tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7076455720904307749.post4300537029516455586..comments2011-02-24T11:07:39.873-08:00Comments on Transcultural Thoughts: You speak English and what? – Views of my bilingual family in the US versus the UKChristianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13959868993334391113noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7076455720904307749.post-72884385132183253972010-06-25T17:14:18.451-07:002010-06-25T17:14:18.451-07:00Interesting!
We live in a very multicultural pla...Interesting! <br /><br />We live in a very multicultural place (I think close to half the population was not born here), so everyone else, almost anyway, is at least bilingual, too. I feel quite lucky to be in such circumstances, as I think it makes bilingualism much more normal for the kids and they hopefully don't feel like the odd one out when we speak German in public :) I like that they hear many of their friends speak other languages with their parents and hope it helps them understand and/or accept their own bilingualism.<br /><br />Oh, I've been coming here for a while, probably through Google Alerts initially :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7076455720904307749.post-7998540333403172572010-06-25T13:49:16.846-07:002010-06-25T13:49:16.846-07:00This is interesting to read, because it shows how ...This is interesting to read, because it shows how much depends on the region you live in! My family is from Arkansas and we live in Southern England about an hour from London, so we have pretty opposite experiences from you in Chicago and Northern England. <br /><br />In our part of England, there are tons of multilingual families and even a sizable community of our language (Czechs and Slovaks). There are a couple of groups for families meeting regularly or semi-regularly and everybody knows of each other. I bump into people in the coffee shop or on the playground and meet with a couple of friends so the little ones can play. Outside of just the CZ/SK community, in the neighborhood playgroups I go to, I've been to sessions where we were all foreigners of different types. <br /><br />I remember at one of the early ones I attended getting into a conversation with a Portuguese mom about her British mother-in-law who was afraid the child would never learn English blah blah blah...and noticing that a couple of other moms were edging closer and closer. At first I thought, they must be intrigued by our bizarre conversation topic - then I noticed they were all speaking other languages, too!<br /><br />By contrast, in Arkansas you very rarely hear languages other than occasionally Spanish. We attract big attention when we go out in public. There isn't a community of our language to be close or loose knit, though this would of course be different in different parts of the country (like Chicago).<br /><br />People in both countries are generally encouraging about oh yay, you're bilingual, but for us it is more 'mainstream' in the UK, because so many people around us are bilingual (or more - Kyrgyz or Romanian married to German), too. In neither country do people recognize what language we're speaking, but then we speak a less common language than German. I'm still trying to process that "I don't read Spanish" comment! Hard for me to believe - though I know it's true in USA especially.<br /><br />Overall, really interesting post, thanks!Melissahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03606614582290926158noreply@blogger.com