Wednesday, 28 May 2008

Do you speak Swedish with your kids?

I've had this question now so many times, and I keep getting amused and bemused about it every time. I really don't understand this question at all.
The answer is simple: "Yes, of course I do!" I'm Swedish - I speak Swedish. That's my language.

Unfortunately no, Nathan doesn't speak Swedish so we have to communicate in English; and the kids speak English with most of their friends and at school. But all that doesn't affect my relationship or communication with my kids, we still speak Swedish with eachother.

Someone even wondered if I choose to growl at the kids in Swedish so that other people wouldn't understand that I'm telling them off? Ehm, no - I tell them off in Swedish, because I'm Swedish. It's that easy. (Besides, there is no doubt about when I'm angry with the kids, you can for sure tell that by the tone of my voice anyway.)

You would think that down here people would be more used to bilingual children, but apparently it's still confusing and strange to some. Maybe it's because Swedish is such a small language, they wonder if it's worth it? Maybe the question arises simply because they have no knowledge about Swedish or Sweden, it's not as strange to be English/Malay bilingual.
I don't know. But yes, I speak Swedish with my kids - anything else would be unnatural.



-"Hörsti-börst, bork, bork, bork!"

4 comments:

Cissi said...

den frågan får jag ofta jag med. det är en självklarhet tycker jag... Reaktionerna är alltid positiva iaf förutom en gång från en sköterska på bvc ;)

Kattis said...

Det klart att du ska prata svenska med dina barn. Ett av många bra skäl är att de har lättare att lära sig ännu fler språk och förstås att de kan prata med sin svenska släktingar.

En häxa på Vift said...

yuppers, I get that question too... and they get the same answer from me. Of course I speak Swedish with my kids! We're Swedish. Sweden and the Swedish is who and what we are and no matter where we'll go in the world nothing could change that.
I'm not going to move back to Sweden ever, but I'll always be Swedish, as simple as that. :)
/Nettan

MrsW said...

cissi - Naturligtvis är det en självklarhet! Det är just därför jag inte förstår frågan.

kattis - Jovisst, men jag pratar ju inte svenska med mina barn för att de ska ha lättare att lära sig språk eller för alla andra fördelar det ger... (det är ju en gåva förstås, att bli tvåspråkig)
Jag talar svenska för att jag är svensk!!

en häxa på vift - Yes, exactly. We are Swedish, we speak Swedish. (And then maybe, like in my case, five other languages too - but what has that got to do with it?!?)