Czechmatediary

It is the time again when I do the bi-annual update on my daughter’s bilingual skills. Hahna just recently turned 2 and she is so much fun (well, OK the potty training is not that much fun, I admit…)! If you recall I called the last post  “The bitter-sweet results so far” because at 18 months-of-age  she was speaking mostly English. I am ecstatic to say that has changed. She is totally bilingual now! It started at about 20 months-of-age when she began repeating almost everything I said, including tremendously loooong words like ‘vodopad‘ (waterfall), ‘skluzavka‘ (slide) or ‘ananas‘ (pineapple). She did the same thing in English with her English-speaking daddy and babi (grandma). She  now speaks to me solely in Czech and switches to English with no problem when when she talks to daddy. And when we are all together, she talks also mostly in English, with a few Czech words here and there.

Where it gets a bit tricky and (unfortunately) confusing for Hanicka is when we meet with my American girlfriends and their kids. (more…)

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After a very heated discussion in the comment section of the post on “ teaching my daughter Czech”, I decided to ask an expert about this particular topic and emailed Jamie. Jamie has a MA in Linguistics from Wayne State University.  He has taught linguistics there and at the University of Michigan - Dearborn.  He has  taught ESL to adults for 17 years, and he has also taught German and a little ESL to children.Here is his very educated answer which will put many of us to rest:

CZ: Jak vestina z vas videla, posledni clanek o uceni me dcerky cestiny vypoutal vasnivou diskusi. Nedalo mi to a zanedlouho pote jsem zkontaktovala experta na toto tema - Jamese. Jamie obdrzel  MA v Linguistice od Wayne State University, kde ji take posleze ucil. Tento predmet vyucoval take na Michigeneske universite v Dearbornu. ESL (English as a second language) pro dospele uci jiz 17 let, ma ale take zkusenost s ucenim nemciny a  ESL pro male deti. Toto je jeho odpoved, a myslim si, ze mnohe z vas nejen ze prekvapi, ale take potesi:
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I thought I would give you an update on how is my bilingual experiment with my daughter going (for part I click here). Since it is an experiment with no way of knowing how is it going to end, I thought I would put it into a scientific format this time - to make it more interesting :o) :

CZ: Tak jsem si rikala, ze je na case, abych vas aktualizovala na nynejsi maminkovskou situaci a to zejmena co se tyce uceni me dcerky cestiny (pro cast 1. kliknete zde). Jelikoz je to vsechno jeden velky experiment (tedy nemam vubec poneti, jak toto moje snazeni vubec zkonci), napsala jsem to tentokrat v podobe “opravdoveho”  vedeckeho dokumentu :0):

Introduction:
Hahna is 17-month old toddler and she stays home with her mommy (me). Once a week grandma comes over to play with her for couple of hours while mommy and daddy go get a big cup of Starbucks and stare into the white wall to decompress. Mommy talks to her in Czech pretty much all day until daddy comes home and then everyone talks English. Mommy also switches to English when her American friends are around. (more…)

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