limbo Posted July 28, 2003 Report Share Posted July 28, 2003 We had a thread on this already, but I like to re open the discussion again, maybe there's some more folks peeping into this forum. Your Luuk krueng clidren or children of your Thai wife/GF, how many languages do they speak and how did you deal with this when raising them. My opinion is that each parent part should speak consistantly his or hers motherlanguage, since otherwise the child gets confused and may end up talking improperly in a certain language. I'ld like to hear your input on this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brink15 Posted July 28, 2003 Report Share Posted July 28, 2003 Only English so far, at 19 months. It's pretty funny when I get him to repeat Thai curse words when my wife is around. He doesn't relate these to anything as he almost never hears them in context, unlike my English curse words that I'm now working on eliminating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limbo Posted July 28, 2003 Author Report Share Posted July 28, 2003 You naughty dad! Bet your wife loves you a bit extra when he cluelessly swears along in Thai Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brink15 Posted July 28, 2003 Report Share Posted July 28, 2003 It's more like me goading him along while she is there. Today we were at the local zoo and they had a bison exhibit. I got my son to repeat "mair" while pointing to a sleeping buffalo. (My wife and I have a running joke calling each other kwai) It was really funny hearing him say "mair, mair, mair" while pointing at a buffalo while my wife cursed at me under her breath. I'm a very baaaaaaaad boy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BelgianBoy Posted July 28, 2003 Report Share Posted July 28, 2003 Limbo, No kids here, but as a kid I was stuffed at early age with 3 languages, I beleive the earlier you start, the better. On my flight back 3 days ago, a girl of only 4 1/2 years old was next to me with her dad, she is mixed Thai & German and already spoke perfect Thai, German and English ! Cheers ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bromad1972 Posted July 28, 2003 Report Share Posted July 28, 2003 If my early education collegiate courses still serve, I believe that it is best to start them before the age of 5, as after that, it gets harder and harder to learn new languages. When ( and if ) I ever make due on the promise to myself to have luk krueng chidren I believe that would be my plan. Each parent speaks their native tongue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 28, 2003 Report Share Posted July 28, 2003 Thai, English and E-sahn. Pretty much in that order. I've always encouraged their mother to speak Thai as opposed to E-sahn to them; they get plenty of exposure to E-sahn from other kids and relatives. The kids speak Thai together but throw in English words more now. I try to encourage them to speak only English together, but no real luck there yet. Their English improved greatly after they started attending schools in the US part of each year for the past four years. My oldest, nearly twelve, sounds pretty normal in English now and just needs to develop more of a vocabulary, simple words that most kids already know. Kids learn the best from other kids and teachers to some extent. I know of a couple of LKs who never leave Thailand and you can tell by their English as it's mainly being left to Dad to teach them and they may be around each other for only 1-2 hours/day. Curious thing with my daughter is that now she finds it impossible to speak Thai to me, even if I encourage her to try there is some kind of a switching mechanism in her brain that seems to prevent her from doing this. It?s weird, she struggles with a couple of words in Thai and shifts straight into English. I understand Thai quite well but don?t speak long sentences real natural. When she was younger we spoke Thai together quite often. I envy the kids abilities to so naturally switch between languages without giving it a second thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limbo Posted July 28, 2003 Author Report Share Posted July 28, 2003 Very interesting views Bahnawk. Thanks for sharing them. I gues my daughter is going to be similar, except it's going to be Thai, Dutch and southern Thai and of course English. I hope my daughter will catch up on English in school as well, since otherwise she'll have to catch it from mum and dad! Very interesting to see that your daughter doesn't speak Thai with you anymore. I intend to speak Dutch only with mine but have her help me on Thai grammar if I have questions (poor little girl, she doesn't know what she's in for yet, it'll be a few grammar question for sure!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pescator Posted July 29, 2003 Report Share Posted July 29, 2003 Hi Bahnawk, Concerning your daughters reluctance/inability to speak thai. This is not uncommon. My dentist adopted two kids from Thailand. When they arrived they were around 3 years old and spoke only thai. After a rather short while living with the farang couple - who doesnt speak thai - it was impossible to make them utter a single word in thai. My wife tried to speak to them several times as did I and it was obvious that they understood because they would turn their heads in surprise, but not a single thai word would pass their lips. Kinda strange. Cheers Hua Nguu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spirit_of_town_hall Posted July 29, 2003 Report Share Posted July 29, 2003 Unless you live in Thailand they should only speak English. No point in them learning Thai... unless they go back to Thailand and live....(which they wont) they will forget it all, thats fact.... I spent 8 year learning classical Greek, can not even count past 10, I know a few adults who were in that postion as children... some could even speak another language as a native, now its all gone.... English is the global language now, the language of science, medicine,business As long as someone can speak English very well, he or she is laughing.... STH Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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