so here are some thoughts about language. would love to hear from those of you out there who are bilingual, trilingual, multilingual. Phil and i always end up having this discussion about language. Phil wants me to teach our kids Korean because he believes it will be useful for them in the future to know more than English. i agree, but i have a hard time speaking just Korean all day long. i break out in whichever language that fits the occasion and more often than not, English is the dominant language. Phil thinks i speak absolutely zero Korean to my girls, but that just isn't true. i have thought long and hard about languages and what they mean in my life, hoping i can remove them in my endeavor to teach Skye and Claire Korean, but i'm afraid it's not going too well.
perhaps i'm just complicating things too much, but there is so much memory and emotion attached to language. Phil, the ever practical mind, wants me to detach all of that and just simply speak the language. but how can you speak the language unless you embody the culture, the spirit behind the words? we can get all philosophical here and talk about the instances in history where nations subjected other nations by forcing them to speak a certain language. i hate some aspects of the Korean culture, especially concerning women - can i teach my girls to speak Korean and not pass on that aspect of the culture? i'm not sure.
and what's so crazy is that more often, i've been met with disdain when i've spoken Korean to Koreans. but when Phil speaks Korean to Koreans, he's praised for knowing so much Korean. guess which of us is the better speaker? nope, no bitterness here.
as you can see, i'm carrying a lot of emotional baggage when it comes to language... however, i did find it endearing the other day when we were at the Korean store, Skye was trying to speak Korean to me instead of English.
4 comments:
Why don't Koreans like you to speak Korean? Weird!
Hmmm...I think it would be amazing if your girls grew up bilingual. But I never thought about the perspective you're raising--how you're communicating a culture too.
We want to send our kids to a French immersion preschool. Anything like that in Madison for people who want to learn Korean?
there are korean schools here and they're usually on saturdays. i actually have a korean sitter come by once a week to play with Skye and that does help. i think it would be one thing if everyone around us was speaking korean and we were speaking english at home but since Skye so rarely NEEDS to speak korean, it is a bit harder to get it to stick. and we're not like korean foreign students who stick together.
Funny! I have always thought how wonderful it was that you and Phil could teach Skye and Claire Korean. Mike and I won't be able to share that part of his culture with our kids unless we have someone else around or seek other means to pass it on.
You and Phil are lucky to be able to do that for the girls. Even if they don't end up using it regularly, it is another opportunity to enrich their lives. I know Mike says now that he wishes he could speak Korean.
Remember your neighbors who spoke German with their son? I think it's hard when you're not immersed. I also think any small amount is useful. We spoke German with, and to, my German grandmother, while she lived with us. We had to because that's all she spoke. When she died, we stopped. BUT, when we got to high school and took German as a foreign language, it came back. So, I think even small amounts somehow get "imbedded". I agree though that it's hard when it feels somehow out of context. A friend recently said her Bulgarian sister-in-law feels like she's speaking to herself when she speaks Bulgarian with their son--especially as he usually answers back in English!
--Susie M.
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