Married With Thai With Kids?

[Tony Clifton]

I'm curious to see how kids can adapt to hearing many languages at home.

My wife and I always speak English at home, my wife will surely speak to our son in Thai and I will surely communicate with him in French as well.

Do any of you have kids who have grown up hearing Thai, English and a third language at home?

How do they deal with it?

[Jared]

Ill let you know, my son is only 10 months so a little way to go yet. To help learn both languages, me and the wife always talk in English around him but when hes at the mother inlaws they always speak thai around him. Hopefully hel_l pick up both, I cant see there being a problem.

A friend of mine who is English and a single father in thailand with a little boy has taught him to speak thai only. So they talk to each other in Thai, might be a bit complicated if he decides to take him back to the Uk at some point.

[sutnyod]

Three:

one being my language

one of the country we are in

one of the school they go/went to.

No problems at all.

Among themselves they communicate using the school language.

[singa-traz]

My two sons (8,6) are fluent in French, Thai and Cartoon Network. They do understand and speak a bit of English and will start soon Chinese.

But we only speak French at home, except when my wife swears at me ... in English

[qualtrough]

I almost always speak English with my kids (7, 10), and the wife usually speaks Thai with them. They are in a bilingual education program that we are pleased with. They can switch back and forth between the two languages in milli-seconds. They also get instruction in Chinese as well.

Children are like sponges as far as languages go and I would not listen to anyone who worries about them getting confused. There has been reams of research done to show that isn't true.

Some might question the value of exposing young children to more than two languages at a young age, but it is a good idea. Up until puberty children can learn a language with fluent native pronunciation. Once puberty is reached this ability diminishes, and almost everyone who learns a language after that time will have an accent, no matter how small or easy to understand. Thus it is not a bad idea to expose them to the sounds and patterns of more than two languages even if they currently are not going to study or use it full time. I will give you an example. I had a once a week Spanish course when I was in 4th grade. Hated it, but I did learn to roll my 'r's very effectively. That came in handy when I started learning Thai! You never know...I will give you another example: Henry Kissinger. He didn't move to the US until he was 15. Despite the fact that he has been in and around the US for something like 69 years, and the fact that he can read, write, etc. better than 99% of native English speakers, he still has a very heavy accent. If he had starting learning English when he was, say, 7, it would be a different story.

[Bentley 7]

Qualtrough,

May I ask you what the bi-lingual program that you are pleased with is? I have been looking for a suitable program in Bangkok.

Thanks

[sonicdragon]

We are bringing up our children as tri-lingual at the moment. I speak to them exclusively in english, my wife exclusively in thai. I speak to my wife in english and she speaks to me in thai (in front of the children at least). The maternal grandparents speak to them in chinese (standard mandarin, but unfortunately some teochow dialect creeps in according to my wife). We intend for them to learn cantonese as well since we spend a lot of time in HKG and it's very easy for young mandarin speakers to pick up cantonese from around the age of 5.

We expect they will be a little slow with vocabulary and grammar in each individual language until at least around 5 or 6, which is the norm with multilingual children.

Personally I think it's objectionable not to allow young children to learn several languages from an early age if the circumstances allow, since it can be so useful in later life, while being very natural and easy for them at a young age.

[billd766]

Our son was 3 on August 1st and speaks and understands Thai very well as his Mum, family, friends and the kindergarten teachers all speak to him in Thai. When I am home I try to stick to English most of the time which he understands but cannot speak well yet as I have to share him with the family and he also understands the Muser dialect from the people who work for us.

At the moment I am working in Papua New Guinea so my wife talks to him in English when I am away.

[mark100]

I'm curious to see how kids can adapt to hearing many languages at home.

My wife and I always speak English at home, my wife will surely speak to our son in Thai and I will surely communicate with him in French as well.

Do any of you have kids who have grown up hearing Thai, English and a third language at home?

How do they deal with it?

My daughter speaks Thai as her first language, English with me and some Cambodian as my wife comes from close to the cambodian border.

My wife speaks Thai, Cambodian, Loas, English, ltalian and some Swedish and she always tells me how stupid she is because she comes from a poor village !!

Myself l struggle to speak good english, and my Thai is average at best.

[Zeid]

aya ya ye.

at least i see you guys are talking about the same alphabets,

for me my daughter arriving soon will be..

Arabic my father side

Circcasian my mother side

Thai/english/german at home.

so that make 3 alphabet system

[Tony Clifton]

Quite interesting so far.

[simon43]

I speak to our 14 month old son in English and Thai. My wife speaks to him in English, Thai and Lao, all other family members speak to him in Thai and Lao.

Certainly, when one of us asks him to touch his nose, ear, har etc, he always gets it right regardless of whether we speak English, Thai or Lao!

Simon

[Neeranam]

I speak to my daughter ONLY in English. My wife sometimes tries to speak English to them but I try hard to get her not to.

[bkkmick]

My two (4,6) are pretty much fluent in Thai and English. The nanny has taught them lots of Burmese words and the 6yo has started learning Chinese at school. They seem to take it in their stride and I'm jealous.

[dominique355]

Both my kids ( 4 and 6) from my Thai wife were born in German speaking Switzerland. Their mother always spoke Thai to them and I spoke in German. They both understood quite well German and much better Thai.

One year ago we moved to Bangkok and the kids started their school in an English school. From one day to another, we switched to everything in English, home, school, friends ... only the maid continued to use Thai.

Now, 1 year after the big switch, both are fluent in English, the teacher said they don't need English Intensive Course anymore. They speak English at home, except on Sunday where we all speak only Thai. The older one starts Chinese in school now, but they forgot almost all their German.

Thai is still mandatory in school, so I expect them to be fluent in 2 languages plus knowledge in Chinese. If they will ever get back to German... who knows

[Tony Clifton]

I sometimes speak clearly to our boy but he probably only hears mumbling as he's still in the womb.

[Dr. Burrito]

My two sons (8,6) are fluent in French, Thai and Cartoon Network. They do understand and speak a bit of English and will start soon Chinese.

But we only speak French at home, except when my wife swears at me ... in English

Surely qualifies as best and truest type answer of the century.

My only variation is English and Thai and the aforementioned network language.

[samran]

I don't speak French at all, unless you count 5 years of high school french. Neither does my wife. Would love for our little one to speak it though.

I wonder what would the result be of us sending our little one alternating between the french pre-school and a Thai pre-school, while we speak english at home...

[legag]

My parents, they come fom different country and I had grown up oversea neither one of them's motherland. Fortunately, I am speak three languages and sure for my kids the standard has been improved. They have picked the forth langauge of thier own choice for their own benefit. It's sorta needed now to be multi-language spoken. Like I said it's all benefit.