Monday, September 05, 2011

The "Kabeer-should-learn-Hindi" project

H & I converse in English with each other & use Marathi as a "secret-language" in Singapore (when I want to say something nasty about someone in that person's presence or H needs to tell me its K's diaper which is stinking up a crowded room, we switch to Marathi). H has accepted generally that Hindi has little relevance in our household, but often gets bouts of "I would be betraying my roots if my son can't speak my mother-tongue" paranoia. So the "Kabeer-should-learn-Hindi" project has started multiple times, each time lasting about 2 sentences before H switches back to English.

ps: Meanwhile, Kabeer has mastered Mandarin & his Laoshi tells us that he speaks Mandarin better than the Chinese kids in her class. The irony is not funny.

7 comments:

Parth said...

Two sentences is a start. We have managed small phrases. I think at the very least, if the kids are able to understand Hindi (or any Indian language for that matter), it would help matters.

Radha said...

@ Parth - Two sentences by his dad, not by him! Well, to be fair, K does understand Marathi (although he almost always replies in English), but I could live with that. With Hindi however, he has no comprehension of what's being said!

clickable said...

I just can't get myself to speak in Hindi...I do try and speak to R in Marathi, and she uses some words just as easily as she uses English ones - one of my favorites is "chotaa bite" when I try to give her a big spoonful :)

Radha said...

@ Clickable - K understands most of Marathi (but never speaks in it)and a bit of Tagalog (Filipino); but no Hindi at all.

~ a said...

Just to add my bit now that I have experiences of my own with Rhea! :) It happened when I was showing her some photos on the desktop and there was a close-up of a boat followed by a zoomed-out photo of the same boat and she looks at me and says, 'chhota boat' :D :) Really cute to hear her say it so casually. I guess she understands most of it and would be fairly bilingual.

Radha said...

@ ~a - I heard you had a great time on your trip! Loved all the pics!

Lotus Reads said...

Goodness and all this while I thought you were a Tamilian! :)) So nice to see you haven't given up on blogging Radha...many of my friends retired their blogs once Facebook became popular.