Multilingual family: The challenges and how we're addressing them (or not)
As a multilingual family following the one-person-one-language (OPOL) approach, we are happy to celebrate any success. But there are certainly some challenges in our set-up. Here they are, and what we're doing to try to address them (or not).
The challenges These are the challenges we're facing right now.
☑ Not having a family language This is especially tough for poor Papa, as he doesn't understand any Japanese, whereas I understand enough basic German to follow his conversations with the kids. Fortunately, Husband is dedicated to the cause and so he's bravely sticking to our OPOL set-up.
With Engineer, it's not a problem; he's picked up enough German that he happily converses with Papa and only turns to me when he's really stuck for a word:
Engineer to me in Japanese: "Mama, how do you say xyz in German?"Me to Husband in English: "How do you say xyz in German?"Husband to Engineer in German: "Oh you want to say xyz?"
But for w…
The challenges These are the challenges we're facing right now.
☑ Not having a family language This is especially tough for poor Papa, as he doesn't understand any Japanese, whereas I understand enough basic German to follow his conversations with the kids. Fortunately, Husband is dedicated to the cause and so he's bravely sticking to our OPOL set-up.
With Engineer, it's not a problem; he's picked up enough German that he happily converses with Papa and only turns to me when he's really stuck for a word:
Engineer to me in Japanese: "Mama, how do you say xyz in German?"Me to Husband in English: "How do you say xyz in German?"Husband to Engineer in German: "Oh you want to say xyz?"
But for w…
