Language.

[same_sky]

E is playing computer games in Swedish. I am sort of doubting that listening to words that she doesn't understand is helping her language at all. I suspect it's helping ME, to hear it in the background, but I know more words than she does. I mean, it's not hurting her, I don't think. I just wish that she was getting more practice out of it since I went to the trouble of finding them for her and getting her interested. She's pretty good with games, and figures out the point of them pretty quickly, so I guess she's having fun and I heard this rumor that some parents can let their chidlren play games EVEN IF they aren't educational. Hmm.... nah, surely not. ;)

Maybe I should be playing them instead of her.

Evie's lack of Swedish really stresses me out but I am just so not sure what to do about it. It's not like I can teach her much myself because my Swedish sucks. I have forgotten a lot of what I did know. M is perfectly okay with me not really knowing Swedish. He sort of thinks that putting effort into it for me is kind of silly... which, I think he's happy that I care, but if it were him, he would not dream of learning a language useful with nine million people in a country far removed from the one we're living in. As it is, though, I spend more time working on her Swedish than he does. M has a bit of a talent for languages, but he isn't good at switching them--speaking to Evie in Swedish and then me in English, and of course since he didn't keep that up to begin with, it's sorta hard to start now if he expects her to understand him at all. So... we failed, starting off, so how are we supposed to fix what we did now?

Seriously, that's not a rhetorical question. How do you force a language on a four-year-old? She's not *completely* without words that she knows, but for most practical purposes, she doesn't understand anything. Oh, but she did ultimately find a part of the game that was actually educational for her as far as learning words goes, and it happened to be the one that she liked the best.

We have a free three-day weekend and we have absolutely no plans. I don't understand how this happened. I'm thrilled! But confused. We could go to the zoo! Or hang around at home! Or go shopping! Or go on vacation! Or find a house project to work on! Or! Who knows. The beauty of having nothing going on. I suspect we will do a little of all of them. Except probably that vacation thing. I'm not really seeing that one happening, alas.

Comments

[e11en.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I'm no help either. As you may remember, Ingrid did fine with speaking Swedish, until I was too pregnant with Anders to do the usual night time bath and bedtime story routine so G took over. He, doting daddy that he is, would never be stern enough with her that she would actually do what he said. I would come along and discover they had gotten nowhere on things and bark commands in English, which Ingrid would respond to. G, rather subconsciously I believe, started to follow my example and after politely pleading with her in Swedish and getting no action, would speak more firmly in English and what do you know? Results! Now, I'm 100% sure what was going on was not that she didn't understand him, but that she knew she could get away with stuff with him that I wouldn't stand for. If I came along, she knew it meant business. If G resorted to English, she knew she was seconds away from getting in trouble. But after Anders was born, the need for stuff to get done increased and the Swedish decreased.

Ingrid can remember a handful of phrases. I suspect she understands a little more than that but not much. Anders knows only those Swedish words we use as substitutes for English words. When we visited Farmor last year, Anders prattled on to Farmor in English and didn't care that she couldn't understand him. He watched Swedish cartoons and didn't care that he couldn't understand it. But his knowledge did not improve from that extra exposure - it just wasn't enough time. If only Farmor were younger and we could pack the kids off to stay with her for the whole summer. Then, maybe.

It saddens and, to some extent, angers me that he dropped that ball so completely. I have very little knowledge of Swedish and my accent is not that of a native speaker. Even the fact that his family can not communicate with the kids is not enough of a motivator when one is tired at the end of work day. I get it. But still...opportunity lost.

[same-sky.livejournal.com]

Getting kids to do something in English is difficult enough, without adding a language barrier. It sucks that she's forgotten so much. Does she seem interested when you talk to her about it? Apparently Anders doesn't care one way or another. ;)

I know that the window hasn't really passed but it's so hard to figure out exactly how to get to work on it without frustrating her and ruining her interest. She's actually pretty excited about the concept, just not on the implications. I think that if we could get her to a point where she can follow simple conversations, then all of this listening and playing and conversing would be beneficial on a completely new level, rather than just exposing her ears to it. It's kind of funny to hear her talk, though, because she totally has that Swedish sing-song intonation, so she's partly there!