Posted on Sep 20, 2016
CPT Company Commander
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My wife is a native Korean speaker who speaks English very well. I'm a native English speaker who speaks Korean fairly well. Our daughter is pushing 2mo old and so far we have been speaking to her with both languages. She has an American name and a Korean name, so when we use one name vs the other we speak in that language. Any tips that have been successful for other parents during this phase?
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MAJ(P) Maintenance Supervisor
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I think you are doing the right thing. The first 5-8 yrs of a childs life are the easiest for them to absorb knowledge especially languages. They are not constrained by accents and certain habbits of speaking, so it is easier for their tongues to adapt to how new languages are spoken. Keeping both languages active in the house is important, but it becomes harder when one language becomes more dominant because of where you live or the people that suround your child. In my case, after I remairried, I know have 5 kids between 13 and 9 in my house. 3 are native Spanish and 2 are Native English, while my wife and myself are both fluent bilingual as natives for Puerto Rico. We now live in the mid west and because English is what my kids are imersed in between schools, friends and where we live; in our house we try to use as much Spanish as possible to keep them proficient. I believe my kids have balanced each other out and now speak both languages in our house regularly depending on what they are doing. I think you are on the right track LT, keep it up, and your daughter will thank you when she is older.
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SCPO Combat Systems Electronics Leading Petty Officer
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Just keep doing what you are doing. It's amazing how their brains can sort things out. My daughter is almost 4 now and speaks English and Japanese.

I would say you and your wife use only your native language when you speak to her. One reason to keep this divide is she may start to favor one language over the other. For example living in the U.S. she may start to favor English and will start talking to your wife in English. She just needs to know to talk to Mom in only Korean. Also by sticking to your native languages it will avoid her picking up any bad pronunciations/accents/etc.

Don't worry if she falls behind in a particular language. Last year I was gone for 9 months and my daughter's English ability was lagging behind her Japanese. After just a few months of me being home, her English had caught back up.

Having kids TV shows in both languages will help too. I was amazed how much english my daughter had picked up just from cartoons after I returned from a long underway.

Before you know it she'll be switching languages without any difficulty, it's truly an amazing thing to see!
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CPT Company Commander
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We have starting stock piling kids movies in both languages so that she gets exposure to both. I feel that it will be harder to keep up with Korean once school starts unless Uncle Sam will cut me some orders to Korea haha
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SCPO Combat Systems Electronics Leading Petty Officer
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We just moved to Hawaii from Japan back in April. With all of her activities being English based now, I think that's why my daughter started speaking English with my wife. We nipped that in the bud real quick and she doesn't do it anymore. It also helps that my wife has Japanese friends who speak Japanese with my daughter when they're together.
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CSM Darieus ZaGara
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My wife (German) and I spoke our native languages to our chuldren, it did not confuse them and they are bilingual today. Each of them also attended schools from each country earning high grades always. Don't worry they are smarter than you or I. Good luck!
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