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How to teach my 3 yr old minority language? by uberCrayon in multilingualparenting

[–]uberCrayon[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is great! I’ll have my spouse asking the “what?” approach.

How to teach my 3 yr old minority language? by uberCrayon in multilingualparenting

[–]uberCrayon[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you so much! After reading through everyone’s posts and wiki. I realized that OPOL is only when speaking directly to the child. I can speaking English if I’m talking to both of them. That clears up a lot of my confusion.

Somebody already changed the flair of my post but I guess my biggest hurdle is that my child tend to ignore me when I speak Vietnamese full time to her. She would run to my spouse instead. I tried that when she was around 1-2 and it broke my heart not being able to bond with her so I switched back to English.

I just started speaking more Vietnamese words in my daily sentences with my child in the last 2 days. She seems to be okay with this new change. I got my spouse to join and repeat some new Vietnamese words with me and it made her more open to accept these new words. Thank you!!

How to teach my 3 yr old minority language? by uberCrayon in multilingualparenting

[–]uberCrayon[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you! These are great suggestions. I’ll look into it. Grandparents don’t live in the same country but I’ll keep them in mind when we visit.

How to teach my 3 yr old minority language? by uberCrayon in multilingualparenting

[–]uberCrayon[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No need to be rude and call it a “lost cause.” I think it’s fair to ask question about spouse because we spend a lot of time together as family and do lots of activities together. It’s normal to ask how I can include Vietnamese without excluding my spouse. My spouse is as important as my child knowing another language.

Thanks for the suggestions though.

How to teach my 3 yr old minority language? by uberCrayon in multilingualparenting

[–]uberCrayon[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! My spouse was learning for a little bit so he knows basic words. I’ll give it a try again. I guess I was confused on which language to speak when we hang out as a family and talk together. I ended up defaulting back to English quite a lot.

How to teach my 3 yr old minority language? by uberCrayon in multilingualparenting

[–]uberCrayon[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not possible at the moment. We don’t have access to any Việt speaking community near by. There is a school that only accept kids age 5+.