Temat: I'd like to have a bilingual child ...

warren whitmore:
Do you speak Polish to your children, Rafal?

No, I don't (yea yea I know), I really wanted my daughter who is now 2.5 to really grasp English before leaving US, and she is now speaking in full sentences, knows her alphabet and is starting to recognize certain short words. Once in Poland we will talk to them in English while home since they will be surrounded by Polish wherever they go. That’s the plan, my son is 4 months old so it really make much of a difference at this point.

Temat: I'd like to have a bilingual child ...

Rafal Wolk:

warren whitmore:

>>

I don't believe anyone really loses their ability to speak a language they were once fluent in.

That was my outtake on it too, but I have met enough people who were born and raised abroad and for a greater part of their life they have been living in the US and have lost the ability to coherently communicate their thoughts in their native tongue.

It is interesting. I must say I don't understand it fully - I have left Poland 8 or 9 years ago and whenever I go back there or chat with Poles they say I haven't got a slightest accent while speaking Polish. Yes, if we assume someone left their country of origin way before cheap intl phone calls, Skype, iChat, you name it, it may be that they merged so much with the locals that they lost some abilities to speak their mother tongue. But now?
My take on it is that if you know when you come from you will not "forget" it unless you are willing to. I have met too many of these faux-locals, who couldn't speak Polish after a year in Germany or tried to speak Weedgie following 6 months' stay there.

Temat: I'd like to have a bilingual child ...

Marcin B.:

It is interesting. I must say I don't understand
it fully - I have left Poland 8 or 9 years ago and whenever I go
back there or chat with Poles they say I haven't got a slightest
accent while speaking Polish.

I left over 16 years ago, I haven't been back until last November, I was told that I do have a slight accent, but nothing major, I do have a tendency of mixing it up while speaking with Poles here and must admit that during the first couple of days it was rather hard for me not to throw in an English word or two into conversations, which was usually a cause for a laugh or two. I have not written anything in Polish until I started visiting GL, so my grammar is pretty weak, but I am working on it. I think I can get my point across perfectly fine, I have met with some cynics that have ridiculed my written Polish, does it sting? Yea a bit considering that I used to be a 4+ Polish student (on a 2 - 5 scale) but I also realize that after a year in Poland I will be able to get all that back.

Yes, if we assume someone left their country of
origin way before cheap intl phone calls, Skype,
iChat, you name it, it may be that they merged so much with the
locals that they lost some abilities to speak their mother tongue.

It also depends on various factors; I recently had the pleasure of meeting a 92 year old gentleman who was one of the General Anders people and have left Poland years ago, his Polish was immaculate.

But now?
My take on it is that if you know when you come
from you will not "forget" it unless you are willing to.
I have met > too many of these faux-locals, who couldn't speak Polish after > a year in Germany or tried to speak Weedgie following 6
months' stay there.

Yea... it's pretty embarrassing actually. I find it funny when they start speaking Polish like they got a mouth full of nuts, meanwhile they can't understand what's happening during a movie like Rambo, full of one liners.

Temat: I'd like to have a bilingual child ...

My take on it is that if you know when you come
from you will not "forget" it unless you are willing to.
I have met > too many of these faux-locals, who couldn't speak Polish after > a year in Germany or tried to speak Weedgie following 6
months' stay there.

Yea... it's pretty embarrassing actually. I find it funny when they start speaking Polish like they got a mouth full of nuts, meanwhile they can't understand what's happening during a movie like Rambo, full of one liners.

It's true, although I believe such long stays would still affect the way you speak, in some way. When I visited my parents after my first year in the UK, I realised I spoke Polish much faster than I expected, because all of a sudden I didn't have to make so much effort any more, so I started speaking a bit like Mr Bartoszewski ;))

And I really had to fight off the annoying habit of inserting English words into my conversation. But I suppose these must have been the effects of initial shock of having to use English so intensively, because it went away very quickly and I never had such problems again.