I have a friend who've half British, half Swedish, and grew up in the UK. As her dad really struggled to learn Swedish (ie didn't try very hard!) her parents decided to bring their children up speaking only English, so as not to "split the family". This has been one of the biggest regrets in my friend's life - she really loves the Swedish culture (which is 50% of her after all) but can't fully appreciate it because of the language barrier. She can't really communicate with half her family and grandparents. Although she's made the effort as an adult to learn Swedish, she will never be fluent enough to live and work there, where English is hardly spoken. Quite selfish on the part of her father i always thought - i'm sure in time he'd have learnt enough so as not to "split the family".
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08-10-2009, 05:28 PM #11
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08-10-2009, 05:42 PM #12
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08-10-2009, 05:50 PM #13
To the OP, your son is 2, not 22!!! To me that is no different than when I went the UK when I was 4, and I don't recall a single time during my early years at school having a problem over language. Also, my family spoke heavily dialected Cantonese and Hakka, but to me, it's natural to use my nicam language abilities for school and home!
So going local will not be a problem. Maybe i-school at a later time like during late primary and early secondary if you want your son to be fluent native English (also give you time to build up the tuition fund!)Last edited by ray98; 08-10-2009 at 06:00 PM.
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08-10-2009, 05:50 PM #14
I don't see that as selfish as such. My wife can't speak all the languages I can and I cannot speak all she can! Our primary home language is 75% English and 25% Canto.
It's up to both parents to teach language and if your friend cannot speak Swedish then it's more the fault of the mother than the father. There are people here, as elsewhere, who are bringing kids up in English even though it isn't their primary tongue. But they seem to manage and teach their kids their mother tongues, even when that of the father and mother is different. This seems to be the case in most places I've been.
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08-10-2009, 05:56 PM #15
Jaykay, Yes would have been up to her mother to teach her, but the father is very dominant and it was his decision. I'm sure her mother would have been happy to converse in Swedish with her as she's never turned her back on her own culture and spends a lot of time in Sweden.
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08-10-2009, 06:14 PM #16
Well in that case, yes he was selfish and I agree with what you say!
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08-10-2009, 06:55 PM #17
Although unrelated to the OPs question - half of this board here is made up by foreigners who managed to learn English to a level that allows them to live and work here... Going from English to Swedish really isn't the same as going from Farsi to Japanese. Plenty of materials, and even in smaller towns I never encountered a situation where no one spoke English (in fact, I'd guess Scandinavia, together with the Netherlands, are probably the easiest places to live in Europe for English-only speakers...)
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08-10-2009, 06:55 PM #18
Firstly you are dealing with little kids here. They muddle through and are pretty resilient.
Of course my daughter came home with homework we couldn't help with, but the teachers cut her a lot of slack. As she got to know other classmates she would do her homework with them if necessary.
She switched to an international school last academic year and hasn't struggled at all - and of course finds the mandarin a lot easier.
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08-10-2009, 08:15 PM #19
i teach at government school and we have several students who are children of expats. (Mainly one family who is australian and i think the other family is south african.) They do really well in class (which my class is an english based class) all of the teachers speak english to some degree because of university requirements and even at a secondary level, the students pick up cantonese really quickly. One of the girls called a boy stupid and ugly in cantonese just last week, it was a big step for her.
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08-10-2009, 09:19 PM #20
International school isn't the only option.
My daughter came to HK as an English speaking 3 year old, with NO Chinese skills at all, and after 3 years at a local kindergarten is about as fluent in Cantonese as any other kid her age.
She now goes to a local DSS school that uses English and Putongwa as the teaching languages.She's only been there 2 months and already her Putongwa is coming along and she has both English and Cantonese speaking classmates.
My two younger sons will follow her route through school (one is already in K2).
Originally Posted by Beanieskis:
