We live in a german speaking Country, but our native language is hungarian. So we speak hungarian at home with our daughter since birth. I also taught her to read and write hungarian. She is now 4 years old.
Since she was 1.5 years old, I took her to Swimming and dancing classes and made up with german speaking friends, so she hears the language. But now we noticed, that this wasn’t enough unfortunately. In August she will begin the kindergarden and she doesn’t understand good german (I myself speak perfectly, as I grew up here). She is also very shy, and now I think, I made a big mistake by not speaking to her more german. I don’t want her to be left out in kindergare, but that is exactly what will happen. Ok, she speaks and reads hungarian, but is this really so important for her future? I’m not sure anymore.
What is your opinion? Do some of you have children, who also couldn’t speak the country language, when entering kindergarden?
Wow, congratulations to you for teaching her Hungarian so well. Usually I hear the opposite stories, children easily picking up local language and struggling with parent’s tongue.
Personally speaking, I do not think it would be a big deal. Children naturally very adaptable and picking up languages easely once they exposed to them enough.
My daughter does not speak much Spanish (we live in Spanish speaking country at the moment). We do not do kindergarten, but she attends ballet academy, where all the lessons are in Spanish and French. When she was accepted, she did not speak any of those languages at all, but now a few months down the line I see very good progress, and it does not slow her down a bit in her communicating with other children, learning and socialising. Perhaps it is a bit more of a challenge, but challenge is not bad, at that age.
I would suggest you would give a good amount of interactions, where you are present as well, speak German at your play times to show her that it can be fun. I think in the long run, it will be only beneficial to her to speak a few languages! Let us know how she is doing :yes:
Plenty of parents on this forum have DELIBERATELY enrolled their children in international schools of which their children don’t speak a single word!
Since you say your child is shy, perhaps you can speak only to her in German until school starts. Encouraging here to speak back at least occasionally. Tree re are at least 4 children in my kindy class that are bilingual but rarely speak in our local language either at school or at home, even though they understand it just fine. I find over the course of the year they all start speaking. Eventually they ALL find something they really want to share with their teacher!
I know more than a few bilingual families that focus on home language then have their kids pick up country language at school.
According to a Greek friend who moved to German at age 6 not speaking a word of German it was much easier for her to learn German by going to a regular German school and being surrounded by people only speaking German.
She moved to the US 3 years later at 9 not knowing any English and they had her enrolled in English as a second language classes in the local school instead of learning in a regular classroom like she did in German. It took her much longer to acquire English.
We speak Russian as a second language at home - it is not my native language, neither is it the local language and I find it hard to speak Russian consistently enough so we are at the stage where he understands lots of the simple everyday commands (get this, go there etc) and has a basic vocabulary but doesn’t generally speak Russian, even when socializing with my friends who don’t speak English.
My son just started a Russian school on Saturday mornings. He is also quite shy, particularly with adults he doesn’t know. The first week he didn’t speak in class. The second week, he only repeated a couple of phrases. The third week he volunteered some vocabulary words and this week he recited a short poem. Each week his confidence has grown and his enthusiasm for reading/speaking Russian at home has also improved greatly.
If your little girl is going to a full-time school I can only imagine the progress will be much better than we have with 3 hours once a week. Practice role playing with her the phrases she will need most in the classroom so that it won’t be so overwhelming for her:
“Hello, my name is… what is your name?”
“Can you help me with this, please?”
“Would you like to play with me?”
“I don’t understand.”
“I need the toilet” etc.
She will pick it up from the other kids. You can continue speaking Hungarian to her to make sure she keeps it, why don’t you just find ways for her to interact more with kids via playgroups/ classes etc in preparation for school? I am sure she’ll pick it up, my nephew moved to France when he was 5 and didn’t speak much for the first year, and then when he was 7 he was top of his class in France, even now at 9 he’s still the top student even though he’s one of the few who aren’t native. It just takes a couple of years. It’s good you made sure she learns Hungarian!
As my first child is “very shy” too, and we go to a partly bilingual kindergarten, I have some observations.
For some children, language immersion is very good. These are children who are not “shy” at all; these are children who like to go to unknown people and talk to them. Who like to be in a center of noisy playing. For some other children, every kindergarten is a hard experience, independently on language. I remember one Russian girl in Latvian kindergarten. She started to go here in autumn. In spring she still was not speaking Latvian because she preferred to play alone or with few friends. So she spent a year just sitting in a corner and playing alone. Now she is already 2 years in this kindergarten and she is talking Latvian. But I think that it is not OK at all, to live one year without interaction, in silence and without development. Kindergarten teacher did not care because she thinks that “all children are like sponges” and language learning goes on itself and always in the same way for every child. But the truth is that language learning goes faster if there is interaction.
I hope that if your child will be the only one who does not understand than teacher will pay special attention to her. You should pay attention to the environment and try to find the best kindergarten teacher if it is possible. And you have 4 months to prepare. There should many resources to learn German - Little Pim movies, youtube ettc.
Thank you so much for your replies! We hadn’t had internet until today, so I couldn’t answer earlier.
Now I will speak every day for 2-3 hours of german with her. If I just speak german the whole day and no hungarian anymore for the next 3 months, I can’t do any of the EL we make at home. Like practising reading, maths, etc. But I hope 2-3 hours will be enough for her to understand much more than now and don’t feel so left out. What do you think? Kindergarden starts in August, in 3 months.
I already made this once, when she was 2 years old. We spoke every day for at least 1 hour german, but unfortunately I stopped, when she began the pre-kindergarden (where she was only once a week, so that wasn’t enough). Now I regret very much to have stopped…
@Frukc: I’ve never heard of HSC, would you recomend the book? For our DD it is sometimes very hard to open up. For instance she knows my brother since birth, but didn’t have much contact with him, but saw him 5-6 times a year. Until this day (and she is 4 years old) she is very shy, when she meets him and doesn’t talk to him).
Remember your daughter already knows how to read and write a language–both of which are transferable skills. Your daughter will be a good deal more likely to pick up reading in German much faster than kids who are learning how to read the first time. Writing German will only strengthen her hands and build her dexterity–which are much further along than kids who can’t write. She can calculate and/or understand several math concepts even now that the other kids haven’t been exposed to.
I would begin working with her now in German, only so that she can be more confident when she begins school since she is shy. I don’t think you made a mistake at all.
