Adult Parent does not speak the same language as her daughters, unusual?
Friday, August 27th, 2010 at
3:41 am
My Mother speaks English but her Mother only spoke Polish. My Mother was born in America and spoke only English learned from her father who spoke good English. Her Mother never learned English and spoke Polish with her husband but never talked to her daughters much. The kids only knew a few words of Polish.
Have you ever heard of something like this before? It must be somewhat common in immigrant communities?
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Tagged with: few words • immigrant communities
Filed under: Polish Written and Spoken
I have heard of this before. Decades ago, it was very common for immigrant families to teach their children only English and withhold their original language from the children. Even going as far as to stop talking in their language whenever the children were nearby.
It’s possible that some still do this today Which, I consider to be sad as there is nothing wrong with being bilingual and learning about the culture of your ancestors.
Maybe not common exactly, but I have seen it before, and it’s as weird and awkward as it sounds.
never heard of anything like that itz soo weired .how can a mother not talk to her children and not speak the same language as them ..odd
It was comparatively common, particularly in the previous generation. I’ve known many families where parents spoke only their native language, but the children spoke that language AND English. Certainly it’s quite common among Hispanic families presently, and in the previous generation tended to be very common among immigrant families. Most of the families where this occurred tended to be eastern European, interestingly enough.
As it happens, I live next door to a Hispanic family; the parents speak very little English, but the two daughters speak English and Spanish. I speak a tiny bit of Spanish so I can communicate with the parents a little, but if I need to tell them something important (or vice versa), one of the daughters translates for us.
is very common in the imigrant comunity, but is up to you to teach her a few words, a lot of times they see themselves as outsiders and is harder for them to teach themselves the language,
i have an stepfather he is like a pest to us because he speaks well english he was born in here(united states) but he tells ppl he doesnt speaks english and refuses speaking it, and on the other hand my mom doesnot much english and he makes her to speak for him even if is she is wrong, and all of his kids speak english but he makes us , speak spanish only
strange ????????????