gzregorz wrote: But soon she'll have a sister so between the three of them I'm pretty sure they're going to hang onto their Polish. But if they decide not to I'd be happy with them at least understanding Polish. Yet I'd probably try to put her in Polish "cultural" classes so she's around other Polish speaking kids before I let it get that far.
Create the necessity and it'll happen.
Michael wrote:Greg, you should really polish your Polish.
cdobe wrote:gzregorz wrote: But soon she'll have a sister so between the three of them I'm pretty sure they're going to hang onto their Polish. But if they decide not to I'd be happy with them at least understanding Polish. Yet I'd probably try to put her in Polish "cultural" classes so she's around other Polish speaking kids before I let it get that far.
Create the necessity and it'll happen.
Congrats, Greg ! You don't waste any time, don't you ?
Michael wrote:Greg, you should really polish your Polish.
edededed wrote:The key is the child's perception of the "other" country. Does the child like it, think it is cool? If not, it is likely that he will lose ability in the language, because why would he want to learn it? (If the child is exposed to an environment where the language is often used (in ABC's cases, this is often a Chinese church), they can keep understanding of the language, but they will still lose much ability to speak in it.)
For example, Korean-Americans tend to not speak Korean very well, while Korean-Chinese (Korean-race born in China) tend to speak Korean perfectly. Korean-Germans also do not speak Korean well, Korean-Russians speak well, and so on. I would say that this has to do with the perception of Korea vs. the country that they are living in.
So, in conclusion, the reason why most ABCs do not speak Chinese well is because they don't really like Chinese. Sometimes this is worse in mixed children, as they want to identify more with American culture than Chinese culture, rejecting the language further (it is often easier to go this route, as they often look more American than Chinese, anyway, and thus sort of "stick out" in Chinese communities as well).
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