Konnichiwa

Guilty as Pleaded!

Scene 1 - At home

Me: *cursing under my breath*

Kai (Innocently): Mummy, is Daddy a bloody idiot?

Followed by -

Me: Only mummy can use those words.  You can't use them.

Kai: Why Kai cannot say "bloody idiot"?

Scene 2: At Costco, buying diapers

Me to Tomo: Let's get the tape diapers.  No, no, maybe the pants would be better.  What do you think?  What size should be get?  Big?  Large?  Let's get the large.

Tomo bends down to pick up the box.

Me: No, not that box.  Get the one behind.

Kai (in an objective, observatory tone) :  Mummy, you are so difficult.

***************

Where does he pick up such language and sentences from?

Can't point the finger to anyone else here in Japan.  Pretty much the only person whom Kai picks up his English from is me!

Dammit!

Kids Speaking English

One of the challenges of raising young kids in Japan is exposing them to English (good English, that is).  Because there is so little English in the environment, forcing English upon the little one may backfire and he may resent having to learn it.  After all, nobody speaks English except Mummy.  So I find myself walking the tight-rope between trying to teach/expose the little ones as much as possible and at the same time not making it seem like a dreary thing to learn.

I guess for me, this challenge is heightened by the fact that I work.  By that very act, Kai and Taiga are not exposed to English all the time as they would with a stay-at-home-mum and because they are  in a Japanese daycare, they are exposed to so much more Japanese.  I am quite pleased with Kai's progress so far though (and have blogged a little about it here).  Taiga is still too young to be really speaking.