Wouldn’t you like your child to speak at least two languages? That would be nice! This rather rhetoric question bothers me like probably any other mum where she or her partner speaks another language.
In England – where children historically rarely pick up a foreign language at school – this becomes more important and responsibility plus effort lies with parents.
I have an English husband and no Russian community around me, so I regard myself in a minority to say the least. I do not see much point in imposing an “iron fist” approach and make him speak Russian at all times at home (which is quite rusty anyway, but he tries, bless him).
I also would not want deliberately to turn into a tiger mum demanding my child to only speak to me in my mother tongue. I find it quite anti-social when we are out and about. I also hear stories of children rebelling at 10-11 years of age and refusing to speak in their mother tongue for good as a result.
Am I making a strategic mistake?
There is another point to this argument. To truly regard a child as bilingual (and not speaking just what I call “kitchen Russian / German / French”) he or she needs to continue improving their vocabulary, learning grammar (which is a minefield for Russian) and practicing with more than one person, but ideally a wider community of people speaking the same language.
Does this mean having regular lessons? How do I structure them and where do I begin?
I would love to hear your thoughts on this matter 
And please share your story and methods!
Thanks x
I live in Wales and although I am English my husband and children are Welsh and they attend a local school that teaches in the medium of Welsh. Hubby though is the most anti-Welsh Welshman I know so we don’t speak Welsh at home, just English and they speak Welsh at home. I think it’s good that they learn a different language at a young age, although speaking from personal experience, if it isn’t used it will be lost!
Thanks Rachel for your comment!! I agree about using the language or otherwise it’ll be lost – it’s a minefield, isn’t it? I’ve been on the lookout for mums wanting to tackle this lack of Russian at home and found them! it feels so much better and easier to share “this load” together
Feel so relieved.
Hi Irina! I am in the middle of doing my own post on what it is to have a bilingual family. Actually ours is a more difficult situation, as my DH is Italian, I’m originally from Russia, but we live in the UK.
Hi Galina! Thanks for your comment. A friend of mine is also Russian married to an Italian, but they live in Italy. She tries her best to speak Russian at home. It’s all very complicated, isn’t it? I think it’s important to keep making an effort and us mums supporting each other in doing so. And I would like to read your post!
I am following you on Twitter, will send you the link once I have done it. At the moment all I seem to do is one review after another, or recipes, time to write something a bit more challenging.
Thanks for the follow Galina! I look forward to reading your post. On the contrary to you, I should be doing more reviews and recipes. Might need few tips from you! Best x
I also realised that you are in my cicrles on Google, I did think your name sounds familiar, lol.
Ha-ha, fantastic! We are completely wired now. Look forward to hearing more about your bilingual experience. If you’d like you can also guest post on my blog
x