Sometimes, I have weird language etiquette issues, and maybe some of you readers can relate. For example, sometimes, I end up making plans with students to go out outside of class. We speak English in class, but what are we supposed to speak at the bar? I think some of them are hoping I'll speak English so they can (a) get more practice or (b) look cool and worldly, but they're too embarrassed to initiate it. But then I know there are some that don't like the mental fatigue that comes with speaking a foreign language for long periods of time, and they prefer Portuguese. But I never know who's who!
Then there's the situation of when I meet people who tell me things like, "Oh, I lived in New Zealand for two years." So their English is probably really strong, but they're still talking to me in Portuguese. Should I try speaking to them in English? Will they be excited to show their stuff, or will they feel pressured to speak perfectly?
I usually just default to Portuguese because, well, we're in Brazil.
I've been in a couple of other weird language situations. When I went back to California in February, I met up with friends Rita and Thiago, a couple who were my students and who Alexandre and I ended up becoming really close to. Coincidentally, they're studying and working at a university really close to my grandma's house, so we went out one day. What did we speak? Portuguese! Of course, we had a lot of English words mixed in that they'd picked up (terms like "landlord" and "toll road"), but my logic was that it was 2 against 1 and that they were probably tired from having to speak English all the time.
But I think the biggest language mindf*%^ was when Lizbeth, her husband, and their friend came to visit us here at the beach town. Lizbeth is Mexican and lives in Texas, but she lived here in Brazil with her husband for a while. Her husband is Brazilian. So we had the three languages to choose from. The more alcohol we drank, the more of a mess it became, though we defaulted to Spanish to help out Lizbeth's Mexican friend.
 |
| I miss you, Lizbeth! |
I'm kind of babbling, but I want to know what you guys do! I know a lot of readers are in relationships with people with whom they do not share the same native language. Have you learned your partner's native language? Which one do you speak more? Do you mix them constantly, or are we the only weird ones?
And what about the kids? If we ever have any, I will groom them to be perfectly bilingual. Sometimes I want kids solely for that reason. But I want to know how readers with different language situations are raising their kids. What do you speak with them? What do they speak at school? Do your kids mix up the languages? (FYI: If they do, let them! Please don't listen to the Brazilian news reports that say not to teach your kids a second language!!! They'll grow out of the mixing and will be better for it!)
In other news, I'm running out of things to write about in this here blog. So ask me some questions, and maybe I'll answer them.
See? So many comment options for you! Get to typin'!
Posts
I speak Spanish (native language), Portuguese and English everyday here in Brazil. I use the majority rule, if most people know a language I use it. If I cannot express what I need in Portuguese (my weakest language) I use English if everyone around me understands it (usually at work).
ReplyDeleteI forgot to say that people around me usually prefer that I speak in Portuguese (so that I learn more) or in Spanish if they know it and wish to practice it. English is the default but only for practical reasons when we cannot communicate in Portuguese or in Spanish.
ReplyDeleteDanielle.
ReplyDeleteI usually go with the flow, you can start speaking English and you will be able to tell if they are strugling or getting stressed and then you just switch to Portuguese or vice versa, it always works fine. If you can tell, I think it doesn't hurt to give them a chance to voice their option and ask what language they prefer to talk.
According to our experience regarding children, most Brazilians with kids in the US have a real hard time to teach their kids Portuguese. So my advice would be, once you are in the reverse situation, perhaps, you should concentrate on teaching your kids good English and let them learn Portuguese at School or on TV.
What happens with most immigrants is that they are afraid their American born children will speak English with an accent like they do, so they neglect their mother language and come to regret it later.
The parents who are successful are the ones who teach their children their native language from the begining, so in the cases I see here, the Brazilians who teach their kids to speak Portuguese since they are babies and the Hispanics who teach their children Spanish since they are babies as well.
I have a Brazilian cousin working for a Bank and living in Singapore who is having a real hard time to teach her two kids to speak Portuguese. She married a guy from New Zealand, so he speaks English to them, they go to an International school in Singapore and are learning English and Chinese, so Portuguese is coming in hard as a 3rd language, but that is an extreme language learning situation anyway.
You will have to be persistant, children may get lazy and start anwering you in Porguese when you ask talk to them in English, but you have to ignore them until they speak English to you. It's not easy, but it can be done.
Ray
My husband and I only speak in English because that's all I know. I hope to learn Portuguese in the next few years before we have kids. The only way I've seen kids learn two languages is if they only speak the foreign language at home. They will learn the native language at school. I've had many students who came to school not knowing English and they picked it up in no time. Now I'm going to go study some Portuguese!
ReplyDeleteI agree with both Nelson and Ray. I will usually speak what the majority are speaking. However, if the person is someone I have always spoken Portuguese or Spanish to I would most likely continue speaking Portuguese/Spanish to them even if we were in the US. The topic at hand sometimes affects the language choice too. For example, if I'm talking about soccer Portuguese and Spanish will probably be the language of choice, but if basketball is the subject then English has a better chance of being used. As for teaching children, definitely use at home what they are not learning at school. Do it from the beginning, and if you move gradually switch. For example, if you have a baby in Brazil try and only use English at home (also make sure they have plenty of fun English activities, movies, and games that will keep them from thinking that English is boring). If you then move to the US make sure you all switch to Portuguese for the home language. This of coarse only works if both parents are proficient in each others languages. Having cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents who the kids enjoy being with and talking to is a great incentive to maintaining the importance of the language. If the situation arises that you are in a poly-lingual environment, living in a third country (Germany for example) try and divide certain activities as time for certain languages. Only speak Portuguese at lunch time, and at dinner time only speak English. You can use breakfast for a mishmash time or perhaps have the kids teach you German since they will obviously pick it up much faster than the parents will. Ray is also right that the kids will get lazy so ignore them until they answer in the right language. You are also correct about not waiting to start. I believe the earlier the better, and kids will eventually sort out what words go with what language usually by the time they are 4 or 5. (that's the way it was with my sister and I)
ReplyDeleteMy husband does not speak English, so it is all Portuguese. I speak Portuguese with everyone except for native English speakers and even then I have two American friends with whom I started speaking Portuguese from the beginning and now we only communicate in Portuguese. I find that whatever language I start the relationship in with the person, even if we can speak more than one language, is the one we speak. it becomes awkward and almost physically unconfortable to speak in a different language.
ReplyDeleteAs for bilingual kids, I have a 4 year old and he speaks both. I have spoken only English with him since day one and his dad (and everyone else) speak to him in Portuguese. He goes to public school all day. Last year he was mixing some Portuguese in with his English (but never English in the Portuguese), but after a month visiting family in the US this February, Portuguese took a back seat and he was mixing English in his Portuguese for about a week when we got back. Now he is not mixing at all. I did do like Ray said and did not respond if he talked to me in Portuguese. Also, I think that there is an advantage when the mom speaks the minority language, probably something about having more face time with the kid than the dad. Also, it definitely helps that the minority language is English, a "cool" language and one eveyone wants to speak. All my kid's teachers and parents of his classmates think it is cool he is bilingual and all encourage it.
My daughter is Brazilian but lived the majority of her life in the US (at least 6 of her 9 years). Now we live in Brazil and she is learning Portuguese quickly and fluently. I speak only English with her all the time and she is doing well, still learning new words and no accent or anything like that. I just noticed that she's "Portuguesifying" her English lately by saying that she "has" 9 years or she dreamt "with" someone. So I always correct her grammar since I'm her only live source. We also watch almost every tv show or movie in English. Oh, and I work with her on spelling since it's getting really bad without all the weekly spelling tests that she had in the US.
ReplyDeleteI have a Brazilian boyfriend with whom we speak Portuguese, actually it was a little problem with us speaking English together and Portuguese with him, although he's learning he doesn't understand a lot, and sometimes he thinks we're talking about him. It's pretty interesting, sometimes I go out with the teachers I work with and we mix languages a lot, but usually I try to stick with Portuguese for the reasons you said, for them not to have to think too much but also for me to practice. I'm surprised at how little Portuguese I speak some days what with teaching English all day, speaking with my daughter and watching tv in English.
Hi Dani,
ReplyDeleteI'm Brasilian and my girlfriend is Italian. When we first met, we were in Australia, so we used to speak in English. That was interesting because that was a neutral language and through this one we had had the chance to know eachother. Soon later, she learned portuguese very well. At first with my help when we were in Australia. Later, she moved to Brazil and got skillful about that.
We are together since 2006 and I think it's now time for me to learn Italian. Next Monday, it'll be my first class. I can understand it quite well, but I have to work out to speak. Piece of cake! But it's better to hurry. I'm a bit late actually...
Thanks for your post. It was great!
Gah! I just wrote a big comment and Blogger ate it.
ReplyDeleteHere goes again:
My husband is Scottish and his accent is extremely strong. It took me about six months of talking to him every day before I could understand a word he said. When we're at home we speak mainly English with some Portuguese mixed in. He speaks more Portuguese to me than I do to him because he's lived here longer and I'm still getting used to using it regularly. It's funny because I can understand his Portuguese more easily than I can understand his English even now.
When we're out with friends we speak Portuguese, even if our friends understand a little bit of English. The only time we revert to English in that case is if between the two of us we can't figure out how to say what we mean in Portuguese.
Weirdly the only Brazilian person I have a hard time speaking casual Portuguese with is my teacher. She is also fluent in English and I revert back to it all the time when we're hanging out with her as a friend. She has to remind me to speak Portuguese. Maybe because I have to think harder to speak correctly. She won't let me speak just well enough to be understood, she makes me get it right and it's mentally exhausting after a while and difficult when the three of us are just chatting.
Brian and I joke that if we were to have a child NOBODY but us would understand him or her until they were about four years old. Our at-home mix of two and a half languages is quite a mess.
Oddly, when we're in the US or the UK we speak more Portuguese together than we do here in Brazil. It's like our little secret language.
Peg
http://thetaoofme.com
(Blogger won't let me comment as myself today. Hmph.)
Although my husband and I have been living in the U.S. together for 4 years, we still speak Portuguese at home. Even when I speak to him in English, he still responds to me in Portuguese. I think it's because that's the language that we started out with (since he could barely say "hello my name is..." in English). Now he's learned English and speaks with people all day in that language, but when he comes home, or calls me, he ALWAYS does so in Portuguese. You'd think I were Brazilian or something :). I don't know if he does it because we started out our relationship in Portuguese, if it's because I speak better Portuguese than he does English, or because I'm an English teacher :). Either way, I don't mind. If I want to anyway I can speak English and he can respond in Portuguese. We also code switch, too, but not to the extreme. We usually do stick with just one language.
ReplyDeleteI will throw in Spanish words once in a while on accident, but only if I just spoke with someone in Spanish and my brain hasn't completely made the switch over to Portuguese.
When we get together with friends from Colombia or Venezuela we speak espaporinglish, a phrase one of our Colombians made up for our weird language.
We do not have children (yet), but it is my hope that they be bilingual if not trilingual.
Hi Danielle!
ReplyDeleteI am brazilian, married to a german man and english was always our unique language in common. Only recently we ve trying german, as I have some progress in lerning this language, so we speak more and more German, hugely mixed with english when my vocabulary and expression data bank does not help me to communicate.
Parallel, i have a friend married to an Austria, he speaks portuguese and her german is very little, so they go on germam mixed all the time with italian when some word is missing.
About kids, i ve known two situations: one romenian mother, married a romenian man who can say not a word in german, she speaks perfekt german and uses this language with the kids (4 and 5 years) so that they are integrated hier, vater speaks only romenisch with the kids, but they refuse to to respond it, they fully understand but answer the vater in german, who can not undertand, so they end up with no relationship at all and the wholle family is on teherapie now... The kid are in german kindergarten, have lots of rumenisch friends and have both rumenisch und german TV at home, they are aften exposed to the parents language as they speak to each other, watch tv.
Another case of lasy kid is a brasilian whose 4 years old töchter refuses to communicate in portuguese. The mother talk top both kid in portugues, deutch they lear with vater, kindergarden, tv and so on,
I started reading all the comments but they are too long. I agree with Ray and Gil that (at least in my experience) people who don't teach their children their native language regret it. I know that Leo wishes he taught his kids Spanish.
ReplyDeleteAs you know, I learned Spanish because of Leo (although I would hardly call myself fluent--although I have a Peruvian teacher now and all I'm doing is conversation so that's an improvement!).
It's interesting to me though that when Leo and I speak Spanish, he is ALWAYS the first to switch back to English. Granted he's lived much more of his life in English and says he is losing his Spanish so maybe that's why, but he rarely initiates it and switches back much easier.
If we were in Puerto Rico, I'm sure it would be different. And I'm too lazy to enforce the espanol solamente rule, lol
So far, I am that Native English speaker who everyone speaks to in English. I speak in Portuguese with Gustavo's mom, but that's it... he doesn't ever let me speak to him in Portuguese.
ReplyDeleteWe just got back from visiting with Gustavo's friends-- the guy is Brazilian, and his girlfriend is Lithuanian. They live in Germany. I gotta say, I was in awe. They go back and forth easily between German , Portuguese, and English, and they speak all three fluently. They speak Lithuanian while they're at her family's house.
But while I was at their house, they spoke only English to me! I better hit the books.
(I currently speak only a bit of German, but far more than Gustavo, who prefers to use English-- I think because he's worked so hard to learn it, and he doesn't have that NES monolingual shame that I have.)
By the way, why does it seem like every single Brazilian man on this planet convinces his significant other to move to Brazil with him? It's making me a little grumpy these days :(
Danielle, my wife of 30 years mainly speaks Portuguese with me although she is fluent in English, Spanish and French as I am. I respond to her mainly in English although when we have Portuguese speaking friends over I speak Portuguese. When we are with French friends we speak their language. However, we are lazy with each other and speak our own languages to each other. People in the stores give us odd looks sometimes because we are speaking two different languages to each other.
ReplyDelete