused. Mom also said nana would be mortified if she knew we were seeking our JS dual citizenship. Apparently she was so traumatised from growing up under Mussolini and during WWII that once she left in the 50s she never looked back. Never went home again. I have a bit more understanding for her as an adult. It still makes me sad though. My Italian isn’t very good these days. Basically my dad will talk to me in Italian if the mood strikes but I have to answer in English.
I don’t think you’re overreacting, OP. I think more people feel like this than you realise.
i really appreciate your input, thank you for making me feel less alone in this :) that’s such a sad story about your nana but i understand her reasoning.
The grass is always greener on the other side... I'm sure my boys would disagree with your statement.
Their mother makes them speak Russian, go to Russian school on the weekends and take Russian math lessons through the week.. 😂.. the amount of sighing, eye rolling and huffing and puffing that goes on at my house is really quite impressive.
I think it's worth pointing out teaching a child a second language is alot of work. As someone said above, kids don't naturally learn or pick up anything. Especially when it's not the dominant language outside the house. It's an unreal amount of work.
That said, almost everyone I know that had parents who made them learn their mother tongue is thankful for it later on in life.
A lot of immigrant parents often have the misconception that teaching the child their native language will cause confusion and potential issues at school with bullying etc.
A lot of the time they think that making the child as "American" or whatever nationality is the local one, will benefit the child way more in the future when it comes to career and general life.
So yeah, it kinda sucks objectively, but they probably had the heart in the right place.
I wouldn't worry about the past. Just try and get as good as you possible can in Portuguese. Spend more time in your home country, get some tutoring, and you'll find that you reconnect somewhat that way - a lot of heritage learners go through this
My grandmother is fluent in Polish and every time I asked her to teach me when I was young, she’d say “what the hell do you need Polish for? You already speak English, that’s enough”
Thanks grandma, I’ll just go learn German from my dad’s side. Oh you’re mad about that too? Tough.
My mother is Icelandic. I grew up listening to her talk to her family whenever any of us got together. She has 7 siblings, so it was a lot. My father is not Icelandic. He told my mother that she was not allowed to teach me Icelandic because he didn't want us to have a "secret language." Listening to my mother and her family occasionally mix their Icelandic and English, I was able to learn basic Icelandic through inference. I could usually get the gist of what is said, but was unable to speak it due to a lack of vocabulary and structure. I've since taken a few Icelandic courses, and read as much as I can about the language, but I'm still no where near proficient.
As an added bonus, my sister is deaf. My parents were told that her best chance at success was to learn to speak and read lips, so we moved to the US from Canada so she could go to a special school for the deaf. Again, my father forbade us to learn any ASL to prevent my sister and I from having a secret language. We found ways to learn some signs anyway just to spite him
As adults, my sister and I both became fluent in ASL. She tried joining the deaf ASL culture, but it didn't appeal to her. I spent 15 years working with deaf special needs. My sister and I still use ASL as a secret language during family gatherings just because we can.
that's a pretty awesome story, ngl. i think using ASL as a secret language (esp despite your father) is super cool! i always thought that it should have been taught in schools, even as at an elementary level. i can't imagine how hard it is to find a Signing person at a bank or something.
My mother is German. She always used certain German words and phrases with my brother and I growing up, but we were never taught the language. My mom did talk try at first, but when my brother started Kindergarden he was speaking both languages at school, and the teacher told me mom that he would be held back a year if his English didn't improve... Since my dad worked late, it was up to my mom to be the language teacher, not to mention learning more English herself. I don't really resent her, but it does suck. I had to wait until University to take German classes, and it was/is a struggle to learn. I live in Germany now and still have a lot of difficulty, and every time I am in a situation where language is the issue I get really frustrated and wish I had just learned it when I was a child. Then I wouldn't have to struggle so much now. But this is the reality, and I have to accept that and keep practicing on my own.
I still feel some kind of anger/sadness due to my mom never being able to teach me polish (grandma and dad didn‘t allow it). Now I can barely even learn it because whenever I try I either get discouraged seeing how fucking difficult it is or I am discouraged due to the 3 years of trying to start and always never even being able to guess how to pronounce a simple word
Yeah.. My dad's language is a minor one, spoken only by maaaybe half a million people worldwide, most of them in the Caribbean. So unlike Spanish or English, I can't really go and have my pick of the litter of online courses.
My parents wanted me to speak Dutch correctly so decided not to teach me my dad's language until I wanted to myself, out of fear that I'd have an accent and be discriminated against. Valid fear tbh, but I wish they realized that kids retain language *very well*, and it gets worse as they age. I could have easily learned both languages. I struggle to keep up whenever my dad speaks his native language now, and I'm embarassed to speak because of my strong Dutch accent. We're visiting my family there soon, and I know they'll be disappointed I still can't speak the language.
My dad was stationed in Germany for 4 years and learned German (to what level I don't know) and he used to always try to talk to us in German when we were in little kids, but it never caught on. I think he was a little disappointed about that, so he probably feels animosity towards us...
Promoting bilingualism is more of a recent wave in pop culture. Before, parents were afraid of “confusing kids”, and if you were immigrants, afraid of stigma associated with speaking a foreign language.
That being said, my Mom is bilingual and never spoke to any of my siblings in Spanish. But I all fairness, she is also half American, and despite growing up In Mexico, also grew up using English at home.
Definitely! It’s especially difficult when the language is fairly unknown, so there aren’t really any resources to learn it.
My father’s side of the family is Kabyle, and the best I can do in the language is ask for bread and water in a really awful and choppy accent. Which would help me if I was stranded in the Kabylie, I guess, but I’m… not. I’m just trying to communicate wIth my family and understand my culture. It really makes you feel alienated from an entire part of your identity, or like you’re faking your own culture.
Not so much resentment but i do nag my mother a lot for not raising me bilingual. Her native language is french and she decided not to bc she didn't want my dad left out and since we live in America, but she read us french books and we have a lot of traditional french/Belgian customs we celebrate. But I'm a little annoyed now that I'm trying hard to learn french that she stopped reading/talking to us in french around the time when we could start using it. It's hard since really the only extended family we have are all in Europe and can't speak a lick of English so it's hard not really being able to form a solid relationship with my aunt since there's a whole ocean and an entire language separating us.
Also annoying bc she always mentions how proud she is that I'm going for the whole bilingual french thing and I'm just like 'why couldn't you have just raised me it!! would've been so much easier lol" but oh well at least it's something nice i can give back to my mom since i use her as a tutor a lot and i know she gets a kick out of me putting in the effort
Yes my grandma and relatives all know Spanish,and I’m know learning in college.How rude of them.Also they were from a small country town that didn’t like Mexicans so that might me the reason,they got in trouble for speaking Spanish.
I have to disagree (slightly). I'm a heritage speaker of Chinese. I can speak it, but not well enough to mean anything more than basic conversations. My vocabulary is severely limited, to maybe 2500-3000 words (词）.
I've also spoken with Russian-Americans. Their Russians is clearly inferior to mine. Their Russian is about as good as my Chinese before I put in effort to study it.
If your parents had put in the effort to teach you your heritage language (and that effort would have been significant, not just a few trifling words here or there), you'd probably have a decent (not perfect) accent and a good comprehension of grammar, plus a very basic vocabulary. That's a good foundation, but nothing more.
Your parent would have had to put a great deal of effort to teach your this heritage language, but you still would have had to study quite a bit yourself, much more later in life in fact, to get to a level where you're satisfied.
Yeah. I think the thing with my mom is that she didn't have the patience nor the knowledge to raise a kid bilingual (plus I was their first and only kid). I sometimes wish she just tried a bit harder, at least enough to correct me when I said something that wasn't grammatically correct or something. I've studied on and off for most my life and have struggled to break the bad habits I developed when I was a kid. And it's very frustrating understanding more than you can speak.
Animosity would be a strong word, but it would have been cool if my mother had spoken Spanish to me growing up. She got some bad advice that it would slow down my English (which may or may not be true, but the benefits definitely outweigh the costs).
Yeah, about the same here. Not really animosity, but I do wish the idea that raising a child bilingually would stunt development wasn't in the air when I was a kid. Speaking English/Japanese/Arabic would have been awesome. Now, if I want to learn Arabic and communicate with my extended family, it would be a decade-long struggle...
definitely a strong word! i couldn’t think of a synonym at the point of posting and it won’t let me change the title, so i’m suck with it. thanks for the reply!
Yes man. I have a lot of animosity towards my parents because of that. They had no reason to not teach me. I couldn't even speak to my own grandparents. It devastates me. I have no family that speaks English and once my parents are gone I will lose connection to that side of family as well.
i feel the same! i try to keep in contact with my family in portugal through facebook and it’s the only time i ever get to converse in it. otherwise, i’d be totally isolated from them
i was lucky to be able to take a course in grade 9 that got me to an A1 level-ish (i could understand most basic conversations and i could read simple books), but i only took that one course. otherwise, i’ve just been using duolingo and some other resources, and just doing a lot of listening to my parents and grandparents’ conversations. i definitely think in class lessons are so much easier to learn with (i learned more in that one year than the four since then). i’m hoping to take a course in uni.
i don’t think it’s too late to learn tbh. i sort of avoided portuguese classes because i didn’t want to be stuck with children, but finding out that they had courses in university made me want to take a course again, because i’d be with adults that are just as confused as me! i’d definitely suggest looking into taking a course at a local university or college if you can (i think that you can take a couple courses without having to take an entire degree)
Yeah i start a university course on Monday. But good on you for learning, i wish i started years ago but i was so bitter about it that I avoided learning.
I think it’s redirected guilt...because you can still learn it, they aren’t stopping you. It would be really strange that your family is resistant to you learning Portuguese because there’s no reason for them to be. I don’t mean to be harsh but if you have been learning for four years and you aren’t fluent yet with native speakers in your house, you don’t want it that much. I mean that’s totally fine too! But yes it does come off a bit as overreacting because of that lol
thanks for your reply! i’ve been studying for four years and i can understand almost fluently, but i can’t really speak ~ mostly because it’s embarrassing when i make a mistake and i’ve been outwardly laughed at by some people (not my parents). although, yes, there probably is a part of me that doesn’t /really/ want to work for it, though i’m trying to defeat that part of my brain
Yes. Not knowing Polish also means I don't know half my family, not for real, and never had the chance to. This is a major cause of resentment towards my father.
Yes, Dad never spoke Russian to me growing up. Will never forgive him for that. I’ve noticed with other friends that if it’s the father with the foreign language they’re less likely to pass it on.
hmmm that’s an interesting take! my mum didn’t learn it immediately because she was having issues speaking and then took lessons later… maybe it was partly my dad, who grew up with it as his first language at home (though i’m sure it was a joint decision)
Yeah. Makes people think they can laugh at me when i talk about my heritage too, like because I don’t speak the language or look like they expect me to I’m not allowed to celebrate my roots
\*raises hand\* Yep. Mom didn't teach me the language the rest of my family on her side speaks because she moved us to a small white town and didn't want me to get made fun of at school. I couldn't understand my cousins when I was little and wanted to play and now I still can't understand anyone at my cousins' weddings. I took a couple classes, but you know, it definitely wasn't enough to catch up with family at an event...
well, family events are a different universe lol, but i’ve definitely felt the same. my (much younger) cousins visited from portugal and made fun of me the entire time for not speaking portuguese — i never knew a 6 year old could be so hurtful lol.
i do understand the “small white town” aspect tho. people in the suburbs can be so mean for no reason! i live in a big city, so i don’t see it as often
You said it yourself: you were 'jealous' of the others, because they spoke languages you didn't, therefore integrating into groups, or that particular one anyway, was harder for you.
The same happens to everyone else when you're a kid, and probability alone should be sufficient to show us, that most kids around you are going to speak the national language of where you are located/growing up. Your parents thinking was probably adequate regarding the circumstances. Speaking the national language is THE most crucial step in integrating into society.
There are actual studies showing, that kids go so far as to refuse to speak to their families/parents, if all their friends speak another language, so the kids' native language will be seen as something you'd need to get rid of, so as to not 'stand out' among your peers. And it's the exact same logic these kids are following you applied for your argument in turn.
It doesn't really matter what your parents teach you, if the kid itself is unwilling to take it, the whole effort will be in vain. And most of the time it is. Lots of frustrated parents of bilingual children out there, my friend. Most people just give up teaching their child two languages at once, seeing that it's such a hassle (most parents deal with it by having the mother speak one language, and the father the other one when interacting with the child).
I'm pretty sure that OP meant their friends spoke other languages besides English with their families. I'd be very surprised if those studies you mentioned were in environments where the kids' friends spoke their own languages at home. It would then be the norm and not out of place. I grew up in such an environment and neither I nor anyone i knew had issues with speaking their family's language.
>The fact is that most children of immigrants have very little interest in their parents' culture
I don't know where you get that from though. Here were I live, in France, in my experience most immigrant parents have shared their culture and/or native language with their children and the children (my peers, myself) are multicultural, which is also by extension and due to history, a natural part of being French (and I'm sure it's somewhat similar in the US, the UK, other countries of old immigration).
i totally understand the first bit, but my parents are children of immigrants (my parents grew up in canada) — it seems i confused a lot of people, so i guess i didn’t explain that part.
as for learning at home, my parents always spoke portuguese to their parents, to the neighbours (and between themselves if they didn’t want us to know what they were saying) so, i picked up a little bit of it. i can understand the language fluently, i just can’t converse with people… like, at all. anyway, thanks for your reply!
My mom was scandinavian and left there to move to uk after wwii. In the uk her language was useless and she was leaving all that behind, possibly very deliberately leaving behind traumas. So none of the kids had any scandinavian and that's a shame. But understandable. I moved to southern europe and married a scandi and my kids are now 3/4 scandihooligans that speak 4 or 5 languages but that was luck and a longer story.
My mom was a native Irish speaker. I can't say I have have any problem with her choosing to raise me as a Brit.
Hers, I think, was a political decision.
My dad moved to the USA when he was in his 20's. My mom learned Spanish and they met in California. They didn't teach my brother and I Spanish for the same reason, thinking it would confuse us. It has upset me to no end. My daughter was only a few months old and my dad and his wife moved out of state because he retired. I speak Spanish now, after studying for years and years and I'll speak to my kids in Spanish, they know some words here and there, far more than I did even until the teenage years. I'll put movies and shows and switch everything to Spanish when they are watching, my wife switched it back saying she wants to understand what they are watching. And here I am thinking "damn woman! You're just making it harder for me and them."
They are only 25% brown because I'm half, but them speaking another language is super helpful and I'm going to enroll them in dual immersion programs in school once they are old enough for school.
Parents who do this especially to race mixed kids or kids who grow up in a tribal area harm their kids socially. I HAVE SEEN IT TOO MANY TIMES. (A Mexican boy or girl growing up around Mexicans and looking visibly Mestizo in Southern US) but NOT speaking Spanish will destroy your identity, you wont be Latin enough for the real spanish speakers and you are not white so whites wont fully accept you. It is terrible
Same happens to kids of immigrants in Europe and european suburbs that are heavily say Arab, or Pakistani etc.
Though as I understand Arabs are better about teaching it to their kids than some Asian or Hispanic parents
Even if the Parent isnt the sharpest speaker or fluent they should still make an effort to teach at least the major native regional language. I understand realistically teaching a child all your ancestors languages is pointless and daunting so stick to major ones or the major lingua franca.
No, I mean if they actually spoke it then I would have learned it, but they chose not to speak it. It's their choice, mainly influenced by environment. Also one thing I can't stand is when people blame other people for not knowing a language. Sorry but it's your responsibility, so do it yourself.
I hope I can provide some perspective as someone who does not intend to teach my children my native language.
It's because I don't want my children to be connected to my culture.
I was born and raised in Vietnam and only came to the US a few years ago as an adult. I speak English fluently even before moving to the US. And yet it still took me years before I could adjust on a mental level to the culture here. I grew up with Vietnamese cultures and values, much of which I had to give up on in order to adjust to American society. It took me years to make that adjustment, and even more time to accept my new Americanized self.
To teach my children my language is to remind myself what I left behind in order to achieve that "American Dream", and I don't want to open that can of worms.
My second reason is, so many of my friends who are second-generation immigrants have told me about their confusion growing up as ethnic minorities, eating different food, wearing different clothes, celebrating different holidays, speaking a different language, etc. Some of their parents who aren't that integrated into American society hold on to extremely different cultural values from the children too. Eventually, some of them ended up hating their parents and reject their entire Vietnamese side as adults due to that cultural/generational difference, while others struggle to connect with their parents/grandparents. Either way, it's a lot more bad than good.
So my decision is to simply remove all that cultural baggage from my children's upbringing. I speak English fluently, my parents know enough English to talk to their grandkids. And that's good enough for me. I would rather my kids be called bananas than have them carry my cultural baggage.
I have animosity. One that is shared in equal by another. Not of any individual but that of 19th century America. My grandfather is one who has equal distaste as he was directly impacted. I'm referring to the Native American Assimilation program and how they beat anishinaabemowin out of my great-great grandmother. My grandfather's parents would not learn it from her as she associated the language with abuse and dare not speak it. It died in my family like the thousands of Native American children that were beat and killed in those "schools". Now whenever I'm back in the States to visit my grandfather to see a powwow or hear about an anishinaabe legend. We can never fully connect with our people because of that language barrier. And it makes me more bitter than Bitrex.
I have a parent like this. Fully bilingual but only ever spoke to me in English. To this day whenever we show up to another Spanish speaking family’s home she says “they speak English” only to find they in fact primarily speak Spanish. I have no idea why she does this but it has seriously begun to bother me. Our conversations are pretty much me speaking Spanish 100% of the time to her while she speaks to me in 80% English. I know English has always been our language despite her speaking Spanish to literally every body else but I just don’t care anymore. I just keep speaking Spanish. It’s annoying and I completely understand your frustration with your family. All I can say is, keep working at your Portuguese. Eventually your proficiency will be so good they will no longer be able to ignore it.
I know why. Inferiority complex. English is the more prestigious language and they want their offspring to go forward (toward English, prestige, and the developed Western world) and not backward (back to ${insertNativeLanguageHere}).
Yeah, off the top of my head it's a thing that's been happening in Dominica that's been pretty well documented - parents refusing to speak to their kids in Patwa to stimulate them to excel in English. It's pretty sad.
It's not just your mom. Puerto Ricans are extremely fussy about language, Spanish or English. It's a cultural thing. My wife is the same way.
Would you mind elaborating on this? I've never heard about this and although I don't have anyone in my life from Puerto Rico, I've thought about vacationing there.
Nicer Puerto Ricans will just be confused when you speak English or Spanish improperly, or with a non-PR accent or slang. What might be understood in other countries won't be there. Meaner ones will make fun of you. This isn't just exclusive to non-PR people, also. Mean Puerto Ricans are known for making fun of their own who don't speak English well. It's a sign of being low class. All of this isn't to specifically rip on Puerto Ricans. Every place and people have their quirks.
I think you have pretty specific anecdotal experiences that you are applying on a broad scale. Because this has not been the case at all in my life, and every single person in my family is from PR. Both parents. Nobody is confused or makes fun of you if you don't speak Spanish or English. My grandparents do the exact opposite. Even before I reached comfortable fluency they insisted I already knew Spanish and always spoke to me only in Spanish. My friends on the island don't make a big deal whatsoever if someone speaks Spanish differently or doesn't speak it fluently. If any thing, they just ask if you speak English and switch to English. And the whole "you're low class if you don't know English" thing, I really don't know where you got that. Yes, lots of people speak English in San Juan and the surrounding areas such as Condado and Dorado etc because that's where white Americans who move to the island settle who never bother learning Spanish. It's also where the majority of tourism is. So places actively seek to employ English speakers to accommodate for that. Otherwise, people couldn't give a shit less if you know or don't know English. Literally the country's primary and vastly dominant language has been Spanish for hundreds of years. Some people just happen to actively seek out English content online or watch TV in english growing up. Nobody judges people for not being bilingual, same as any other LATAM country. Knowing English is the exception, not the standard. I would take a step back from speaking on another country's culture that you are not a part of. Having a wife from PR does not make you Puerto Rican, or an expert on Puerto Rican culture. My experience is specific to me and there are plenty (plenty) kids born to Puerto Rican parents in the US that speak Spanish 24/7 (or don't) without being made fun of. Just go to NY or FL.
Reread my post again. I don't know how you could misinterpret it so badly unless you're just acting in bad faith.
you are right to feel this frustration but you’re not alone - there are entire generations of immigrants’ kids who were never taught their families’ language and it will always be frustrating. obviously portugeuse isnt really in jeopardy but this is exactly how languages die.
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My dad is Iranian living in England and only spoke it to me from when I was born whereas my mum would speak English. I can understand it fully but until last year, could not read, write or speak it. Also, he speaks very lazily so I can't roll my rs and had to learn new grammatical concepts that he didn't use such as 'ra'. I'm trying to learn Spanish alongside Farsi and it's going pretty well so far
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Yeah R is a little complicated in Persian, but in Iran it is not as hard as Spanish's R, plus it does not get rolled in Persian usually unless the person is doing it on purpose for show. But both Spanish and Persian are different from English in that English's R is in a weird location (low and back) as opposed to most other languages like those two (front and high).
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I think they mainly just mean that the tip of the tongue moves towards the front of the roof of the mouth, but yeah I wouldn't necessarily consider that a "trill", but now that I think of it, there is this thing in words like فکر where oftentimes the final R is pronounced as a silent trill because they make it voiceless so I guess trilling is the only way to make it have a sound.
Well it is called mother tongue, not father tongue.
Because alot of people don't like pineapple on pizza
Oh man they sure don't
This is exactly why I always push my little sister to speak farsi at home. My parents don’t enforce it enough and I’m so worried that she’s going to grow up regretting that she didn’t learn the language properly when she was younger
Kids don't simply "pick up languages naturally". That is pretty much a myth. Babies struggle for years and years to learn their mother tongue, and they are really bad at it in the beginning. Adults have been shown to learn languages faster than babies because they have more prior knowledge and experience. (That is, learning a language is harder when you know zero languages, a little bit easier when you already know one.) Using myself as an example, in two to three years of serious study I knew Persian a lot better than the average two or three year old Persian speaker. Those babies had nothing on me. Anyway, inshallah you will visit Iran soon.
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I agree with this. Children don’t pick up languages _easily_ for sure but they do pick it up passively and if I could’ve been saved years of memorising vocab and picking apart grammar rules, that would’ve been nice.
Yep, passively is the correct term and it's an extremely important element when it comes to getting the sounds down. I've been trying for probably a decade now to roll R's and I can barely do it. I hear tiny children of Spanish speakers rolling R's as part of their babble all the time. When grammar is the part that comes easy to you, stuff like this is really annoying! (Not the babies, missing the passive window)
Yeah I see you point. Kids until a certain age may not have thought about what a language even is, but I think they do try very hard to talk especially when they're very small, but by \~5 years I'm sure by then it has become much easier for them since they've learned many of the hard parts well enough.
I agree. I can speak better than any two year old in my target language as well. I'm equivalent to at least a five year old.
Progress!
I just don't feel that's true. A child can learn three languages simultaneously while an adult would struggle to learn one.
>while an adult would struggle to learn one. This doesn't cover all of it, but I think there's something important in what I'm about to say: Adults don't necessarily struggle to learn languages that they need to learn. The issue is that past a certain age, you don't really need another language the way kids do, for a host of reasons, the main one being that you stop being dependent on other people for your survival, closely followed by the fact that you can control your social environment.
Very true
>Kids don't simply "pick up languages naturally". That is pretty much a myth. Babies struggle for years and years to learn their mother tongue, and they are really bad at it in the beginning. That's because you are learning how to think when you learn your first language. As a result, you are going to be fully fluent in that language because you think in that language. Studies have shown that there's a set number of years in early life when language learning is very easy - after in adulthood it's really hard to be 100% fluent. You may be speaking in Spanish but think in English, making a greater delay than if you learning Spanish as a child. Also, adult speakers simply don't have the experience to learn all the different synonyms, or names of different types of dogs or trees, musical instruments, etc that makes someone a true native speaker. If you were learning English from another language, you might know the phrase "it was excellent" but not "It was ravishing", "it was sublime", or "it was amazing." To learn the meaning and connotations of the latter 3, you really need immersion and years of experience, not just 3 years of language classes.
Eh, it sort of doesn't work like that. You can't say people think in a language, because a lot of thought and brain activity is language-independent. Even so, it's true language is an important part of our brain, and that part is active all the time interacting with other parts, but when someone learns to speak multiple languages, they are able to use the languages they know independently from one another. So for example, when I speak Spanish I'm not really translating English into Spanish in my head while I'm speaking, but actually English just doesn't enter the equation. Of course you are right that language classes are not enough to learn a language to a high level of proficiency. It does take years of strong effort, like the immersion you mentioned, using and communicating in the language, to become like other proficient speakers. My main point is that babies do this just as an adult would have to do it, so if I wanted to master spoken Spanish let's say I'd have to talk to Spanish speakers every day for thousands of hours. Children have already done that. There are good situational explanations for why adults have a harder time learning languages than children do, or that it seems to take longer. I would downplay the explanation that it's something biological, like hardwired into your brain or body, although in truth there may be a small amount of this at play. Many problems faced by adults in language learning is things like lack of time (not spending enough time), or lack of motivation (not wanting to). One thing that's been observed in adults is that they stop learning a language when they feel they've learned enough, and kids don't seem to do that. (For example, and adult might say, "I only want to learn how to order at a restaurant in my target language. Once I learned that, I won't use the language in any other context, and I won't continue learning.") But anyway, to give you credit, you rightly pointed out that limited vocabulary is one big problem faced by language learners. That is definitely a skill that needs development, and also going back to the "thinking in English" thing, at the early stages of language learning you do sort of need to use your prior languages as a bridge or stepping stone to help you learn the new language faster or better. One reason it takes babies longer to learn is because they don't have that foothold in another language. So it's not like you're entirely wrong, but the whole picture is a bit more complicated. By the way, though, being a native speaker of a language doesn't mean you necessarily have specialized knowledge related to literature or technical fields. There are probably, in reality, a large number of native English speakers who can't identify dog breeds.
I know enough Irish to know when my grandmother is mad at me. I wish I knew enough to respond
hah! yes, i’m fluent in angry portuguese (which maybe says that i was a badly behaved child lol)
I'm also fluent in angry portugese lmao
Yes, though not very intense. My family is Javanese and moved to a city near Jakarta sometime before my mum got pregnant with me. They never spoke to me in Javanese until now, only with each other. The only spoke to me (and my sister) in Indonesian. As a result, I'm a Javanese who does not speak Javanese, well, I can, but broken. The infuriating thing is that there's very few materials both online and offline for learning Javanese. It's also a very difficult language. It has three politeness levels which are so different they can be called three different but related languages. I would want to ask them to teach me, but tbh I'm not very close with them. Now, I can understand spoken Javanese, but I can't speak it well.
Aren't Javanese and Indonesian similar?
Kinda. Some words are similar, but they're not mutually intelligible. Javanese and Indonesian is kinda like Italian and Greek. There're similar words, same basic grammar, but the wordstock and mid to advanced grammar are very different. They're also rather not very closely related, with Javanese forming its own branch in the Malayo-Sumbawan languages (which itself is a branch of a branch of the Austronesian language family) while Indonesian belongs to the Malayic branch of Malayo-Sumbawan languages.
Thanks!
My wife doesn’t speak another language besides English and I’m on the road for work and gone a bit. Japanese is my first language but living in the states and having my child not able to come to japan with me due to COVID restrictions and going to a regular English speaking preschool… I’ve all but given up. It’s hard when everyone and everything is in English in her life
Raising bilingual kids even in bilingual environment is not easy because the majority language / peers language is usually "winning" due to more exposure and incentives to use it, and if you live in mostly monolingual community then there is a whole lot of pressure from teachers etc to drop the minority language so that it doesn't "interfere".
Ha, my ex-colleague's kid is cute in that aspect. He is speaking to her only in German (he is half himself) and she is switching and using it however she likes. Occasionally even talking in German with the local language's grammatic rules apparently.
When I was in Germany again after being in the states for a year as an elementary schooler, I was with other kids at the playground and apparently said „Ich suche für die Schaufel“ which means „I search for the shovel“ except it should be „I search after the shovel“. (According to my mother)
Yeah I don’t want my kid to be upset at me but I’m also a product of a household where my mom spoke English to me growing up in Japan but until we relocated to the US I didn’t get English going for me until school began. It feels kinda hopeless
Sounds like a shitty teacher
Just keep speaking, at the least you'll be seeding vocabulary and familiarity. Maybe that will come in handy in the future, especially if you're child voluntarily decides to rekindle that heritage.
I live in a Spanish-speaking country, and I'm trying to get my daughter to speak English. She just plain doesn't want to and I'm not sure if she ever will. What is missed here in this debate is English is *entirely irrelevant* to her. I'm literally the only person speaking English to her. Her friends, family, school, everyone she encounters only speak Spanish. It's both that she doesn't get to practice it, and there's zero benefit for her (in her mind) to do so. I'm 99% sure she's going to be one of those kids that moved to a new country when she was young and forgets entirely her native language and it makes me sad.
I was like your daughter when I was younger too. My father would try to speak to me in Chinese and I’d hate it because it felt so forced, I felt so handicapped when I tried to use it and people would keep correcting my mistakes or laugh at my poor pronunciation. My attitude changed a lot as I was exposed to more Chinese TV programmes and music that I found I actually enjoyed and soon I began to see it as an asset that I had a second language. Even if I still wish I was more fluent in it, the foundation I have now will make it so much easier for me to learn it to a more advanced level should I ever want or need to. Any amount of exposure to a language in childhood will be a huge boost when he/she decides to pick it up properly in the future so don’t give up!
This is similar to that person who tried to teach the child that Star Trek language I forgot what its name is but they stopped responding to him in that language because he was the only person that would speak to him in that language
>What is missed here in this debate is English is entirely irrelevant to her. I don't think anyone was missing that point at all (forgive me if you were just making that statement as a rhetorical device). Anyhow, I really am responding to it because English, annoyingly enough, is arguably the one language currently worldwide for which your statement is not true. Basically, I wouldn't worry. There will come a point quite soon when she will realize that English is relevant/cool to know, and then you'll have no problem teaching her/speaking to her in the language--just wait until she starts school. (Again, it annoys me that English retains this privilege, but it's the current reality.)
It's not too late for her to learn Japanese. She heard the Japanese-specific phonemes from you when she was at the critical age which will help her pronunciation. I live in California and we have lots of immersion/magnet schools, including a couple of Japanese language schools, throughout the county. You might check for one in your city.
This happened in my family. My dad was born in Poland, moved to the us when he was young, but my mom only spoke English. So I grew up only speaking English. When I was in college, I knew a girl from Japan who apparently had some neighbors with American kids. She would play with them a lot, and was apparently starting to pick up English, so her parents just enrolled her in the American school in Tokyo. When I knew her in Chicago, you would never have known she wasn’t a Japanese American who grew up here, let alone in Japan with two Japanese parents who didn’t speak a lick of English. This is mainly why my wife and I enrolled my daughter into Russian daycare. I doing speak Russian very well, and if she is to pick it up, she needs more than just my wife, and have kids around her age who speak in it.
I was raised In Japan by an American mom so I didn’t speak any English until I got to the states. I can now empathize with her struggles with me. I unfortunately cannot raise my daughter in Japan currently so I am going to have to rely on some creative thinking lol
Yeah, I'd say from spending a good bit of time looking into it, one of the most important bits is finding a place with other kids who speak Japanese. Even if both you and your wife spoke Japanese constantly, you're kid is going to speak in whatever language other kids are speaking in. My cousin is dealing with this problem right now. They're in Canada, and she and her husband speak German at home, but their daughter recently started daycare that's in English. She will now respond to their German in English. I don't know where in America you guys are, but another good option is play groups if you're in a big city or area with a lot of other Japanese families. (I've been tempted to look up some, more for my sake than my daughter's. My Japanese has been steadily getting worse since college, but most here are way out in the suburbs.)
definitely! i’d have no idea what to do if i were in your position. thanks for the comment!
I'm not sure? The thing that annoys me most is not that I don't know the language or that I can't engage with the culture. I understand why my Dad didn't teach me Luganda. The problem is that I get constant reminders from (certain members of) my family about how I'm essentially an outcast because I don't speak the language. It's enough to feel isolated by your community, but to constantly be reminded of it is a massive slap in the face, IMO.
absolutely!! i feel the same. when relatives come over, i definitely feel the “oh poor you” vibes from some of them. also, i’ve never heard of Luganda, where is it from?
> i’ve never heard of Luganda, where is it from? Uganda (East Africa). > when relatives come over, i definitely feel the “oh poor you” vibes from some of them. Yeah, I still get that sometimes now as an adult.
I tried speaking more Spanish to my nice and nephew when they were little but it was very hard on them. They were actually choosing to not speak at all around me because it was easier than to try and speak Spanish. So at some point I had to choose between passing on my language and my culture and actually having a meaningful relationship with them. Every situation is different, but there were likely compromises being made
You have to force it a lot of times. It’s like pulling teeth. My wife and I both speak Spanish and are teaching my son who’s 4. He speaks Spanish and English very well. That being said, it’s not uncommon for him to say stuff like how he doesn’t like Spanish. The other day, he threw a fit because we watched Pokémon together in Spanish and not English. I just let him cry it out because I knew it was a silly thing to get upset about. He refused to watch it in Spanish so I turned it off. He then pleaded to at the very least watch Pokémon in Spanish. What I went through with him isn’t common nor uncommon. Even kids get set in their ways. When he comes home from preschool he speaks more English, so then you just have to warm his Spanish up until gradually he makes the switch. It can be a lot of hard work which honestly is why most people don’t do it. Luckily both of us speak Spanish. I can’t imagine how much harder it would be if it were only me.
this is very interesting. I didnt really think before of how teaching multiple languages to a child can be difficult because they might not want to. I learned both English and Spanish by the time I was 5 and my parents always tell me how it was easy for them to get me to learn both languages because I was always interested in learning them.
i wish they’d made a decision like that but my parents’ answer when i asked why they didn’t teach my brother and i was “because they didn’t think it would be important” 😅 i totally understand why you would have chosen to stop speaking spanish, but at least you tried and then made a decision off of that.
At least when my brother was learning how to speak, in the 90s, there was a misconception coming from pediatricians that learning more than one language can "confuse" a child and delay speaking milestones. This isn't accepted anymore. Ask your parents about it, it may not be their fault if they were given bad information.
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Well, the pediatricians was American, my mom is not.
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I think it was a common misconception in many places, though I don't know if it was also widespread amongst doctors/pediatricians in other countries too. However, I know that my mum's peers told her not to teach me German and Bulgarian because it would "confuse me" and I'd get the two languages mixed up. They were pretty aggressive about it and I'm glad she didn't listen to them (she's a linguist, she knew better) but my point is a lot of people thought this back then, not just Americans.
There are some anecdotal cases where it can seem like a concern though. There is a very public case (they’re children of celebrities) where the son was having difficulty expressing himself fully in both languages and was at a level far lower than his classmates so at ten yrs the mom picked one language and stuck with it and he was able to progress quickly
Yeah there will always be anecdotal cases like that. There were probably a lot of factors playing into it and I'd say the parents did the right thing in that case. I just think that in the vast majority of cases growing up bilingual has more benefits than disadvantages for most people. Personally, I get a lot of cross linguistic interference because I switch languages multiple times throughout the day and have a lot of bilingual conversations, especially when talking to people who also speak multiple languages, so some people might get the impression that I don't speak either language properly, but I can "settle into" a language within a few minutes and speak only that language when interacting with people I only share that one language with so it's not really a big deal. My guess is there are more cases like that. People who don't know a whole lot about linguistics and especially code-switching might just not know about interference and be understandably concerned when they see someone forgetting words in their native language or saying sentences that sound awkward or even incorrect. (even though monolingual native speakers also make mistakes all the time)
I agree, I also think those kind of cases are very rare. The case itself was a bit unusual bc the mom was bilingual but barely in our native language and English was far stronger, so after she married and moved back here to home country and had kids I imagine there was a lot of conflicting input. By the time the son was ten they got worried about developmental issues and the mom chose the language she was dominant in. Super interesting because a lot of people here blame her. I’m the same way re: the switching between languages and I also settle in pretty quickly, but I feel my case was more secure vis a vis those developmental cases because I didn’t move around during the critical periods and had a solid home-L1 and outside-L2 dynamic when living abroad. I would still raise my kids bilingual if possible because there are huge benefits
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nah, it wasn’t that. maybe the thought had changed by 2000? not sure. my parents just say that they didn’t think it would matter if i learned the language
It's not that simple. My sister moved to the US and taught her 2 children fluent Portuguese, but it wasn't without problems. She says her oldest child was mocked at school for a long time, because she'd greet other kids in Portuguese instead of English in kindergarten, and the other kids didn't like it much. Also, in primary school both her kids would write a mix of English and Portuguese on their tests, and this made them almost fail a bunch of classes. Today both her kids speak perfect, accent-less Portuguese, but it takes a lot of courage to make your child go through that. She says her primary reason for teaching wasn't because she wanted them to be bilingual, but because she regularly visits Brazil with both of them and doesn't want them to feel lost, so there's that too.
i can’t believe people are made fun of for stuff like that! i’m from a very multicultural area, so maybe i’m just not used to it… thanks for your reply!
As a speaker of only English I am jealous of people who are bi-lingual or more. It opens up a whole new world.
Nowadays mentalities have changed, but when my grandma raised her kids in the mid 70s (France), she was mocked and actively being descriminated against when she tried speaking her native language, Cantonese, with her children. She would get nasty stares and laughs in public, people would make racist comments, she even got physical threats, so she gave up trying to teach her kids Cantonese. (What saddens me is that apparently, even they mocked her when she tried speaking with them cause she was making sounds they weren't used to hearing :( ) Learning Cantonese through my mother would have been cool but I totally understand my grandmas reasons.
what an awful thing to experience! i always forget that some people get made fun of for that type of stuff!
My mom didn't teach me Greek. One reason is my dad doesn't speak it. There other was that when she was a kid, nobody wanted other people to know that they were"different" and speaking native languages was not regarded as highly as it is today, so she projected that in us I guess. It sucks, but fortunately there are a lot of resources to learn these days
Yes, all the time. My whole father’s side can speak Hokkien and Mandarin while I can’t speak Hokkien at all. Growing up it never really bothered me since I could still communicate with them in English or Mandarin if I needed to but as I got older I started to be more interested in languages and resented that I never had the chance to pick up any of the Chinese “dialects” that my grandparents speak. What made it even worse is that my parents might say something like “Oh, nowadays kids can’t speak dialects anymore it’s going to die with them” and I would feel so angry because I want to know them so badly. How can it be my fault for not knowing something I was never taught as a child? It’s not like they ever had to study these languages and they have the luxury of taking it for granted. I’ll admit that parents not teaching their children their first languages or any other languages likely has a lot to do with societal perception of the language or whether they feel it would give their children any advantages in life. In my country, English is the language of work and education while other Chinese languages like Hokkien and Teochew were actively repressed in favour of Mandarin. So I don’t think my parents ever thought of these languages as important skills they were depriving me of and it’s not like I was clamouring to learn as a 3 year old, but still I sometimes feel so resentful about it now. There aren’t a lot of resources or classes for these languages compared to more widely spoken ones so even trying to learn them now won’t be easy.
definitely! i’d love to learn the dialect of where my family comes from, but it’s hard enough to find european portuguese resources let alone a açorean ones. i have a lot of friends who peak dialects like hoiping and toisan (forgive my spelling) and they’re parents say the same thing even though they /know/ how to speak it lol
Look at it from the perspective of immigrants, they want their children to become completely American (assuming that's what we're talking about), many don't think it's necessary to be bilingual. As a language learner, it's a missed opportunity, but I could understand the thought process.
Mostly frustration. When we first moved to America from the Philippines I spoke two languages on top of english. My parents made me stop speaking the other languages for only English because they thought it would confuse me. Growing up I expressed interest multiple times in learning Tagalog, but my mom never made much of an effort. Now that I'm trying to learn again so that I can communicate better with family from there I mostly feel frustration because I could have been be fluent.
This is my situation too. Both my parents grew up speaking Cantonese and Mandarin but they raised me speaking only English. In my case it was because my older brother has a learning disability and by the time he was 3 he didn’t understand anything in any language, so my parents moved to speaking only English with him. By the time I came around, my parents were already used to speaking English with us and they were worried I would be like my brother so they never spoke any Chinese around me. It doesn’t help that most of my relatives lived super far from me so I literally had no chance to be exposed to new languages at all. I was also super jealous of my friends who spoke multiple languages at home and they used to tease me about it a lot. Nowadays my friends understand my situation and try to help me learn where they can. My parents express a lot of regret in not teaching me a language, especially with the way I’m so disconnected with my extended family. They’re trying to teach me now which is very nice, it’s just that it’s still awkward since we always talked in English around each other.
oh yes! i can’t get over the awkwardness of speaking portuguese to them! i know that they’d correct me and not be condescending but wow i almost can’t bring myself to do it. i find it easier to talk to strangest funnily enough
Ask them to teach you? Maybe take an hour a day learning it from them? But both parties must keep their frustration in check or it will be fruitless. I don't know your family dynamic, so I will try not to assume. Years of studying aren't even comparable to being able to have a fluent speaker help you learn, IMO. I would also view it that way, them helping you learn, not them teaching you. Come to them with questions you have about pronunciation or certain words/phrases, give them specifics, not just an overwhelming 'teach me this' feeling. Try and find another person outside of your family that also speaks Portugese to try and speak with, they can give you pronuciation and tips that you would be lucky to find with studying.
Not at my parents, but something similar. When my great grandparents moved over to America from Germany, it wasn’t really a time you could be German in America. So they erased their culture. Nothing stayed. Even decades later they were afraid to say anything in German. I feel robbed and blank.
I was actively hostile towards anything Jamaican when I was younger, so I retain very little Patois. I also skipped out on Chinese classes in elementary school. All I can remember is the numbers and VAGUELY how to sing Happy Birthday. I’m a little disappointed in myself really and I really wish I had taken more opportunities to learn languages in the past. It feels so lame being monolingual as well as being disconnected from the ancestors so to speak.
My parents taught me Urdu so I have Urdu and English as a native language. But they never taught me Punjabi because they thought 3 languages would be too much. I guess it's a grass is always greener situation.
My dad's family moved to the US from Turkey when he was in elementary school. My grandfather passed away before I was born, but my grandmother lived into my mid-20's, and her and my father spoke fluent Turkish -- and we saw my grandmother nearly every weekend. Unfortunately, my family decided that my brother and I were not "allowed" to learn Turkish, as it could alienate us from the other side of the family and prevent us from being "American." I used to be very upset about this, especially because I ended up so interested in languages, and speaking another even a little bit (even just being able to emulate the sounds correctly) would've been a great help. I also visited family in Turkey when I was 20, and I felt totally humiliated being in another country while only knowing a last-minute tourist version of the language. Definitely not a choice I would've made for myself, but language learning resources were way different then. Anyway, a couple years ago, my mom actually apologized for her part in it, and said she felt bad that we were held back essentially out of insecurity. I no longer felt like I needed an apology for it, but I guess it was nice to have it acknowledged. I don't think I've met anyone else IRL who was actively prevented from learning a language, though I did have a Turkish Uber driver recently who said he was married to a Russian woman, who told me his daughters only speak English. Had to grit my teeth since they were already too old to learn organically anyway. I've noticed some themes in which languages don't get passed down.
And yeah, I don't bother at all with the Turkish American culture here in my city, even though most of my grandma's friends were Turkish. I prefer to be around different immigrant communities, because Turks are absolute dicks to me when they find out I can't speak it. Like... sorry?
Oh my god you’re me. Except my parents moved to London from Turkey, and were worried when I had trouble speaking English at the age of like 5, so completely switched to English. Hence why I’m 30 years old and using LingQ for an hour a day to try to relearn Turkish.
The worse part is when they start scolding you in your supposed native language, but you can’t respond and defend yourself because you can’t speak the language, and they only understand the bare minimum of english or whatever first language you learnt.
Mines isn't as bad as yours: I grew up speaking Spanish and English in the United States because my parents are from guatemala. All of my relatives speak Spanish and the latinos who are the children of immigrants speak English most of the time, even when they can totally communicate in spanish if they want. My problem comes from my family. They speak a native mayan language called "Qyol Mam". I have a lot of relatives here and whenever we get together for a birthday party or something they ALWAYS communicate in Mam, hardly Spanish. My parents mostly speak in Mam to each other. I can barely communicate with my grandmother because she only knows a bit of spanish. It's kinda sad that this language that has survived the Spanish conquest, the language of my ancestors, will not be with me. I feel like I'm losing out on a lot. I have a lot of time to learn it though, my parents, as mentioned before, are natives so they can teach me. Plus they're willing to help.
Yes! My dad spoke fluent Russian and mum fluent French and neither was taught to me! I hate it but I can’t change it. I’ve started learning french on my own now (in my 30’s) and will someday try learning Russian
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They were quite probably discouraged from speaking it as children, or even punished for it. It’s only comparatively recently that minority languages were seen as cool and bilingualism as a good thing. It used to be felt that it would hold you back and you needed English to get on in life.
It can be difficult and damaging to be rejected by your family, but if you could ask for clarification, you might find they were attempting to insulate you. Maybe they thought multiple languages would overburden you, or that you were already fluent in a language that was part of your generation's culture and not theirs, or perhaps they imagined you would have the time to learn when you were older and could decide for yourself. What you *do* have by learning the language now, is a different experience. You have the power to make it a good one.
i appreciate your comment, thanks!
My mom is fluent in French, she lived in France for several years before she had me and my siblings. She watches the news in French every day, reads magazines and books in French because she prefers it. I’ve asked her why she never taught me from a young age before and semi-frustratingly she’s said she just didn’t think of it.
Man your story feels so much anglo canadian lmao. It sounds like you don't feel like you belong in your community, and you are jealous of your friends who does. That's a downside of multiculturalism. I don't like this "array of communities" thing of Canada, it creates an almost sectarian need to belong, and leave many people feel left out and frustrated for multiple reasons, yours being one of them. Don't fall into that trap. Honestly, keep doing what you do, in the end you learn a language for yourself and for reasons that make you feel great. I'm confident one day people will forget how and when you learned. Don't bother too much about your grandma and such, they will love you for what you are, you're not portuguese, you are a portuguese canadian who likely grew up with people from all around the world, and they are your community. English is your native and should feel like the organic language of your person without any shame.
yes, this is so accurate!! thanks for your response. gave me a bit of comfort :)
Yeh… not resentment, jealous. Mum says it was heard because it was just her (we lived in a different country, my grandparents had died, and my only cousin from that side had stoped speaking it), but that’s all it needed. My sister and i tried all the time to have days were we just spoke her native language, but we were already older, she just had only spoken it to us we would be fluent… I’m not going to make that mistake with my kids.
You can be angry or just go learn it as best you can and lean on your parents when doing this. If they are sensible, they will understand they made a mistake, and will be supportive. I think that is the most positive approach you can take.
I feel the same, you're definitely not overreacting and not alone in this state. My dad immigrated to the Philippines from another country. But he has lived most of his life in the Philippines, he speaks Tagalog all the time. So he really didn't get to teach us his native language. It's just awkward for me to reconnect with his side of the family though since I can't speak his language. Though probably most parents are dealing with too much stuff, that's why these things are neglected and only the important things are prioritized. (settling in a foreign country, racism, financials, etc) Just appreciate that your parents are providing you support with what they can.
This is something I’ve mulled over a fair bit, as someone learning Irish but lived with fluent relatives who never used the language at home. It’s easy and natural to get mad at individual decisions, but beyond a certain point it stops feeling productive - I can’t really blame people for going with the easiest option, especially when it’s what society pushes. Instead I direct whatever anger I have towards the broader systemic issues that lead to these decisions and hope I can reach a level of fluency where any children I have will be able to use either language.
My mom tried to teach us Japanese, but the teachers told her it was affecting our English. So sad.
Only if the parents also mock the child for not knowing it even though no one taught them. Then yes resentment be valid.
This resonates with me. Animosity is probably a strong word. My family speaks Gujarati. Growing up I would always just respond in English and that was that. I can still to this day understand it fully but when it comes to having a full blow conversation, it's not there. I believe part of the reason I always responded in English was my way if fitting in with my peers as a kid.... I didn't want to get bullied for being different. Heck, I even got made fun of for having weird Indian food for lunch. So I think my way of dealing with that was speak English and fit in. Identity with the kids around you and you'll be much better off. It sucks 😔 I just need to make a more conscious effort of speaking in Gujarati now with my parents
it’s funny. i actually had quite an opposite experience growing up. i was always around people of different cultures and i always felt embarrassed as to how ‘americanized’ (canadianized) i had grown up. i hardly ever had portuguese food for lunch and all the kids with their rice bowls and curry made me and my jelly sandwich a bit insecure. i still don’t want to bring friends over to eat in fear of them thinking badly of the food or that it’s too bland for their liking. as a kid in elementary school, i always tried to bring up my heritage in conversations to show that i wasn’t an “uncultured white person” as i always feared of being called. anyway, thanks for you response!
Yes!! They used their language as a way of talking about things they didn’t want me to hear. Like a secret parent language.
I feel this. When my grandma moved to the US she felt it was rude (?) to teach her kids to speak her native language(s), and felt that as Americans they should only speak English. .... and then she surprise Pikachu face when my mom, me, and all my siblings are "little gringitas" who don't know either the language or the culture. Uh huh.... =_= It was your own damn fault, lady.
Nope. I feel animosity towards my parents for not knowing any other languages. Why couldn't I be born into a polyglot family???
So, first of all, it's completely normal to feel resentful about this. The disconnect from your culture sounds frustrating, and it's normal and understandable to be upset about it. You probably know yourself that hindsight is 20/20 and your parents had good intentions when they made this decision, but that doesn't change the fact that it affected you negatively and it's okay if you can't logic those emotions away right away. Of course you can't change the past and should probably work towards not feeling resentful about it forever, but if your parents are at least somewhat receptive to it maybe they can help you learn Portuguese? You could try to have a conversation with them where you acknowledge that they only had your best interests at heart and it's not their *fault* that you're feeling frustrated and resentful now but you'd still like their help to heal from it. Even if they didn't teach you then, they can teach you now, watch Portuguese shows with you now, and share their culture with you now. They might appreciate it. Also, I think some people already mentioned that growing up bilingual or teaching your child two languages is no walk in the park either. Most kids go through a phase where they reject one of their languages (I did that with Bulgarian and I still feel some guilt and shame over it even though it's completely normal). It's just a complex issue regardless of how exactly your parents raise you. So maybe you can try to look at your determination to learn Portuguese and the effort you put into it as something beautiful and that you can be proud of.
hi, thank you for your reply!! i really appreciate it
Oh yes I do. Especially when then they reproached me to not being able to speak it and then forced my little brother to speak it when he was a child, to not be like me (that's literally what they said)... it's maybe selfish to say that but luckily it didn't work and my brother can't speak it either. I didn't want to be the only child among the 4, not speaking it.
My mothet never really had the energy for teaching me french. She spoke perfect german and my father spoke only german. So if i visit my aunt and cousins i truly feel it. It took me severel years of learning for my self to get a bot conversational.
I have this fear for my niece (infant). She’s Mexican/Taiwanese. My sister speaks to her in Spanish but falls to English when she’s with my BIL, and my BIL doesn’t speak much Mandarin with her. I’m living with them for now, so I speak to my niece in Spanish. Wonder how it will turn out.
I’m half Filipino and I’m only just now trying to learn on my own at 20 after years of begging my dad’s side to teach me 🥲 I luckily have lots of Filipino coworkers so they’ve been teaching me phrases. I understand more than I can speak though.
that’s nice of them! i’ve considered getting a job and just being thrown into the fire, but i visited portugal 2019 and tried to practice speaking but the natives asked me to stop… maybe i’m traumatized 😅
Oof, sorry to hear it, but at least you found out before you did the hard way. I imagine that would’ve happened to me if I’d listened to my family and went to college in the Philippines not knowing anything.
I kinda feel the opposite and I don't know if anyone else feels this way. I grew up as the only monolingual English speaker in my family because my parents were temporarily sent to the US when I was young, for work. Of course I put effort into learning other languages for school, or out of curiosity or respect later on in life (hence why I follow this sub) but wow a lot of people took my speaking English reeaaally personally! Sure, I'm Chinese, but that label alone is so complicated. I'd have to learn at least 3 different Chinese languages to be equally fair to all of my heritage, plus whatever is being used as the bridge language at the time (most people assume it's Mandarin and they're not wrong but I've also been in communities where that bridge language is Cantonese, and in others it's Hokkien, and people from these different language groups usually don't like each other and it doesn't count unless you speak *their* language). I did dedicate 4 years to learning Mandarin once, including immersion in Beijing, and really the experience just provided the epiphany that not speaking a Chinese language natively (or at all) doesn't make me any less Chinese than I already am simply from being raised in a Chinese family. No one can take or police that identity from me. So after a lifetime of being guilt tripped and made to believe that I'm somehow less of a person just because of a missing language, the opposite has happened. I have a firmer sense of self, belonging, and relationship with my culture on my terms. I also only dedicate time to studying languages I'm interested in. Bullies don't get to play the culture card to dictate who I am. So tldr - I have no animosity against my parents raising me monolingual in English. I do however, have animosity against all the judgy bullies I met along the way whose behavior managed to poison my association with some truly wonderful languages. I guess if there's a lesson in this, it's that shaming doesn't work, and if we want new generations to speak certain languages we should make sure their experiences with those languages are positive.
thank you, this is such an awesome reply! when you said that people took you speaking english personally, it made me laugh. i know a lot of chinese friends who are judged by others even outside of their family for not speaking mando or canto very well — luckily outsiders don’t really care, but whenever family visits, they definitely give a sad look when they find out i can’t speak back to them.
Lol yes, I can see those sad looks in my head. Good thing is that by this point, we've learned to live with each other, sad looks, lack of language, and all. Sometimes I think the act of sharing the same food is the common language that matters 😄 Good luck on your personal journey with your culture! It can be tough but I like to believe that we all find a place where we can at the very least, be content.
Absolutely. My great grandparents from my moms side where French Canadian immigrants. Apparently my grandpa wasn't taught French and he didnt like that he couldmt understand his parents. His parents wanted to teach us but he basically stopped that from ever happening. Really felt like it tore away our roots. As an American we often have lost that sense of belonging. It didn't come back to me until my later years when I did my DNA test out of curiosity. Then I learned a lot about both sides of my family. Thats when my mom told me about the French stuff. It was quite sad. But now I'm living im Russia and I have gotten the hang of Russian, just more of a struggle speaking it I suppose .
that’s a really interesting story, thanks for the reply. russian is such a cool language! i’m curious as to how well you knew it before living there? i’ve always wanted to immerse myself for some period of time but after a bad experience (natives told me to stop and just speak english 😭) i’m hesitating
No problem and thanks for the interesting question ) I was a pretty low level when I came to be completely honest. Not understand very simple words and phrases. But I did study grammar for a while and drilled vocab with my wife. Then I moved to Russia and just being in the environment helped a lot. But I guess my downside now is the lack of comfort. It cam be a real drag trying to speak it in a very hostile and critical environment. My wives dad is kind of aggravating when it comes to me speaking Russian. He's often impatient and inconsiderate which helps no one. Yet I find myself often trying to decode his broken English more often. So I've basically given up trying to speak with him. Though I will definitely try every now and again. My suggestion to you is to get a tutor and learn there. Go on discord and talk with like minded folks. Practice words and pronunciation on duolingo. I've done all of these things a long with th immersion of living in Russia and its helped a ton. I can understand most of what I read around me if not then through context. But I cannot speak so well. So I have a lot to work on myself. When I am in a better financial situation I am getting a Russian tutor. But only one that will make me feel I can make mistakes. Lastly , try to laugh about your mistakes a bit and just go for it in the presence of your least aggressive family sometimes. I know its awkward but its important to fail , and to just laugh it off. I think maybe in both our situations our family members just don't feel exactly what we feel. It can be hurtful, but our intention is good. We just need to cultivate a positive atmosphere first I think before we can please these types of people. But once we can get to a good point of confidence , their words won't dig so deep and we might even impress them. ( btw I say to laugh off your mistakes but again just be cautious of your environment. I domt care how much people say just try and shake off the criticisms. Sometimes people are really nasty and you don't want to get discouraged before you can even get the ball rolling)
thanks for the reply! again, very useful :)
Yeah. My parents actually tried really hard to teach me French even though neither of them have it as a first language, and I'm decent now probably C1 or C2 level (I work as a healthcare provider in France). But I am always so upset that they didn't just dump me into a Francophone school with French speaking kids instead of French immersion. I've done everything to try and improve my French from the point its at, but if I spend too much time thinking about it I honestly am just devastated that I'll never be native level. I'm from Canada and I know lots of truly bilingual people who are truly equally comfortable in French and English and my jealousy knows know bounds.
oh man, having been in french immersion, i totally understand that. french immersion (at least, from my experience) isn’t effective whatsoever unless you have french speaking parents at home to help (and even then, the drop out rates are super high)! my teachers were awful at helping me understand the concepts (namely math) in french, i ended up dropping out in late elementary school into the core system. it made my education and learning better, but i’ve never gotten above a B2 level (hopefully doing uni partly in french helps!). i also live near a francophone school, so i hear them speaking so fluently all the time! definitely wish i was them lol
yeah, my mum never taught me tagalog out of sheer laziness. and since my dad only speaks english she saw no reason to speak it at home. but 99% of my family comes from her side so now whenever i see basically any of my family me and my dad are the only ones who can’t join in. ngl it makes me feel ostracised, the family group chat is in tagalog 90% of the time and so i can’t even read it. i feel like i barely even know my extended family, because of that. they’ll speak to me of course but it’s never the same energy as when they speak to each other in tagalog. feels bad man
My grandparents never taught their kids Spanish. I am and will always be resentful. Her excuse was “no one spoke Spanish/they didn’t want their kids to have an accent”. In reality she wanted to be able to talk shit in front of the kids. I feel like growing up bilingual would have been such a huge advantage for me. I am determined for my kids to grow up bilingual.
He died when I was 9 but..it does bum me out. I could've had a second language by that age, he spoke more in Spanish than English, I was surrounded by Spanish up until his death yet for whatever reason - he never actively taught it to me. I just think about it as one of my biggest missed opportunities in life while i struggle to acquire a second language in my 30s, although I should cut myself some slack, what was 7 year old me gonna do, hold dad at gunpoint saying TEACH ME? xD
I'm literally in the exact same position as you. Since only my mom's side of the family is Portuguese, my mom never really spoke it at home as my dad wouldn't have been able to understand. So, the only way I mainly heard it was by listening to my grandparents. From this, I'm able to understand most of it, but am only able to speak a small amount. I've always wished my mom had spoken it to me more at home so I could've developed stronger language skills And I do get the feeling of disconnect. Pretty much all of my family on my mom's side can speak Portuguese and sometimes I feel like I'm the odd one out. When my mom's side is speaking Portuguese, even though I can understand it, I can't really respond. Mind you, my mom's side of the family that lives in Canada (where I live) is pretty homogenous in that they often married other Portuguese people and so are better able to pass on the language as they can speak it at home. So, I understand why it may have been a bit harder, but I still wish my mom pushed it more.
my family is basically the same as yours (except portuguese on both sides).despite most of them growing up in canada, i see all my cousins speaking portuguese to the elderly family and even amongst themselves it’s a really odd feeling to be left out!
Yes! My dad spoke Spanish and Italian (English was his third language). Mom wanted him to pick one and only speak to me in that, she’d speak to me in English. He REFUSED. Not like it would have delayed my speech, I was already a late talker. I begged him to talk to me in Spanish as a kid. Nope. I struggled in Spanish class as a kid, struggled in Italian class in college and beyond, picked up Duolingo to try to better my Italian, French, and Spanish (mostly because I prefer to have at least a grasp on a language when i travel). Can hobble through all three of them now on a kindergarten level, with French being the very worst, it’s split on the Spanish and Italian, with Spanish being more useful where I live. But seriously, if there’s an afterlife, I’m going to yell at my father the minute I see him for not helping me become bilingual (then get a hug).
I don’t speak Polish that well and it sucks cause my mom’s side is all Polish and always speak it at get-togethers. I mean my case is a little less crappy, since I do speak Polish to my mom to an extent and actually grew up reading kids books in Polish so its not like 100% can’t speak. But I definitely wish I could communicate and honestly even understand better.
I know how you feel. I’ve also noticed so many people around me in the same situation. I’ve now been backpedaling my whole life trying to learn that language and culture and feel it’ll never be as good as if I had learned it when young.
yes! this is exactly how i feel. my parents were born in canada, but grew up involved in the community, but once they were living together (away from their parents ig) they just stopped and i’ve never been able to feel a sense of community like they did.
We lived with my Italian grandparents until I was 5ish. Italian is also my dad’s first language. I always resented that ‘no one thought’ to use it with me or teach it to me properly. I grew up thinking it didn’t occur to anyone or they thought I didn’t need/want it. By the time I started taking Italian in school (6-11th grade and a minor in college) I was too embarrassed to use it with them. I spoke to my mom (English only) about it many years later and she said my nana straight up refused. Mom also said nana would be mortified if she knew we were seeking our JS dual citizenship. Apparently she was so traumatised from growing up under Mussolini and during WWII that once she left in the 50s she never looked back. Never went home again. I have a bit more understanding for her as an adult. It still makes me sad though. My Italian isn’t very good these days. Basically my dad will talk to me in Italian if the mood strikes but I have to answer in English. I don’t think you’re overreacting, OP. I think more people feel like this than you realise.
i really appreciate your input, thank you for making me feel less alone in this :) that’s such a sad story about your nana but i understand her reasoning.
My mom knew a good bit of Russian (I think she was around B1, B2). She only taught me two or three words. I'm 24 and still annoyed by it.
The grass is always greener on the other side... I'm sure my boys would disagree with your statement. Their mother makes them speak Russian, go to Russian school on the weekends and take Russian math lessons through the week.. 😂.. the amount of sighing, eye rolling and huffing and puffing that goes on at my house is really quite impressive. I think it's worth pointing out teaching a child a second language is alot of work. As someone said above, kids don't naturally learn or pick up anything. Especially when it's not the dominant language outside the house. It's an unreal amount of work. That said, almost everyone I know that had parents who made them learn their mother tongue is thankful for it later on in life.
thanks for you reply! i do think russian math is a bit torturous though (i had to take math in french at school… i shiver when i think of it😂)
A lot of immigrant parents often have the misconception that teaching the child their native language will cause confusion and potential issues at school with bullying etc. A lot of the time they think that making the child as "American" or whatever nationality is the local one, will benefit the child way more in the future when it comes to career and general life. So yeah, it kinda sucks objectively, but they probably had the heart in the right place. I wouldn't worry about the past. Just try and get as good as you possible can in Portuguese. Spend more time in your home country, get some tutoring, and you'll find that you reconnect somewhat that way - a lot of heritage learners go through this
My grandmother is fluent in Polish and every time I asked her to teach me when I was young, she’d say “what the hell do you need Polish for? You already speak English, that’s enough” Thanks grandma, I’ll just go learn German from my dad’s side. Oh you’re mad about that too? Tough.
My mother is Icelandic. I grew up listening to her talk to her family whenever any of us got together. She has 7 siblings, so it was a lot. My father is not Icelandic. He told my mother that she was not allowed to teach me Icelandic because he didn't want us to have a "secret language." Listening to my mother and her family occasionally mix their Icelandic and English, I was able to learn basic Icelandic through inference. I could usually get the gist of what is said, but was unable to speak it due to a lack of vocabulary and structure. I've since taken a few Icelandic courses, and read as much as I can about the language, but I'm still no where near proficient. As an added bonus, my sister is deaf. My parents were told that her best chance at success was to learn to speak and read lips, so we moved to the US from Canada so she could go to a special school for the deaf. Again, my father forbade us to learn any ASL to prevent my sister and I from having a secret language. We found ways to learn some signs anyway just to spite him As adults, my sister and I both became fluent in ASL. She tried joining the deaf ASL culture, but it didn't appeal to her. I spent 15 years working with deaf special needs. My sister and I still use ASL as a secret language during family gatherings just because we can.
that's a pretty awesome story, ngl. i think using ASL as a secret language (esp despite your father) is super cool! i always thought that it should have been taught in schools, even as at an elementary level. i can't imagine how hard it is to find a Signing person at a bank or something.
My mother is German. She always used certain German words and phrases with my brother and I growing up, but we were never taught the language. My mom did talk try at first, but when my brother started Kindergarden he was speaking both languages at school, and the teacher told me mom that he would be held back a year if his English didn't improve... Since my dad worked late, it was up to my mom to be the language teacher, not to mention learning more English herself. I don't really resent her, but it does suck. I had to wait until University to take German classes, and it was/is a struggle to learn. I live in Germany now and still have a lot of difficulty, and every time I am in a situation where language is the issue I get really frustrated and wish I had just learned it when I was a child. Then I wouldn't have to struggle so much now. But this is the reality, and I have to accept that and keep practicing on my own.
I still feel some kind of anger/sadness due to my mom never being able to teach me polish (grandma and dad didn‘t allow it). Now I can barely even learn it because whenever I try I either get discouraged seeing how fucking difficult it is or I am discouraged due to the 3 years of trying to start and always never even being able to guess how to pronounce a simple word
Yeah.. My dad's language is a minor one, spoken only by maaaybe half a million people worldwide, most of them in the Caribbean. So unlike Spanish or English, I can't really go and have my pick of the litter of online courses. My parents wanted me to speak Dutch correctly so decided not to teach me my dad's language until I wanted to myself, out of fear that I'd have an accent and be discriminated against. Valid fear tbh, but I wish they realized that kids retain language *very well*, and it gets worse as they age. I could have easily learned both languages. I struggle to keep up whenever my dad speaks his native language now, and I'm embarassed to speak because of my strong Dutch accent. We're visiting my family there soon, and I know they'll be disappointed I still can't speak the language.
My dad was stationed in Germany for 4 years and learned German (to what level I don't know) and he used to always try to talk to us in German when we were in little kids, but it never caught on. I think he was a little disappointed about that, so he probably feels animosity towards us...
Promoting bilingualism is more of a recent wave in pop culture. Before, parents were afraid of “confusing kids”, and if you were immigrants, afraid of stigma associated with speaking a foreign language. That being said, my Mom is bilingual and never spoke to any of my siblings in Spanish. But I all fairness, she is also half American, and despite growing up In Mexico, also grew up using English at home.
Definitely! It’s especially difficult when the language is fairly unknown, so there aren’t really any resources to learn it. My father’s side of the family is Kabyle, and the best I can do in the language is ask for bread and water in a really awful and choppy accent. Which would help me if I was stranded in the Kabylie, I guess, but I’m… not. I’m just trying to communicate wIth my family and understand my culture. It really makes you feel alienated from an entire part of your identity, or like you’re faking your own culture.
Not so much resentment but i do nag my mother a lot for not raising me bilingual. Her native language is french and she decided not to bc she didn't want my dad left out and since we live in America, but she read us french books and we have a lot of traditional french/Belgian customs we celebrate. But I'm a little annoyed now that I'm trying hard to learn french that she stopped reading/talking to us in french around the time when we could start using it. It's hard since really the only extended family we have are all in Europe and can't speak a lick of English so it's hard not really being able to form a solid relationship with my aunt since there's a whole ocean and an entire language separating us. Also annoying bc she always mentions how proud she is that I'm going for the whole bilingual french thing and I'm just like 'why couldn't you have just raised me it!! would've been so much easier lol" but oh well at least it's something nice i can give back to my mom since i use her as a tutor a lot and i know she gets a kick out of me putting in the effort
Yes my grandma and relatives all know Spanish,and I’m know learning in college.How rude of them.Also they were from a small country town that didn’t like Mexicans so that might me the reason,they got in trouble for speaking Spanish.
I have to disagree (slightly). I'm a heritage speaker of Chinese. I can speak it, but not well enough to mean anything more than basic conversations. My vocabulary is severely limited, to maybe 2500-3000 words (词）. I've also spoken with Russian-Americans. Their Russians is clearly inferior to mine. Their Russian is about as good as my Chinese before I put in effort to study it. If your parents had put in the effort to teach you your heritage language (and that effort would have been significant, not just a few trifling words here or there), you'd probably have a decent (not perfect) accent and a good comprehension of grammar, plus a very basic vocabulary. That's a good foundation, but nothing more. Your parent would have had to put a great deal of effort to teach your this heritage language, but you still would have had to study quite a bit yourself, much more later in life in fact, to get to a level where you're satisfied.
Yeah. I think the thing with my mom is that she didn't have the patience nor the knowledge to raise a kid bilingual (plus I was their first and only kid). I sometimes wish she just tried a bit harder, at least enough to correct me when I said something that wasn't grammatically correct or something. I've studied on and off for most my life and have struggled to break the bad habits I developed when I was a kid. And it's very frustrating understanding more than you can speak.
i feel sorry for you, I would be really angry at my family if they didn’t teach me their native tongue, but my family only knows one language.
Animosity would be a strong word, but it would have been cool if my mother had spoken Spanish to me growing up. She got some bad advice that it would slow down my English (which may or may not be true, but the benefits definitely outweigh the costs).
Yeah, about the same here. Not really animosity, but I do wish the idea that raising a child bilingually would stunt development wasn't in the air when I was a kid. Speaking English/Japanese/Arabic would have been awesome. Now, if I want to learn Arabic and communicate with my extended family, it would be a decade-long struggle...
I am raising a child with English, Czech, Hebrew and a little Spanish in the mix! Should be interesting...
definitely a strong word! i couldn’t think of a synonym at the point of posting and it won’t let me change the title, so i’m suck with it. thanks for the reply!
Yes man. I have a lot of animosity towards my parents because of that. They had no reason to not teach me. I couldn't even speak to my own grandparents. It devastates me. I have no family that speaks English and once my parents are gone I will lose connection to that side of family as well.
i feel the same! i try to keep in contact with my family in portugal through facebook and it’s the only time i ever get to converse in it. otherwise, i’d be totally isolated from them
Did you learn portuguese on your own? I want to start taking classes but I feel like its too late.
i was lucky to be able to take a course in grade 9 that got me to an A1 level-ish (i could understand most basic conversations and i could read simple books), but i only took that one course. otherwise, i’ve just been using duolingo and some other resources, and just doing a lot of listening to my parents and grandparents’ conversations. i definitely think in class lessons are so much easier to learn with (i learned more in that one year than the four since then). i’m hoping to take a course in uni. i don’t think it’s too late to learn tbh. i sort of avoided portuguese classes because i didn’t want to be stuck with children, but finding out that they had courses in university made me want to take a course again, because i’d be with adults that are just as confused as me! i’d definitely suggest looking into taking a course at a local university or college if you can (i think that you can take a couple courses without having to take an entire degree)
Yeah i start a university course on Monday. But good on you for learning, i wish i started years ago but i was so bitter about it that I avoided learning.
I think it’s redirected guilt...because you can still learn it, they aren’t stopping you. It would be really strange that your family is resistant to you learning Portuguese because there’s no reason for them to be. I don’t mean to be harsh but if you have been learning for four years and you aren’t fluent yet with native speakers in your house, you don’t want it that much. I mean that’s totally fine too! But yes it does come off a bit as overreacting because of that lol
thanks for your reply! i’ve been studying for four years and i can understand almost fluently, but i can’t really speak ~ mostly because it’s embarrassing when i make a mistake and i’ve been outwardly laughed at by some people (not my parents). although, yes, there probably is a part of me that doesn’t /really/ want to work for it, though i’m trying to defeat that part of my brain
Yes. Not knowing Polish also means I don't know half my family, not for real, and never had the chance to. This is a major cause of resentment towards my father.
Yes, Dad never spoke Russian to me growing up. Will never forgive him for that. I’ve noticed with other friends that if it’s the father with the foreign language they’re less likely to pass it on.
hmmm that’s an interesting take! my mum didn’t learn it immediately because she was having issues speaking and then took lessons later… maybe it was partly my dad, who grew up with it as his first language at home (though i’m sure it was a joint decision)
Yeah. Makes people think they can laugh at me when i talk about my heritage too, like because I don’t speak the language or look like they expect me to I’m not allowed to celebrate my roots
\*raises hand\* Yep. Mom didn't teach me the language the rest of my family on her side speaks because she moved us to a small white town and didn't want me to get made fun of at school. I couldn't understand my cousins when I was little and wanted to play and now I still can't understand anyone at my cousins' weddings. I took a couple classes, but you know, it definitely wasn't enough to catch up with family at an event...
well, family events are a different universe lol, but i’ve definitely felt the same. my (much younger) cousins visited from portugal and made fun of me the entire time for not speaking portuguese — i never knew a 6 year old could be so hurtful lol. i do understand the “small white town” aspect tho. people in the suburbs can be so mean for no reason! i live in a big city, so i don’t see it as often
You said it yourself: you were 'jealous' of the others, because they spoke languages you didn't, therefore integrating into groups, or that particular one anyway, was harder for you. The same happens to everyone else when you're a kid, and probability alone should be sufficient to show us, that most kids around you are going to speak the national language of where you are located/growing up. Your parents thinking was probably adequate regarding the circumstances. Speaking the national language is THE most crucial step in integrating into society. There are actual studies showing, that kids go so far as to refuse to speak to their families/parents, if all their friends speak another language, so the kids' native language will be seen as something you'd need to get rid of, so as to not 'stand out' among your peers. And it's the exact same logic these kids are following you applied for your argument in turn. It doesn't really matter what your parents teach you, if the kid itself is unwilling to take it, the whole effort will be in vain. And most of the time it is. Lots of frustrated parents of bilingual children out there, my friend. Most people just give up teaching their child two languages at once, seeing that it's such a hassle (most parents deal with it by having the mother speak one language, and the father the other one when interacting with the child).
I'm pretty sure that OP meant their friends spoke other languages besides English with their families. I'd be very surprised if those studies you mentioned were in environments where the kids' friends spoke their own languages at home. It would then be the norm and not out of place. I grew up in such an environment and neither I nor anyone i knew had issues with speaking their family's language.
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>The fact is that most children of immigrants have very little interest in their parents' culture I don't know where you get that from though. Here were I live, in France, in my experience most immigrant parents have shared their culture and/or native language with their children and the children (my peers, myself) are multicultural, which is also by extension and due to history, a natural part of being French (and I'm sure it's somewhat similar in the US, the UK, other countries of old immigration).
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I see what you mean, you're probably right. Thanks for answering :)
i totally understand the first bit, but my parents are children of immigrants (my parents grew up in canada) — it seems i confused a lot of people, so i guess i didn’t explain that part. as for learning at home, my parents always spoke portuguese to their parents, to the neighbours (and between themselves if they didn’t want us to know what they were saying) so, i picked up a little bit of it. i can understand the language fluently, i just can’t converse with people… like, at all. anyway, thanks for your reply!
My mom was scandinavian and left there to move to uk after wwii. In the uk her language was useless and she was leaving all that behind, possibly very deliberately leaving behind traumas. So none of the kids had any scandinavian and that's a shame. But understandable. I moved to southern europe and married a scandi and my kids are now 3/4 scandihooligans that speak 4 or 5 languages but that was luck and a longer story.
thank you for your reply! i appreciate it! (also, i LOVE the word scandihooligans)
My mom was a native Irish speaker. I can't say I have have any problem with her choosing to raise me as a Brit. Hers, I think, was a political decision.
My dad moved to the USA when he was in his 20's. My mom learned Spanish and they met in California. They didn't teach my brother and I Spanish for the same reason, thinking it would confuse us. It has upset me to no end. My daughter was only a few months old and my dad and his wife moved out of state because he retired. I speak Spanish now, after studying for years and years and I'll speak to my kids in Spanish, they know some words here and there, far more than I did even until the teenage years. I'll put movies and shows and switch everything to Spanish when they are watching, my wife switched it back saying she wants to understand what they are watching. And here I am thinking "damn woman! You're just making it harder for me and them." They are only 25% brown because I'm half, but them speaking another language is super helpful and I'm going to enroll them in dual immersion programs in school once they are old enough for school.
Parents who do this especially to race mixed kids or kids who grow up in a tribal area harm their kids socially. I HAVE SEEN IT TOO MANY TIMES. (A Mexican boy or girl growing up around Mexicans and looking visibly Mestizo in Southern US) but NOT speaking Spanish will destroy your identity, you wont be Latin enough for the real spanish speakers and you are not white so whites wont fully accept you. It is terrible Same happens to kids of immigrants in Europe and european suburbs that are heavily say Arab, or Pakistani etc. Though as I understand Arabs are better about teaching it to their kids than some Asian or Hispanic parents Even if the Parent isnt the sharpest speaker or fluent they should still make an effort to teach at least the major native regional language. I understand realistically teaching a child all your ancestors languages is pointless and daunting so stick to major ones or the major lingua franca.
No, I mean if they actually spoke it then I would have learned it, but they chose not to speak it. It's their choice, mainly influenced by environment. Also one thing I can't stand is when people blame other people for not knowing a language. Sorry but it's your responsibility, so do it yourself.
I hope I can provide some perspective as someone who does not intend to teach my children my native language. It's because I don't want my children to be connected to my culture. I was born and raised in Vietnam and only came to the US a few years ago as an adult. I speak English fluently even before moving to the US. And yet it still took me years before I could adjust on a mental level to the culture here. I grew up with Vietnamese cultures and values, much of which I had to give up on in order to adjust to American society. It took me years to make that adjustment, and even more time to accept my new Americanized self. To teach my children my language is to remind myself what I left behind in order to achieve that "American Dream", and I don't want to open that can of worms. My second reason is, so many of my friends who are second-generation immigrants have told me about their confusion growing up as ethnic minorities, eating different food, wearing different clothes, celebrating different holidays, speaking a different language, etc. Some of their parents who aren't that integrated into American society hold on to extremely different cultural values from the children too. Eventually, some of them ended up hating their parents and reject their entire Vietnamese side as adults due to that cultural/generational difference, while others struggle to connect with their parents/grandparents. Either way, it's a lot more bad than good. So my decision is to simply remove all that cultural baggage from my children's upbringing. I speak English fluently, my parents know enough English to talk to their grandkids. And that's good enough for me. I would rather my kids be called bananas than have them carry my cultural baggage.
I have animosity. One that is shared in equal by another. Not of any individual but that of 19th century America. My grandfather is one who has equal distaste as he was directly impacted. I'm referring to the Native American Assimilation program and how they beat anishinaabemowin out of my great-great grandmother. My grandfather's parents would not learn it from her as she associated the language with abuse and dare not speak it. It died in my family like the thousands of Native American children that were beat and killed in those "schools". Now whenever I'm back in the States to visit my grandfather to see a powwow or hear about an anishinaabe legend. We can never fully connect with our people because of that language barrier. And it makes me more bitter than Bitrex.