Hey this is an interestg one !!!

Ok an insight before givg my comments...I ve  been really good at our thaai mozhi thamizh...participated in a lot of "thamizh pechu pottigal"...have been commended for the diction which I had already mentioned...

So when it came to my daughter,we both decided and made a conscious decision... that we will spk only in Thamizh until she goes to school.Until last yr,she never spoke in english ...she might know only a few words in english which we use in our normal conversation.We were made fun of !!! Beleive me,I din bother...I wanted my kid to know the language I love...know her mother tongue...then learn any number of languages which Im not against...

Infact while admittg in school,I asked the  people concerned if she can understand what they spk...For which they said,"Don worry...she will pick up the language in a matter of 3 mths" And she did....

Now, we are forced to spk with her in English,coz she tries her best to converse in the language and I don wanna dampen her spirits....Its lovely to see the way she is learning it...making mistakes...translating a few words/sentences from Tamizh to English..which is at times so funny to hear....

Bottomline- First Mother tongue...and then English- to be part of the world...and then may be any language of interest( if need be )

And u know what...kids can learn any number of languages at an early age...Thats the reason why kids whose parents spk different languages can converse in both !!!

Hi Anu...i never forced my kid to speak in English...Even while  in shopping/theater never  forced  her..i use tamil most of d time..never mind using Tamil unless d other person happen to be a nontamilian or so..

English is jus another language widely and commomnly used.thats all nothing ,more than that..

always mother tongue is GOOD to converse.

Yes,I agree that people tend to force their children to talk in english rather than their own laguage.

Tamilae siranthuhu....I go wid amala...mother tongue s best...

Hi Anu,

I can even say that mother tongue is easier to converse..On the contrary..just imagine this will be acceptable only if u live in TamilNadu..what about people like us who are moving across states and countries...I always prefer my daughter to speak in English..for which we practice the same at home too...bcos they feel lonely when they come out..Now we are pune..she is practising to speak Hindi along with English...also she mingles very well with people over here..So I feel...Wherever u go English saves you ...

Hi Anu.. I will tell you about my experience and my son.. :) if you had noticed in our meet in Feb.. i and my hubby would have spoken to our son Rahul in English only..

2 yrs back.. when he was in KG.. he was given a bad remark by the teacher saying.. he is one of the very few tamil speaking boy.. he understands what the teacher says and does not reply in english.. and does only in tamil.. Naturally we felt bad with this comment..

The my hubby had an idea.. that he made it mandatory to speak in english by whenever he asks in english only we respond. even if it is bad english it is fine.. this made him speak atelast 1 or 2 words in english but not to a good extent.. to say my boy is quite forgetfull or i can say has memory problem..so that was the time i had to go to UK for a project and he had his holidays..2008 april-may.. so we actually were blackmailing him saying.. if u want to come to london.. he has to speak in english and will not be allowed to enter UK if he speaks tamil.. by that  his english speaking was in ok level but fully with mistakes only.. but atleast he was trying which was good.. then when he was with me in UK for 2 months - may and june fully.. he had to speak in english - no other go as he had to play with the neighbour english boy.. that was the time his english improved drastically.....

but 1 drawback .. when my mom and dad spoke over phone.. he said i can speak only english and " i do not know tamilzh' nu style a solitaan'..

 then we got scared .. then after comingh back to india.. we made sure that with my parents and dhina's parents he speaks only tamil and with my and my hubby he has to converse in english wherever we are and we go.. so that he does not forget it.. this is like a daily training.. now he speaks very good english and his teacher herself is very proud of him and says that she hasnt seen any boy speak such good english.. ( though with tense errors) and we r happy with that though he has many complaints of being naughty in the class .. and u know now his classmates speak only in tamil and my son also converse with them in tamil only'' sei inga vaada.. anga vaada nu'' ..  

Now my hubby's aim is to make him learn hindi.. by making him see hindi animated movies..( this he did with english movies when he had to learn english).. and is trying to make him speak hindi..

and to your questions of-

Wont the children learn to speak/converse in English, on their own, as they grow up.. is it necessary to force them to speak in English, even when they are kids..? Naamellam appadithaane..?

I m asking is it necessary to ask/force/teach our kids to speak in English at home and outside..

yes we were not foreced those days and atleast i started speaking properly only after I joined office even though i studied in english medium.. but nowadays its made as a bad remark by the teacher  at KG level itself and u'r internal marks depends on it from 1st std.. so yes we have to train them now itself if we want our child to be equally good...

if u'r child is a quick learner then u need not force it.. but if it is like my son with bad memory .. then yes we had to force him to speak in english at home and outside..

 If my kid speaks in English, when we go out.. or when we have a visitor.. it is cool..?"

When u go outside, say to a theater, shopping.. how many of you consciously speak in English to your children, and expect them to reply in English too, esp when others are watching..?

We think it as a training and do not think it in the way u have projected.. like ' it is cool''...  rahul analyses well when he responds to people in public.. he will speak in tamil to new persons he meets..

Now our main worry is to make him read.. he is very poor in that area.. .. the way he speaks english .. if he reads english books it would be very good..

And I will tell u one incident of his english speaking.. we were astonished..

after coming back from UK.. he was speaking the normal our indian english..

few months back when we were chatting with my bro who is in US, his son(3 1/. yrs  old) wanted to  speak to Rahul.. my bro son started speaking his usual US accent english.. and to our shock rahul was responding to him in the same US accent..

then we thought ' ada pavi.. ipadi peter vidura nu' we all were having hearty laugh at their conversation..

a well rounded discussion!

Hi Anu,

i'm a mom of 2-3/4-year-old girl.  when we decided to put her in pre-kg, both her father and grandparents wanted her to be enrolled in KV (Kendra vidyalaya)  as an another mom said i also really love my mother tongue Tamizh and have participated in peechu potti s also.

i don't want my daughter to say me "HI MOM, U KNOW!!!!!!!" when she comes home from school.  she will surely learn english or any other language as she grows, but mother tongue, she can acquire it only in her early days of childhood.  we cannot compromise with speaking in Tamizh or the mother tongue of the child. 

When we forcefully ask the child to converse in any foreign language it would affect the child's natural way of thinking and reacting to a situation, slowing down its natural growth level.

"we should let our child think in its own mother tongue"

regards

Ramya

Hi Anu,
Even i go with Ramya and Shobana teacher. I feel children can think faster in their mother tongue. And forcing them with any other language may delay their development.
Cheers,
Durgha

ya i agree with ramya.......child should think in mother tongue

Durgha....neeyuma !!!!

 Anu... a very interesting and thought-provoking topic... i will skim on the subject at hand with my experience with my daughter...

my husband was a tamilian-rajasthani and i am a malayalee (yea yea... that makes my daughter a mongrel).. so my daughter started off speaking in tamil coz my husband was very very particular that she doesnt learn malayalam first (yes... possessiveness towards his daughter led to this).. she started speaking excellent tamil by 3 years... and during this time she was not exposed to english at all and only a smattering of malayalam which only my dad used... then came school and she picked up english well... and then she saw me and my siblings conversing in hindi, and started picking up that too... now she converses in all the 4 languages fluently (albeit with a bit of grammar errors in english and hindi)... she often asks me - naan avanga kitte enna language pesannum - hindi-ya, english-aa, illai tamizh-a??? malayalam is limited to family which she is pretty good at... 

and one more thing i am very strict about is calling all our relatives with their tamil/mallu equivalent terms rather than english ones... tho aunty/uncle does crop up once in a while (hey nisha-aunty u reading???) i want her to use the terms in our language(s).....

so what i would say is... we neednt forcefully adapt to "english" only coz in school they anyways get trained up to speak/write good english

oh ithu en mindla romba nalla iruntha oru varutham

of course English is just a language but people judge hw far one can speak eng??

since globalisation as become a part we cant avoid it we can teach our kids only to prepare them for that

but athu kaka we should not force the kid to speak in english we should give much more importance to our mother tongue also

i see many kids only speak in english (of course it will make them practice) but we should not forget our mother tongue

atleast we should take care tat our kids speak in mother tongue in our home

Our mother tongue is a precious one itz our duty to make our kids to understand that

for communicating level we can teach English for our kids but athu kaka LKG UKG la avanga pesanum nu nenaikarthu romba toooo much

as days go our kids will speak good english.  no doubt in it!!!!!!

but forcing them at their kidddddyyyy level is toooooo much

I agree with Ramya...

Children should not b forced to learn English..they catch up any language which they r surrounded with..

Knowing many languages is defntly an advantage which makes them more sharp..so if v want our kids to learn any language u can make them to learn naturally like smithrasreetharan did...

But mother tongue is always best to develop ur analytical things..

Hey thanks for the responses, Amala, Sowmya, Ramya, Durgha, Vidhya..!

Vel, i dont completely agree with you..Children pick up languages of their surroundings very easily..

Chitra, this happens in some branded schools..I have heard of some schools being very particular that the kids speak only in English..Gud that ur kid had adjusted well now..!

Shobs, 'Pechu Potti"..? "tamil diction"..? Yennappa solrey..? Unnai partha "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" mathiri illa irukku...Yappadi ippadi.. Aha.. Shobs a next meet-up la mike kuduthu 'tamizh sorpozhivu" nadatha sollanum...!

Smita..."mongrel"...I agree.. My point is also that the kids anyway pick up the language, so whats the fuss all about..?

J..! U are right.. ! I think we are probably one of the few States where we on one hand oppose Hindi...but go overboard about a foreign language, though English can hardly be classifed as a foreign language, not anymore..

I have also thought about another point J has mentioned, that ppl with little exposure to English, in interior areas, getting jobs here in Chennai, and picking up the language, to the extent necesary.. I have seen many of my relatives do that..Maybe they struggle initially, but they soon oversome it.

Savithram..true.. but many parents whose KG kids speak in fluent/faulty english, consider themselves and their kids superiors to the ones who dont speak english..This is a sad fact..But i guess happens only in the cities..

AAGA MOTHATHIL... TAMIZHUKKU J...

ammam anu ..........athu nalla than namma british kitta adimaiya irunthom............innum namma thirun tha vae lla

still we give respect to english speaking and velllai thol

first and foremost we have to be passion towards our mother tongue and we should feel great to be in this wonderful country

speaking in english should be like another subject/ another lang atha vechu mathipu calculate pannra elllarkum

as u said anu citi la than intha feel innum jasthi but now a days i see in my hometown also people force their kids to speak in english

Jus saw ur comment....Aama..pa nambu..vena ennoda certificates ellam eduthuttu varen.... aana intha pechu potti la participate panra kaalathula naan bhaktha meera maathiri thaan irinthen.....

And.... looks are deceptive !!

Hi Anu,

and hai to Amala,sowmya,ramya,durga,vidhya.

this is megala