Hello! Does anyone know how I can teach my 3y/o daughter my language (Maori)? She has pretty good speech & vocabulary. I’m just unsure if it will confuse her too much or is it the best time to start now? I would love to learn as well!
Hello! Does anyone know how I can teach my 3y/o daughter my language (Maori)? She has pretty good speech & vocabulary. I’m just unsure if it will confuse her too much or is it the best time to start now? I would love to learn as well!
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4 Replies
Best to learn now, just start saying the Maori word in lieu of the English version. She has to hear it in every day language to use it herself, if it's just tutorials or lessons she is only going to say it when quizzed on it, bit like all those things we learn at school and forget about.
Exposure! Lots and lots of it. Funny enough research shows they don’t get confused and their clever little minds can sort that out. If you speak your language only, and other parent speaks English she will learn both. Or if you speak English out of home and both speak Māori at home, same.
They do go back and forth between the languages but kids that have been bilingual since birth usually know when to use each language by 5
Do it! Even if you start with naming items eg knife, fork or how are you etc. I am a language teacher and the benefits of bilingual are great. It’s proven that your child may be slower to communicate in English - as they are processing both languages, but about 5 years they catch up & are speaking 2 languages!