Who is she? Ah, just my daughter. At a young age, she can speak three languages which are English, Filipino/Tagalog, and Visayan. I remember at the age of two years old she can speak fluently already, as she's a clever and witty kid. She's turning 4 years old on October soon.
There are reasons why she can speak and understand those three languages, it's based on how I raised and how we talked to her. I find it awesome that at her young age she already knows how to speak and understand three languages because usually kids only speak the language they used in their homes.
How did she learn the three languages?
In the house, we speak Visayan, but right now she usually speaks English. If she speaks English I'll try my best to respond in English as well so she'll get used to it, I mean get used to communicating using the universal language as it has a lot of advantages knowing it.
She learned the Filipino/Tagalog language because we talked to her about with it
I gave birth to her in Manila in Alabang Muntinlupa to be exact. I stayed in Manila for almost 6 years because I worked there. My partner also stayed with his siblings when he was waiting for his apprenticeship and line up for onboarding.
Although we still speak Visayan in the house, we also get used to speaking Tagalog because of the kids (my partner's nephew) who grew up there and cannot understand Visayan.
We used to speak to her in Tagalog when she was still a baby because we were in Manila.
She learned Visayan when we go back home to the province (his dad house)
When she was 9 months old we travel back to the province, her dad's place which is our current location. In here we speak Visayan fluently.
Visayan people find it awkward to speak Tagalog, it's like an OA language to us but since me and my partner get used to speaking Tagalog to our daughter we still talk to her with it.
As my daughter grows up, she learned and understands Visayan because of the people around us which are her grannies, aunties, uncle, and cousins.
She still understands Tagalog and speaks some of it, because until now I still talk to her in Tagalog. I dunno I just get used to it with her but I find it useful as she won't forget our national language.
She speaks English with the influence of YouTube
The positive thing that this Youtube influenced in my daughter is the English language. I can speak English, I can teach her but I find it awkward to speak in English because I am not used to it.
Good thing this Youtube influenced her, I don't have to teach her manually the English one by one. If she doesn't know the English word of a certain thing that's the time I'll teach her.
I let her watch English Youtube videos and not other languages so she can learn and adopt them.
As of now she's speaking these three languages but mostly right now it's English and I find it good as it has the advantage to speak English so she'll not have a hard time coping up when she started studying.
Closing Thoughts
This article was inspired by the prompt given by @JonicaBradley “language”, I like the prompt as I got the idea to write about my daughter being multilingual at a young age.
I hope when she grows up she'll learn more languages. It's cool to learn different languages, you can communicate better with those people who speak the language you learn.
Thank you for reading!
Date Published: August 26, 2021
Buti pa yung bagets mo daming alam na language hahaha pero magandang skills yan for her future. Happy birthday in advance kay baby.