I’m from Japan, and my wife is from Mexico. We have two teenage daughters now. Both girls understand Spanish, Japanese, and English. We had a very strict rule that they had to speak to me in Japanese and to my wife in Spanish when they were young. We didn’t teach them English at all. Once they started going to a local school, they became more and more confortable speaking in English. However, they still talked to me in Japanese since I’m a “頑固親父” and still won’t respond to them if they speak to me in English. I think I made a good decision. Now they are able to FaceTime with their uncles and aunts in Japan.😊
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BOBORA Thanks for sharing your experience. I had to respond because I am in the U.S. and we, too, are raising our kids English, Spanish and Japanese trilingual (I practically grew up in Japan-my father was an expat; husband’s family is from Spain). I see shocking variability in how Japanese women handle these linguistic issues. What I’ve noticed with a lot of Japanese women that move from Japan (as adults) and marry non-Japanese guys is that they themselves struggle to establish their own “American identity.” Learning English seems to get placed toward the top of their list of priorities, and they often talk about learning English with their kids-e.g., through nursery rhymes, etc., especially to 発音矯正. These moms often express skepticism about “teaching Japanese” and somehow formalize it-as though one needs to go to school to learn conversational Japanese, which is curious because parents that raise their kids bilingual successfully seem to approach it from a more behavioral standpoint (like you seem to) than academic.
I feel they respect and love their mother very much. It is never too late to do anything! I think we can do our best when we really want to do it. That time is the best for you. I always enjoy watching your video, thank you for making me happy. I’m looking forward to the next one as well!
My father's a japanese american and my mom's fully japanese. My mom was very serious about education; she would make me an original textbook that reviews the kanji's and words that I made a mistake on the previous day. I would sit in front of her and read the kanji while hiding the hiragana next to it, and tell her the meaning of the word and create a sentence using that word. She would teach me one new kanji everyday with words and sentences using that kanji. We would get into fights, sometimes very brutal..... but I just really have to appreciate her for all the effort she has done for me.
I am a Chinese woman married a Japanese guy and living in Japan. I don't teach my children Chinese because I know from my own experience If you really need to ,you will managed to learn it. You will study very hard even if nobody tell you to do that. and you can speak that language then.