Talkin' Turk

When Baby Girl was born we thought we'd be raising her in Turkey and that her Turkish would be as fluent as a native speaker. But right now that's not happening. Maybe her Chinese will be great, though. Nevertheless we plan on moving back to Turkey in the years ahead and I'd love it if she could speak Turkish.

We thought about having one parent speak to her in Turkish, but they say that as a parent you should always speak your heart language (strongest language) to your children. Plus, I don't want her to have mom's accent when she speaks Turkish.

Still, I find myself at very predictable times throughout the day naturally switching to Turkish. Diaper changes is one of the most frequent times. At the end of the diaper change when she starts to get wiggly I automatically say to her something like "bir daka canim, bekle...bitiriyoruz" etc (wait a minute.... it's almost over, etc etc) I also speak Turkish to her sometimes when she's doing something she shouldn't - like how some parents call a child by their first and middle name when they are really in trouble! because this is so automatic I haven't tried to correct it.

I'm in hopes that in China we can find a Turkish babysitter or someone who can spend enough time with her only speaking Turkish. Of course we hope she picks up Chinese as well. I imagine it'll be a while before she actually starts speaking.... i have a German friend who's daughter grew up around German, English, and Turkish pretty evenly being spoken to her and it took her 3 years or so to talk - and then all 3 languages came out of her mouth perfectly! :)