My experience of teaching my daughter to speak Vietnamese in Switzerland page1:
Whether at home or not, my daughter always speak Vietnamese to me. She has never been shy to speak the language or sing Vietnamese songs to others. It is the result of teaching and training my daughter since she was an infant.
I'm 36 years old, has lived for nearly 10 years in Switzerland. I got married to a Swiss man and have got a 6-year-old daughter named Camilla ThyThy.
In the past, when I haven’t got my daughter, I decided that when I have children, I will give all my effort to teach them Vietnamese. Before I was pregnant, I had read a lot of material to be more confident to become a mother, especially to teach my baby to speak Vietnamese well and to love the native language.
For children with both parents and grandparents are Vietnamese, this is not too difficult, due to everybody in the house speak the same language. As for me and my daughter, this is more difficult because I am the only one who speaks Vietnamese and my home is in a place where there are very few Vietnamese people.
As for me, I speak English to my husband and my mother-in-law. More over, I am trying to learn Italian, too. To teach my daughter Vietnamese is not an easy thing at all. I believed that trying all my best and doing in a right way, I can help my daughter able to speak Vietnamese although she could learn only from her mother.
In fact, teaching children Vietnamese is not difficult if we have a good start when the children are still infants. When I was pregnant, I always sang, read stories and talked to the baby in Vietnamese so that she would get used to the mother tongue when she was born.
In early months, I had to talk to my daughter so much. When she could understand me, I often let her know that she should try to speak Vietnamese well so that she and I can chat freely and that she can speak to my parents in the US. My parents can speak no language but Vietnamese.
Read more:
My experience of teaching my daughter to speak Vietnamese in Switzerland 2
My experience of teaching my daughter to speak Vietnamese in Switzerland 3
My experience of teaching my daughter to speak Vietnamese in Switzerland 4
by Đồng An
This article is written by Đồng An in Vietnamese language on vnexpress.net and is translated into English by Fotoget.
