Foreign Husbands Speaking Thai To Their Kids

[billd766]

have seen farang fathers in their mid-late fifties (at child's birth) have seen many who might be in their 60's. who is blizzard?

I am 64 next month and my son will be 4 in August.

I missed his birth by about 3 hours as I was in Bangkok clearing up ready for moving to Klong Lan and my wife was early for about the first time in her life having our son. She did, however forget to tell me which hospital she was in so I had a friend ask every hospital in Nakhon Sawan if she was there. When I got to NS with a Thai friend we than had to find the hospital.

I was only a little late and he was worth it.

I was then 60 and my wife 39 (or 29 by her counting)

[YoungFarang13]

Would any of us want your kids learning English from our wives?

"daddy why you no give me money for chocolate?"

Well mine don't ask me like that.

doesn't

[Thai at Heart]

Would any of us want your kids learning English from our wives?

"daddy why you no give me money for chocolate?"

Well mine don't ask me like that.

doesn't

They doesn't?

[YoungFarang13]

have seen farang fathers in their mid-late fifties (at child's birth) have seen many who might be in their 60's. who is blizzard?

I am 64 next month and my son will be 4 in August.

I missed his birth by about 3 hours as I was in Bangkok clearing up ready for moving to Klong Lan and my wife was early for about the first time in her life having our son. She did, however forget to tell me which hospital she was in so I had a friend ask every hospital in Nakhon Sawan if she was there. When I got to NS with a Thai friend we than had to find the hospital.

I was only a little late and he was worth it.

I was then 60 and my wife 39 (or 29 by her counting)

mazaltof

[JetsetBkk]

... We were also taught to use our memory and to rely on ourselves first.

We were also allowed to play unsupervised, have accidents and blame nobody but ourselves.

I could go on for a long time about the "good old days" but only us oldies would understand.

Yes, I hear you and understand.

By the way, that picture of your kid and his 'older friend' is brilliant!

[CaptainNemo]

this thread is just about different minds and people. i bet if you took a survey of salaries, those saying "Its best to speak your native language as you are not fluent and its not necessary" make more money and have higher IQ's while the "just leave me alone and let me do what I want" crowd probably make less money and don't like to think too much.

...Don't quite follow.

How does saying it's best to speak your mothertongue got anything to do with making more money and having a higher IQ?

(IQ tests are meaningless twaddle anyway... I did quite a few when I was young, and got quite good at them... but it doesn't mean much beyond being good at a particular kind of test after being groomed for it.)

Are you actually trying to suggest that attempting to be bilingual is a sign of less intelligence than strictly trying to remain a monoglot?!

I think the overwhelming academic consensus is "the more the merrier"... learning more languages helps intelligence.

The number of languages people speak has no consistent connection with wealth though... it's down to how multi-lingual an environment you grow up in.

I have to say, at the uni I'm at, most of the parents at the campus nursery are from all over the world, and there are a few mixed marriages of different permutations... I think there was a competitive element to the home time ritual of babbling in different languages... a guy I knew from childhood talking rather self-consciously in Portuguese to his son in Britain, even when his Brazilian missus wasn't there made me cringe. Although I felt more inclined to nag my wife to talk Thai to him (she still refuses to!), I couldn't bring myself to do it to him in public, you just feel like a tit... I wouldn't even speak Gaelic in England, 'cos people think your foreign! (Though I have got used to saying little things like "Kaam tanon" - cross the road; "Het nyang?" - what are you up to; and "nang ti gao-i, hup baak, lae gin kao!" - sit on the chair, shut your mouth, and eat your tea!).

What I observe from mixed marriages, is that one culture inevitably has to prevail; and it's invariably the culture and language of the country (or rather, environment) that your immersed in. It's not so weird for a farang parent to talk Thai to their half-Thai children in rural Thailand, where most people don't speak English... but it is a bit pretentious in parochial England... a bit like when people say a French or Indian word in the middle of an English sentence, and deliberately make a special attention-seeking effort to pronounce it "properly"; i.e. in a blatently and incongruously non-English way - they just deserve a group kicking!

Personally, I'd rather my kinds grew up bilingual in English and Gaelic; but seeing as though their mum's Thai, and their grandparents and aunties can't speak English, it would be beneficial in lots of ways to become fluent (and literate)... these are just reasons of ethnic identity.

On a practical level, there are a few EU and Far Eastern languages that would probably be more desireable and useful than Thai; and frankly, I prefer the Lao alphabet to the Thai one: similar words; less letters. What'll probably happen is that he'll get no better at Thai than I am, but maybe acquire enough Gaelic to pass a higher.

Once you've broken the back of one language, others do come easier (especially if you try and learn a few related ones... as middle class Indians and Europeans tend to).

I suppose, American-Thai children are probably better off growing up speaking, reading, and writing Thai, than that abomination they call American-English!

Edited April 25, 2008 by CaptainNemo

[jdinasia]

Would any of us want your kids learning English from our wives?

"daddy why you no give me money for chocolate?"

Well mine don't ask me like that.

doesn't

If you are going to attempt being a pedant, please learn the language. 'Don't' is correct in the above sentence assuming more than one child

Careful, your arrogance in questioning the age of a father, or assuming the intelligence of a person will bit you in the ass before you know it

[Saendaeng]

I speak three languages with my 3 children . Thai,danish and english , mostly when i am home i Th i speak thai with them . And when i travel arround the world for my work , i talk to the kids every day over the internet , and we are alway changing i the language we speak.

My son is 8 years now , but are already close to speak danish fluently.

[YoungFarang13]

Would any of us want your kids learning English from our wives?

"daddy why you no give me money for chocolate?"

Well mine don't ask me like that.

doesn't

If you are going to attempt being a pedant, please learn the language. 'Don't' is correct in the above sentence assuming more than one child

Careful, your arrogance in questioning the age of a father, or assuming the intelligence of a person will bit you in the ass before you know it

nope. he said "why would you want your children to learn English from your wife?", then i gave an example of how his children would talk if they learned english from his wife (just as a joke, nothing serious), then he said "they don't ask me like that", implying he has multiple wives. So while it seems to be a simple miscommunication, I am going to come out on the side that I am still right.

edit: please no pm's for english job supervisor/language school principal offers i am set

Edited April 25, 2008 by YoungFarang13

[YoungFarang13]

I speak three languages with my 3 children . Thai,danish and english , mostly when i am home i Th i speak thai with them . And when i travel arround the world for my work , i talk to the kids every day over the internet , and we are alway changing i the language we speak.

My son is 8 years now , but are already close to speak danish fluently.

that'll come in handy.

[YoungFarang13]

nemo,

i was just saying that while speaking only your native language around your children might not make a huge difference, all research suggests it will make some difference. the types who will only speak their native language are likely to be perfectionists and perfectionists tend to have higher iq's. they will probably also start teaching their little lueks to read while other parents say "thats what we send them to preschool for".

[mahtin]

I'm not saying it's either good nor bad, but just trying to understand why the native tongue isn't used.

After eight years of only speaking English with my son (I am a Brit) he still speaks English like his Thai mother.

But he's been going to school in Germany, so if you count Lao/Isaan, then English is his fourth.

[boonbohmee]

Yah, I speak English to my kids. They're young and it's the right time for the exposure.

But, . . . It's frustrating.

I spend my days at school, speaking English with the students. I spend my evenings speaking English to my children.

I live in Thailand. I've been here for 8 years and learnt most of my Thai the first. Before teaching and children. My Thai is very good but I feel I should be like a native speaker by now.

But, . . . I live in Thailand and speak English all day.

[Thai at Heart]

I'm not saying it's either good nor bad, but just trying to understand why the native tongue isn't used.

After eight years of only speaking English with my son (I am a Brit) he still speaks English like his Thai mother.

But he's been going to school in Germany, so if you count Lao/Isaan, then English is his fourth.

It is highly unlikely that any kid will be equally proficient in all the languages to which they are exposed. One will always have a stronger root than another. Does you wife speak English with the kids also?

[Thai at Heart]

Would any of us want your kids learning English from our wives?

"daddy why you no give me money for chocolate?"

Well mine don't ask me like that.

doesn't

If you are going to attempt being a pedant, please learn the language. 'Don't' is correct in the above sentence assuming more than one child

Careful, your arrogance in questioning the age of a father, or assuming the intelligence of a person will bit you in the ass before you know it

nope. he said "why would you want your children to learn English from your wife?", then i gave an example of how his children would talk if they learned english from his wife (just as a joke, nothing serious), then he said "they don't ask me like that", implying he has multiple wives. So while it seems to be a simple miscommunication, I am going to come out on the side that I am still right.

edit: please no pm's for english job supervisor/language school principal offers i am set

multiple CHILDREN smartass.

[jdinasia]

He knew what you meant, he was just trolling.

[Thai at Heart]

He knew what you meant, he was just trolling.

"implying he has multiple wives."

Self conceit as they say may lead to one's self destruction.

[wolfmanjack]

No one should be ashamed to be bilingual. If you can speak Thai or English, then speak them. Your child is not going to reject the Thai language just because you speak it.

The danger is not that the child will reject the thai language but that your child may refuse to speak english once they know you can communicate in thai. This is the case with the guy i know that has lived in thailand for 30 years and his children can not speak english. He used thai with his wife and then with his child until he decided it was time for his child to learn english. By then his child refused to learn english using the same reasoning that many on this forum use. The child said that she lives in thailand and every one she wants to communicate with understands thai.

I know several falang here that their children can not speak english because they communicate in thai with their children. One of these guys has sent his 8 year old kid to an english only school so he will learn english.

[gorshar]

I speak only English to our son and my wife speaks only Thai to him. He's been able to separate the two languages from almost the moment he began verbal communication. And when he does ask one of us a question in the wrong language (usually him talking Thai to me), he has to re-ask it in English if he expects to get what he wants. Due to obvious exposure issues, his Thai is the stronger language. Also, as we are in Cambodia a lot, he's picked up a bit of Khmer as well, and again, seems to know when it's time to use that language. He's three next month.

While it's not my place to tell others how to raise their kids, I will say that if someone asked me how to raise a kid bilingual I would suggest that each parent use exclusively their native tongues with the kids.

[skooldaze]

Very interesting as I was thinking about this recently.

Once I met an American guy who had been living in Thailand for 20+ years and had kids who were about 14~15 years old. The kids could not speak any English. This surprised me as I always thought (incorrectly) that western dads would want to give their kids something of a leg up on others. Additionally, it would help to communicate with family, if any, back in the states.

It just surprises me as I feel that the western pop not having his kids speak his native language is sad.

TheWalkingMan

It's called absentee fathers, who don't spend time with their children. If they took the time they kids would speak English. This is not a local phenomenon. Fathers are spending less and less time with their children all over the world. A recent survey showed that fathers in Europe spent an average of SIX minutes a day with their kids.

My kid here speaks Thai, English and Swedish. My wife speaks Thai to him, we both speak English together and I speak Swedish to her.

It all comes down to priorities.

[fongvin]

I am English but converse in Thai to my children, they all study Chinese as a second language at school which is fast replacing English in this region.

Even in schools in London, United Kingdom you can learn Chinese (Manadarin) as a second language.

[appleman]

Many people think that learning two languages at the same time might be confusing to a child, so they stick with specking only one language to them. This is not true. When my children were born I did some research into bilingualism. It turns out children can learn at least 4 languages simultaneously without any serious differences in the speed in which they will become fully fluent in each. So, even though I am completely fluent in Thai (and I am hoping that those expats who elect to speak to their young children in Thai are not speaking broken Thai), I elected to speak only English and my wife speak only Thai to our children. If one of the boys spoke to me in Thai, I would listen carefully and then say something like, "That's good. Now can you tell me the same then in English?" It became a game and when they got it right they got high praise and if they had problems then I helped them get it right. They both have graduated from American universities and one is starting on his second masters. Without an early mastery of English this might have been a little harder to accomplish.

[rixalex]

While it's not my place to tell others how to raise their kids, I will say that if someone asked me how to raise a kid bilingual I would suggest that each parent use exclusively their native tongues with the kids.

At the end of the day, this to me seems such good (and obvious) advice. Many parents commenting on this thread seem intent on defending their right to do things their way, and whilst obviously that's entirely their perogative, it does seem to fly in the face of reasonable logic. You speak your language, and your wife speaks her language. Simple. Next?

[BlueSmurf]

Over the last couple of days here in Phuket, I've seen a a few foreign husbands speaking Thai to their kids.  

I really don't see any reason for this as they should be speaking to them in their mother

 tongue so the kids 

can be bilingual.  Anyone have any idea why it is preferable to speak Thai to yo

ur kids when you are not Thai? 

I would think that most parents would want their kids to be bilingual and speak 

each native language like a 

native. I would certainly not like my kids speaking Thai like myself, nor would 

I want them speaking English 

like my wife. I'm not saying it's either good nor bad, but just trying to understand why the native tongue isn't used.

P.S. Not sure why the formatting turned out like it did, but I guess the forum software doesn't like my browser.

100% CORRECT IF YOU HAVE CHILD WITH A THAI THEN SPEAK ENGLISH WITH THEM AS MUCH AS YOU CAN. Also teach them the alpabet,how to write english and of couse what goes on in the world other than what happens in thailand. Give them the option to live in a farang country if they want too when they are grown up and many of us older parents are long gone. You can do this by preparing them to understand the culture of your home country, speak and write clearly in your native tongue. ( don't forget to get them that passport as well)

I myself may even encourage my son to go to England and study when older as i do not see much future work wise here in the north of Thailand. He will be able to stay with his older brother. So maybe what i am saying it may not be just enough to teach your child to speak to you in your native tounge but they need a good education as well. We all came here for different reasons and i love it here and would not like to live in Blighty again but maybe best to give your offspring the choice! After all not much chance if they cannot speak the lingo to go and work in the land of their father to earn some big bucks and come back to the los....Sorry if this went on a bit...Oh yeah by the way I was in Phuket a couple of weeks ago and yes i do sometimes speak in Thai to my son but normally when i am amongst thais because I think its polite to.

[astral]

hi, for me, i would speak thai with my kid because: have u ever seen a young kid at the age of around 4 with a thai mother and foreign father? what u may find is that the kid obviously has difficulty working out what is what and he still cant even speak at the age of 4. if my kid couldn't speak at this age i wouldn't feel so good. also perhaps the father feels the kid should learn the national language first, after all this is thailand and thais' speak thai.

Where do you get the idea that a 4 year old cannot speak yet.

My friend's little daughter of 4, can already speak 3 languages.

Mum speaks to her in Arabic, her father speaks English, with a little Arabic

and her cousins speak French.

Dayna switches between the 3 depending on requirements.

[capdagde]

When speaking to the child or at home use your native tongue. When in public you can use Thai.

Why not my tenpenneth as well....

I tend to agree with the above in principle. My wife and I (both English) moved to France 19 years ago and our children (19 and 17) have never lived in England. Their bilingualism is "geographical" - English at home except when there are non-English speaking guests. We sometimes speak French together outside home but it is quite rare. In the company of non-English speaking people we tend to speak French. Otherwise it's French all the time - the kids have started correcting us which is a good sign....

Interestingly - when our kids went to state school here, the teachers wanted us parents to speak French at home - we refused.

Children from a mixed-mother-tongue marriage have different "rules" to the game but "daddy English - mummy Thai" at home is recognised as a good rule of thumb. Social pressures outside should leave room for individual judgement on which language to use at any given time.

A warning!

I had a Saudi work buddy in Saudi Arabia in the 80's whose Dad was a diplomat in the USA for 20 years. My buddy's mistake was that he wasn't born there - so when dad was recalled with him aged 25 he had to come back to Saudi Arabia, a country where he didn't speak the language as his parents hadn't bothered to speak Arabic at home. He was in a real mess......

Andy Cap

Edited April 27, 2008 by capdagde

[bloody tiger]

maybe i was/am selfish in so much that i always wanted to strive to learn more thai....i often had to force my self to even speak a few words of english to my kids even though i had them from day one...as they got older they started asking me more and more stuff in english....suddenly one day i realised that my oldest was fluent in both languages and the others weren't too far behind........and for me.....well i'm still trying to learn thai even after 25 years........don't worry about the kids, they will be okay...just be a good parent and a great friend

[mahtin]

I'm not saying it's either good nor bad, but just trying to understand why the native tongue isn't used.

After eight years of only speaking English with my son (I am a Brit) he still speaks English like his Thai mother.

But he's been going to school in Germany, so if you count Lao/Isaan, then English is his fourth.

It is highly unlikely that any kid will be equally proficient in all the languages to which they are exposed. One will always have a stronger root than another. Does you wife speak English with the kids also?

Yes she does; he patterns his way of speaking on hers, which of course is simpler and easier for him, albeit not correct.

[kowneeoh]

Over the last couple of days here in Phuket, I've seen a a few foreign husbands speaking Thai to their kids.

I really don't see any reason for this as they should be speaking to them in their mother

tongue so the kids

can be bilingual. Anyone have any idea why it is preferable to speak Thai to yo

ur kids when you are not Thai?

I would think that most parents would want their kids to be bilingual and speak

each native language like a

native. I would certainly not like my kids speaking Thai like myself, nor would

I want them speaking English

like my wife. I'm not saying it's either good nor bad, but just trying to understand why the native tongue isn't used.

P.S. Not sure why the formatting turned out like it did, but I guess the forum software doesn't like my browser.

Lets put the situation in another country and look at it.

1. We are in Australia, a Greek immigrant is speaking English to his Australian born kid .. do you think thats OK .. my guess is that you do.

Whats this prove? ,,, that you are a facist pig. "When in Rome " etc etc. Whats wrong with speaking the national language of the country of you choose to live in? .. nothing .. in fact it should be encouraged. All you fat,sweaty,balding Jomtien Cowboys please take note.

[steelepulse]

 

Lets put the situation in another country and look at it.

1. We are in Australia, a Greek immigrant is speaking English to his Australian born kid .. do you think thats OK .. my guess is that you do.

Whats this prove? ,,, that you are a facist pig. "When in Rome " etc etc. Whats wrong with speaking the national language of the country of you choose to live in? .. nothing .. in fact it should be encouraged. All you fat,sweaty,balding Jomtien Cowboys please take note.

Is Thai both considered to be the international language of communication.........NOT, so this is why it is important for the child to have a good grasp of the father's language spoken correctly, so when the child does go somewhere outside of Thailand, they will be able to communicate.  

Unlike you, most of us have aspirations for our kids to go to school outside of Thailand and having a mother tongue grasp of the language will surely help. Now about your Greek speaker in Australia, it makes sense that both Greek and English are spoken, Greek for the family, and English for communication outside of the family.

>>Whats this prove? ,,, that you are a facist pig.

Nice ingnorant and non-educated flame there pal.  BTW it's Fascist not Facist.......   do you even know what the word means?  Didn't think so......................

Fascist- a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition