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Maitoshi
Joined: 04 May 2014
Posts: 718
Location: 何処でも
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 Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2014 11:04 am Post subject: Suggestions for Maintaining English Speaking in the Home |
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I'd love to hear suggestions for keeping up English at home.
My girls are bilingual, but have begun speaking mostly in Japanese when playing together at home. My wife and I speak English in the home and most of our entertainment and books are in English.
We've been trying to maintain an all-English environment, but the girls seem to prefer using Japanese when playing together. I think it carries over from their speaking Japanese at school.
I hate to be the ogre that disrupts their play by reminding them to speak English in the house. Are there any suggestions for doing this without giving them a bad feeling about speaking English? |
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water rat
Joined: 30 Aug 2014
Posts: 1098
Location: North Antarctica
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| Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2014 11:43 am Post subject: |
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I had a similar situation in Indonesia with three daughters.  All I did was always speak English myself to them. If I bought them DVD they were in English. Bedtime stories were in English. I let them speak Indonesian as much as they pleased, but they knew to talk to Daddy in English because they never heard me speak Indonesian except to taxi drivers and store clerks.
By the time they were young teenagers and I tried to enroll them in English courses, I couldn't. The kids classes were too mind-numbingly simple for them, and they were too little and too advanced in their English for even the upper-intermediate adult level classes.
So get them English-language DVDs and storybooks and they'll be all right.
Last edited by water rat on Fri Oct 10, 2014 1:12 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Maitoshi
Joined: 04 May 2014
Posts: 718
Location: 何処でも
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| Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2014 12:22 pm Post subject: |
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Thank you, water rat  |
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water rat
Joined: 30 Aug 2014
Posts: 1098
Location: North Antarctica
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| Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2014 1:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Maitoshi wrote: |
| Thank you, water rat |
どういたしまして?
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Maitoshi
Joined: 04 May 2014
Posts: 718
Location: 何処でも
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| Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2014 1:39 pm Post subject: |
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| Yes, my thanks is sincere. |
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water rat
Joined: 30 Aug 2014
Posts: 1098
Location: North Antarctica
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| Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2014 2:35 am Post subject: |
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| Maitoshi wrote: |
| Yes, my thanks is sincere. |
I'm sure they are, amigo. I only added the "?" to emphasis the rhetorical nature of do itashimashite. It's my favorite way of saying 'you are welcome' in any language because it is a rhetorical question: "What have I done?". Many other languages respond to thanks by saying, in essence, "It's nothing." Japanese is cool in that its response is to ask in this way.
BTW, about how old are your girls? Mine are now 20, 18 and 17. None of them want to teach ESL! |
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rxk22
Joined: 19 May 2010
Posts: 1629
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| Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2014 4:32 am Post subject: |
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| Sounds like you are doing Minority Language At Home, correctly. If you keep the enviro English, they at least will get a great passivity boost to their English skills. Slowly get them to see things your way, and maybe they will come around. |
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Maitoshi
Joined: 04 May 2014
Posts: 718
Location: 何処でも
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| Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2014 8:18 am Post subject: |
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| Thanks! Mine are 6, 3, and 1. |
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jmatt
Joined: 29 Apr 2012
Posts: 122
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| Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2014 9:59 am Post subject: |
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Funny---I've got 3 girls the same ages (well, the youngest is 5 months).
Same problems too! |
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Maitoshi
Joined: 04 May 2014
Posts: 718
Location: 何処でも
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| Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2014 12:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Small world, eh? Wonder whose making all the boys. Most of my mates have girls, too. |
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rxk22
Joined: 19 May 2010
Posts: 1629
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| Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2014 1:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Maitoshi wrote: |
| Small world, eh? Wonder whose making all the boys. Most of my mates have girls, too. |
Me too. Weird. |
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water rat
Joined: 30 Aug 2014
Posts: 1098
Location: North Antarctica
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| Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2014 2:14 pm Post subject: |
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| Someone ought to do a study. ESL dads are girl makers. |
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rxk22
Joined: 19 May 2010
Posts: 1629
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| Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2014 3:05 pm Post subject: |
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| water rat wrote: |
| Someone ought to do a study. ESL dads are girl makers. |
I read that people under stress tend to have more girls. I'll research this later |
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water rat
Joined: 30 Aug 2014
Posts: 1098
Location: North Antarctica
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| Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2014 3:31 pm Post subject: |
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| rxk22 wrote: |
| water rat wrote: |
| Someone ought to do a study. ESL dads are girl makers. |
I read that people under stress tend to have more girls. I'll research this later |
But it takes two to tango. Do one or both of the parents have to be under stress? |
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The Fifth Column
Joined: 11 Jun 2014
Posts: 331
Location: His habitude with lexical items protrudes not unlike a damaged pollex!!!
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| Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2014 4:41 pm Post subject: |
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| I guess my stress-free lifestyle produced a solitary son? |
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