Advice Please on learning/teaching Hindi

[Brigitta]

My fiance and I are expecting our first baby in December and we want to raise our child to speak both Hindi and English - after all he or she will be both Indian and Irish and needs to be aware of both sides of his family culture.



But I've got no experience of raising a bilingual child and although I'm trying hard to learn Hindi I'm finding the aches and pains, nausea and exhaustion of pregnancy really difficult so I've all but given up hope of being fluent in Hindi by the time of the birth.



Maybe I could find some books and dvd's so that we could learn Hindi together while daddy is at work and practice on him in the evenings? I don't know.



I don't even have a clue at what point we could introduce Telugu to him/her! My Telugu is even worse than my Hindi but for family reasons it really is essential for the child to speak Telugu and Hindi and English.



Maybe Daddy could speak in Hindi to him/her and mummy could speak in English and we could learn Telugu together but I don't want to confuse the child and plus it would break my heart if daddy and baby could speak a 'secret' language together that mummy didn't understand and was left out of!



I'd be really really grateful for any advice from people who know about this type of situation or just give me ideas on how to make this easier for us



thanks!

[Mayavi Morpheus]

Its good to hear that you want to teach your kid telugu. Desha bashalandu Telugu lessa!

My advice: When your kid is a year and half old (starts to speak) take him to India for a month or two... he will learn telugu on his own!

[VJ]

Relax! Don't stop learning Hindi or Telugu. Coz ur child will not be able to speak until he is 1.5 or 2 years old. By then u can learn atleast the basics. And when ur basics are right u can easily go forward with the rest.



Try to watch more and more Telugu and Hindi movies so that u can see how and when and what type of words are used during the conversation. Try to grab them. Of course u can enjoy the movies as well.



Mingle your child with other kids, I mean let him play with the kids who can speak Hindi and Telugu. As the days go on I'm sure he will be much more fluent than u.



Improve your relationships with the Hindi and Telugu community so when u get together u tend to learn new things and words u meet them everytime. And I'm sure they will help you out as well if u take the initiative.



Try to come to India (If u r abroad now) and send ur child to an Indian Primary School so he can learn some stuff at the school.



If u r unable to come to India send ur child to India to live with their grand parents for a few months. May be he gets used to the language and the people around.



Take care



@VJ

[Fun Kay]

Actually, most kids that are brought up in India are multi-lingual anyway.



Most of them can speak english, hindi, their mother tongue, and if they're staying in a place where their mother-tongue isn't spoken, then they pick up the local language as well.



If they're not in India, then they usually pick up the mother tongue from home. Kids pick up languages very fast, so i guess if someone from ur hubby's family comes to stay with you, then he/she can teach ur kid(and u) the Indian language, and u can probably concentrate on teaching ur child Irish!

[Brigitta]

Thanks, good advice. Actually it's quite reassuring when you put it like that bcz most of my fiances friends are Indian and I already have asked them not to speak English on front of our child. Also I have asked V (my fiance) to only speak Hindi to him/her and never English.



English (as my first language) will be easy but I'm a bit daunted at the prospect of trying to teach my child a language that I don't speak very well myself though!



We are planning to spend a few months in India within the next couple of years (in Hyderabad with V's family) too.



I've got a few 'learn Hindi' and 'learn Telugu' tapes so maybe I should attach the ear-phones to my stomach and play them to the baby when I go to sleep at night! Can you imagine how funny it would look to be walking around with a language-learning tape strapped to my stomach!

[Funny]

[Brigitta]

[VJ]

Brigitta Wrote

I've got a few 'learn Hindi' and 'learn Telugu' tapes so maybe I should attach the ear-phones to my stomach and play them to the baby when I go to sleep at night! Laughing

Then don't worry about teaching ur kid Hindi or Telugu. He already learned it when he was in ur stomach.

Can you imagine how funny it would look to be walking around with a language-learning tape strapped to my stomach! Shocked Laughing

Be careful, people may go wrong in thinking u put a machine around ur stomach to reduce ur belly or stomach by some inches and not that u r pregnant as seen from Funny's post.



@VJ

[Fun Kay]

VJ's right...esp if ur in India...



while ur immediate family may not object, the rest of society may not look upon something like that (trying to make ur tummy look small) very kindly....even if that's not what ur doing!!



and yeah...u have to be bothered about society in India