Hellobee Boards

Yes! Well not me but my husband speaks fluent Spanish and he's not teaching it to our LO! I think he sounds like a native speaker but he thinks he has a "gringo" accent and is just more comfortable with English. It makes me sad because Spanish would be so useful to have and I'm hopeful LO will somehow pick it up eventually. I would be so mad if my parents spoke another language and didn't pass it down to me, but I can't force my husband to do it!

@cranberryapple: i think about this and struggle with it a lot! my husband and i are both 2nd generation - he's korean and i'm chinese... and i think our kids have more of a chance learning korean than chinese because his parents live with us and are fluent in korean.

i really want to send LO's to a chinese immersion school, and try to practice with them at home if i can, but it's hard when i'm the only one in the household that knows the language, and since i'm ABC my chinese isn't the greatest (i can understand most of it, but i struggle with finding the right words when i speak sometimes. i forget more and more each year esp since i married a korean husband and we're both so americanized).

DH doesn't even see the point in "wasting money" and sending them to an immersion school because he doesn't think they'll retain it anyway.

heck, i grew up with adults who spoke chinese to me allll the time, and i went to chinese school every saturday and summer until i was in 8th grade and look at me now! so is there any hope for my LO's? i still want to try, but i wonder if it's even worth it a lot...

@Mrs. High Heels: @cranberryapple: same situation as you! Married a different Asian ethnicity so there is also the issue of whose language to focus on. I also want to do Chinese immersion but it would require moving to a more expensive area and also being in a lottery! My parents English has gotten so good that we don't even speak Chinese any more.

I, too, am Chinese and I married a Korean. On top of that, our nanny is Spanish! So essentially, LO is going to be very confused. I really want her to know Chinese and I speak it to her as much as possible, but I doubt it is enough since I speak English when DH is around. DH doesn't mind if I prioritize her learning Mandarin, so I'm grateful for that. But, I live in a area highly populated by Koreans so a Korean immersion school is easy to find, but not a Chinese one. I hope I can find a Chinese one, and if not, at worst, she will definitely be going to Chinese school on the weekends! I hated it and always said I would never send my children there. Now look at me, haha!

In your situation- i totally understand! its a huge bummer:( could you get children dvds and movies in your language?

My LO WILL be bilingual...I don't see why not in our situation. We both speak fluent English and without accents, but we still both speak Arabic and so do our families.
The plan is no English until kindergarten. They can learn it there, just like we did.

Chinese school, baby! Ruining Saturdays for thousands of kids in the US for generations! Just kidding. Chinese school is great. Can you find an immersion preschool? My friend's child goes to mandarin immersion.

I learned how to speak a second language at home, but this is not the language that we will be using with our son. He's bilingual, but in English and German, with some Spanish thrown in for good measure.

At some point, we will do a Saturday school in German.

I speak Vietnamese fluently (but can't read or write it)-- and the hubs is white/Caucasian. My mom comes over 40 hours a week and speaks to LO only in Vietnamese, and I speak to her in Vietnamese only when my husband isn't around-- but I know she will know less than I do, and it kind of bums me out! I'm hoping she will at least understand it and will look for Vietnamese Saturday schools around here. Most of them are run by Buddhist temples, though, so I'm trying to avoid those.