Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Multi-lingual parents

leftyderek · 11-24-2005, 04:11 PM

Yes- most probably I'll be doing theatre in Canada after grad... Most probably.

Hm, the problem is... I understand 30-50% of daily life German/Swiss-german, but she understands close to 0% of any Chinese (you all have heard about how hard it is to learn)...

So wouldn't it be sort of funny/chaotic when I complain to Lefty Jr. in Cantonese how mommy gets so stressed about everything while mommy complains to littleLefty in German how daddy always loses his keys?

Thanks for the reply though-
I actually think it's kinda fun if that ^ would really happen.
Chaotic but fun, and the kids will be SO cool.
(I'm also looking forward to the day that our kid teaches us French- I'm just too busy with my German now.)

And, another question. If I speak Cantonese to the kid, she speaks Swiss-german/German to the kid and we both speak English to the kid, wouldn't the poor little one get confused about what words/grammar falls into which language?

Here's an example:
LittleLefty has just learnt how to use the word 'I'.
Mom told littleLefty that 'ich mag...' means 'I like...' in German.
I told littleLefty 'mau' is the pronounciation for 'cat(s)' in Cantonese.

What if littleLefty pops out a sentence like 'I mag mau!' one day?
Would s/he sooner or later realize, by observation that s/he should either say 'I like cats.' or 'Ich mag Katzen'(geez my german's still bad.) or 'blahblahblah' [in Cantonese]?

11-24-2005, 04:11 PM	#4 (permalink)
leftyderek Crazy Location: Currently Canada. I have been in Norway in the last two years, and in Hong Kong before Norway.	Yes- most probably I'll be doing theatre in Canada after grad... Most probably. Hm, the problem is... I understand 30-50% of daily life German/Swiss-german, but she understands close to 0% of any Chinese (you all have heard about how hard it is to learn)... So wouldn't it be sort of funny/chaotic when I complain to Lefty Jr. in Cantonese how mommy gets so stressed about everything while mommy complains to littleLefty in German how daddy always loses his keys? Thanks for the reply though- I actually think it's kinda fun if that ^ would really happen. Chaotic but fun, and the kids will be SO cool. (I'm also looking forward to the day that our kid teaches us French- I'm just too busy with my German now.) And, another question. If I speak Cantonese to the kid, she speaks Swiss-german/German to the kid and we both speak English to the kid, wouldn't the poor little one get confused about what words/grammar falls into which language? Here's an example: LittleLefty has just learnt how to use the word 'I'. Mom told littleLefty that 'ich mag...' means 'I like...' in German. I told littleLefty 'mau' is the pronounciation for 'cat(s)' in Cantonese. What if littleLefty pops out a sentence like 'I mag mau!' one day? Would s/he sooner or later realize, by observation that s/he should either say 'I like cats.' or 'Ich mag Katzen'(geez my german's still bad.) or 'blahblahblah' [in Cantonese]? __________________ -Imagine how beautiful the world would be if we could only do things for the first-and-last time. Imagine this is the last time you would ever be able to imagine. Imagine that. -Die Lust der Zerstörung ist gleichzeitig eine schaffende Lust. -...and god said Lx1,go! and there was light...