We spent five and a half months this year turning the tables in our household in favour of Serbian language. This post talks about how this period affected the languages in our household, but also how it made us grow and mature.
Opportunity and rationale behind the idea
Thanks to my husband’s prolonged paternity leave, we were able to BE in Belgrade from Spring to the beginning of Autumn. Apart from wanting my children to spend an extended period of time with my family and bond with them, my goals were for Klara to be in the environment where Serbian is the dominant language, integrate into society and make memories. She may not recall these memories in detail when she gets older, but I believe the feelings of love and belonging will remain with her forever.
Integration into society
For the full five months Klara attended nursery in Belgrade. Why? For us, it was important she didn’t stop with the daily activities she had in London. In addition, I was keen for her to create her own friendships in Belgrade and see first-hand that Serbian is not spoken only by my family, but also by other children – her peers. The nursery staff and children were so loving and they welcomed Klara into their gang from the beginning. This helped her adjust to the new environment almost instantly. And for this, we are SO grateful and proud of her.
She integrated so well that two weeks into being in Belgrade, Klara had the busiest schedule in the family. She had birthdays, excursions and ballet classes to attend. Her social life was packed, especially when you add to the mix the weekend activities I organised for us to catch up with family and friends.
Language, children’s songs and how much it meant to me
Even though her Serbian has always been impressive given our language conditions, her vocabulary growth stepped up a gear this summer, as well as her confidence. She started coming home saying the phrases such as ‘Ko muva bez glave’, ‘Ko lud na brašno’ and singing/reciting different songs commonly sung among children in Serbia (she loved ‘Cicija Policija’ and ‘Tužibaba Jeca’). These were the songs I remembered from my childhood and I couldn’t have imagined hearing Klara sing them would make me so happy.
She grew up and matured hugely. With family around, she went for her first sleepover and continued enjoying them while we were there. She even went on her first holiday with her grandma and family friends, where she made some beautiful memories.
The language, social/cultural contexts and relationships collectively are factors that contributed to her becoming a balanced bilingual – at least for the duration of our stay in Belgrade.
And what about English?
As for her English, it was not affected while her Tata was with us in Belgrade. Having him around maintained it completely. She would still sometimes use an English word in place of a Serbian word. I loved when she said that a wooden toy is ‘vudena igračka’ (wood – drvo). But then Tom returned to London a month before we did and without Tata around, her English weakened slightly. When she next saw Tom she said to him, completely unprompted ‘Tata, my English is not so good, I keep forgetting some words’. This statement amazed us. She had such consciousness of her languages, showing she could compare the strength and change of each. Her English almost instantly returned to full strength when she returned to London.
Now, this situation is something I should remember every time I feel low with regards to Klara’s and Oliver’s Serbian in the London context. Having at least one person with whom the child uses the language on a daily basis seems sufficient to maintain it. The language becomes jeopardised, as we have witnessed, when that one person is not around to encourage active use of that language.
Lola
What about the rest of us over the Summer, you may wonder. Well, Oliver was heavily surrounded by Serbian which created a significant base for him to hopefully speak it one day. He started babbling ‘mama’ and ‘baba’ when he was eight months old and I cannot wait to see how his speech will develop further. In addition, the Serbian speaking environment stimulated Klara to speak to him in Serbian too, a habit I am hopeful will remain at least when I am around.
Tom is officially learning Serbian
As for Tom, he made me proud by having his own initiative to officially start learning Serbian. First, he attended a one month long intensive course, after which he continued with individual conversation classes a few times a week. Now that we are back, I act as his primary Serbian language teacher. We spend two to three evenings a week going through a text book, a habit that hopefully won’t be dropped after a few weeks. He also maintains online Serbian classes once a week with a teacher in Belgrade.
Investment for the future
Finally, me. Even though I am sad we had to leave my motherland, I am happy and proud we managed to organise these five and a half months the way we did. To some, it may seem that raising bilinguals is easy when we get to spend so much time in the country where the minority language is spoken. But trust me, it comes with a price and it is far from easy. It took me a lot of time to persuade, plan and finally execute it all. I see this period as heavy investment for the future and I firmly believe it is worth investing time and effort in it now that the children are small.
For those who share similar language ambitions for their families with me, I couldn’t recommend this type of adventure more!
Lena x