Pescator Posted July 30, 2001 Report Share Posted July 30, 2001 Anybody in here having any experience in teaching thai to children? I am sure several in here are familiar with the situation: one parent european and the other thai. I wonder what will be the best way to make the child bilingual from an early age? I`ve heard from several that the best way should be to let each parent consistently talk to the child in their own language. The reason for my question is that we have a son (10 months of age) and we would like him to grown up to be bilingual. I guess we all know what it takes to learn a new language at a later stage :-) We didn`t manage to accomplish this with our eldest son now 7 years and it is a rather awkward situatuation when he gets to meet his thai family without being able to talk to them except for the most basic terms. Regards Michael Christoffersen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 30, 2001 Report Share Posted July 30, 2001 At home i speak with my children in English, my wife attempts to do the same. All childrens TV is in English. The kids hear Thai from everywhere else. The nanny, relatives outside etc... The eldest is 3 1/2 she doesn't speak a lot wether this is from some confusion or not I don't know, at one stage she used Khmer phrase, See Bhai, etc.. then some Lao phrases now she uses mainly English with some Thai thrown in at the same time for good measure. Maybe we have an expert on the board that could expand on the correct way on this and does the multiple languages at a very early stage create confusion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BkkShaggy Posted July 30, 2001 Report Share Posted July 30, 2001 It depends on where you live. If you're foreigner living in Thailand you should speak English at home at all times. The problem is if your Thai wife speak English to your kids they could get wrong pronuciation from her!! They can learn Thai outside the house. Let me give you a couble of real stories. A Thai parents living in NYC raised two daughters by speaking only Thai at home. The young one got some confusion and stated to talk quite late for her age. But finally everything came out fine. the older one had no problem. They speak both languages well - no accent whatsoever !! A mixed couple living in Denmark - Denish father and a Thai mother have two sons. The father speaks Denish to them and the mother speaks Thai to them. Their sons are good in both languages. A little accent when they speak Thai but not too much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 31, 2001 Report Share Posted July 31, 2001 BKKSHAGGY That puts my mind at ease a little bit. My daughter seems to be very bright, sees something once then tries to do it herself, wants to be involved in everything but seems rather slow with speech, she was speaking some khmer by the age of two then had to learn different sets of words again so a case of confusion is probably the problem. She now goes to Kindergarten at St Johns so education is in Thai. I'm hoping this will clear the log jam and she will associate one language at home one at school. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pescator Posted August 1, 2001 Author Report Share Posted August 1, 2001 Originally posted by BkkShaggy: [QB]It depends on where you live. If you're foreigner living in Thailand you should speak English at home at all times. The problem is if your Thai wife speak English to your kids they could get wrong pronuciation from her!! They can learn Thai outside the house. Yes, I guess this is the way to go. It is just that we didn`t have too much success in teaching our oldest son both languages that way. He became upset when spoken to in thai, but when I look back I seem to recall that my wife wasn`t consistent in speaking thai to him and that probably caused this. Regards Michael Christoffersen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThaiHome Posted August 1, 2001 Report Share Posted August 1, 2001 My only experience with this is a good friend living in Singapore with his Thai wife, 5 yr old son and Fillipino nanny. When the boy started school they were teaching him Mandarian. I think he was pretty confused. I think he understood it all, but talked almost completely in English. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BkkShaggy Posted August 5, 2001 Report Share Posted August 5, 2001 To Pescator: "Yes, I guess this is the way to go. It is just that we didn`t have too much success in teaching our oldest son both languages that way. He became upset when spoken to in thai, but when I look back I seem to recall that my wife wasn`t consistent in speaking thai to him and that probably caused this." Yes, you have to be pretty consistant. I read an article years back. There was a western educator (British?) trying to prove that teaching a kid many languages at the same time is possible. What he did to his child was getting him(or her?) 7 different nannies for each day of the week since s/he was an infant. The kid learned different languages from each nanny. No confusion for the kid whatsoever. I guess because the kid knew that which language s/he should speak with and to which nanny. You might want to try it ??? [ August 05, 2001: Message edited by: BkkShaggy ] [ August 05, 2001: Message edited by: BkkShaggy ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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