I hated having to take the annual language proficiency test throughout high school. The test would ask me to write an essay about what I do after school. -_- When I started teaching, I learned that if you indicate that a language other than English is spoken at home, the school automatically tests you. Er.
Anyway, more and more people have been asking us when we're going to have a baby. Even our parents. My in laws on repeated occasions have insisted that once a baby is born, we must speak only Korean...you know, so the baby will learn to speak it. I'm all for having my kids speak Korean especially since they'll need it to communicate with James parents. But I don't think it requires a switch in the language spoken at home. Moreover, I don't want my kids sounding out words with a ridiculous amount of syllables or getting letters like v, r, p, and f mixed up.
For example:
golf - goal/poo
tv - tee bwee
Disneyland - dee zee nee len dou
LOL. "goal/poo"
ReplyDeletehahahahaahahahahaahahahaha
ReplyDeleteahh so true... pronunciation is definitely an issue, not to mention that i always said "close the lights" instead of "turn-off the lights" as a kid because "close" and "turn-off" are the same word in mandarin!
oh, how lovely it is to be bilingual.
yea yea, we got the "only speak korean at home" lecture too... like i always say, parents are free to suggest whatever they like but the decision is ultimately up to us! (we said not to the only korean at home. AND to the korean middle name. and if you remember, that did not go over too well with the shi-ah-buh-ji)
ReplyDeleteAm a I a brat when I know John's parents want Jonah to speak Korean because they can't speak English, and I don't care if they can't communicate with their grandson? Come on, they lived in America for over 29 years now, they should know English by now. Yes, it'll be cool if Jonah can speak Korean, but I'm not going to pressure him. I'm so mean...
ReplyDeleteuh oh for teron. o_o
ReplyDeleteThe best way for this to work is for one parent to speak only English with the child most of the time and the other parent only speak Korean most of the time. Then the child will be truly bilingual.
ReplyDelete