From: tai@wpi.WPI.EDU (L. Taikitsadaporn)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Re: On Languages and Asian Americans
Date: 3 Jan 93 17:54:16 GMT
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute
NNTP-Posting-Host: wpi.wpi.edu

In article <1hooodINN69i@shelley.u.washington.edu> yoichi@carson.u.washington.edu (Yoichi Ii) writes:
>mcovingt@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Maiko Covington)
>>>approaches decent levels (I hope it will someday) then I'd certainly
>>>want to teach it to my kid.
>>>Maybe I'm really awful, but there IS a reason I'd teach my kid
>>>Chinese if I were Chinese-cu, and Japanese because I'm from there.
>>>It's simple: it is the language of the culture *I* am a member of. I
>>>*want* to pass that culture on to my kid, so the language of that
>>>culture is an obvious choice. There IS more to it than just learning
>>>a language, in this case. I want my kid to understand ME, to
>>>understand what world *I* live in, where I'm from. I'm going to
>>>teach the kid that language so we can communicate these things, so
>>>he/she can share in my world.
>>>		Maiko

	I completely agree with what Ms. Convington says here, that the 
learning the language is more than just speaking it.  You're also learning
about the culture and customs associated with that language.


>underdog@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dwight Joe) writes:
>>I agree with this as long as (1) Mai-chan isn't forcing her children to learn
>>the subject and (2) she agrees that it's perfectly all right for a
>>Chinese-ge mother to encourage her children to learn Korean-cu instead of
>>Chinese-cu.  Since she is approaching the matter from that angle, then
>>more power to her.
>
>Well, if you insist on point (1), then I'd say not too many kids will
>be learning a second language.  Let me give an example of a Japenese
>parents with 3 kids (all born in US) living here as a permanent resident.
>I'll call them the N's.
>
>They are employing the method #2 metioned by Maiko Covington, that is,
>using Japanese at home (and English at school, of course).  For younger
>kids (say, ages between 4 and 12) school and friends seem to have
>overwhelming influence on the language of a child.  If the only thing
>you do is speak Japanese at home, you are flighting a losing battle
>as far as teaching the kids Japanese.  Slowly but surely the kids will
>lose Japanese language ability, which they had acquired (to some extent) 
>while they were younger and did not have much outside contact.  In the 
>case of the N's, the oldest one spoke most Japanese.  The younger ones
>spoke less because, even within the family, conversations between the 
>siblings were carried out in English; ie. younger kids didn't have as
>much period of isolation from English (my theory).

	I don't agree with what Yoichi Ii said here.  I don't think Ms. 
Covington is fighting a losing battle.  I was brought up exactly this way by
my parents.  I was born and raised in Bangkok, Thailand.  My parents are of
Chinese orgin.  I was educated entirely in English speaking school (from K to
college).  My parents only speak to my brothers and I in Cantonese, I learned
English at school and picked Thai from our maids.  I still speak Cantonese
with my parents.  I speak English with my friends and my brothers.  I speak
Thai when I go home or interact with Thai people in the US.  So do you still
think that for parents to only speak their native language in the house with
the kids doesn't work?  Sure it may not be as effective as getting formal
education in that language but at least the kids have the ability to converse
in their parents native language (or whatever lanugage their parents are 
brought up in).  I wouldn't say that I am extremely fluent in Cantonese but
I know enough to converse well with my relatives in Hong Kong and with people
in Chinatown.  My parents didn't stop there.  Ever since I was around 7 or 8
my parents hired tutors to teach me and my brothers Thai and Mandarin.  This
went on until I came to college.  In high school I attempted to pick up
French (without much success :( ).  With myself as an example I would like to
encourage any parents who want to teach their kids their native language to 
start at a young age, even if you're only speaking with your kids in your
language.  When kids are exposed to languages at a younger age they will
pick it up better. 

>The "remedy" for such deterioration is to have other supplemental 
>educations.  One is to take the kids to a Saturday Japanese school
>available in some areas of the US.  Now, if you were a 7 year old kid,
>would you want to go to a school on Saturday? :-)  Thus, unless you're a
>very persuasive parent or the kid is unusual, you necessarily have
>to use force to get them to attend such school.  Another method is to 
>do some teaching at home.  But again you have to employ some force.  
>The N's taught the kids at home since they didn't have Japanese schools 
>nearby.  Yes, they had to use force. Maiko Covington also mentioned 
>comics (manga) as one source of teaching Japanese (reading/writing). 
>Well, in the case of the N's it wasn't really working because the kids 
>didn't have sufficient reading ability to begin with.  They just looked 
>at the pictures and guess what might be happening. 

	I'll just say that even though back when i was a kid I hated my
parents for forcing me to learn Thai and Mandarin after school, and only
speak with us in Canontese...I am grateful that they did forced us to.
Knowing several languages is very useful as this world is getting smaller
and smaller each day.  Though my Mandarin stinks at least I can understand
it when someone says something to me in Mandarin.

>If a kid has spent a critical time for language aqcuisition in Japan
>(in our case), then the story is slightly different.  A kid who has 
>finish grade school (say) tend to retain at least some minimum amount 
>of conversational ability and materials like manga would help in 
>retaining some reading ability.  But again some form of "encouragement" 
>is necessary for a kid to go beyond this point.  I wonder if Ms. 
>Covington's parents gave her an "encouragement" :-)

	Yes the story would be different if the kids had spent some time in 
Japan learning Japanese...but it's not necessary.  I never spent any extensive
amount of time in Hong Kong to learn Cantonese...at most I spent two weeks
each visit there.  Fluency in a language comes only with exposure and 
practice.  Because my parents forced me to speak with them in Cantonese I
had the expose and practice (they would ignore me if I spoke to them in 
English, besides their English isn't that good) even though it may be limited
only to the family environment and my parents' friends.  I have had my
attempts in other languages that failed because of not being able to 
practice it and be exposed to native speakers everyday...my attempts at
French and Japanese failed, and my knowledge of Mandarin would not get me
around in Taipei!

	I chose to respond to this discussion because I wanted to tell of
my own first han experience with being brought up tri-lingual.  Id don't
regret it one bit now.  Thanks to my parents.  I hope that my example will
be an inspiration for parents our there to teach their kids their own 
language.  Persistence will reap reward in the end.

Happy New Year and peace to all.


Sincerely,
Lisa Taikitsadaporn
(aka Lisa Tai)