hello all. I am married to a Turkish man and we have a 2 year old. My husband is Turkish and we both want our son to be fluent in both English and Turkish .. HOWEVER my husband says that he feels weird speaking to our son in Turkish and me not being able to understand what he is saying (which I don't mind - I too am trying to learn Turkish) but he also says he feels weird talking to our son in Turkish because our son doesn't understand him.. I tell my husband all the time he is the only one that can teach Turkish and that IF he wants our son to be able to communicate with his family back in Turkey then he needs to put more effort into teaching it ... He is frustrated and uses the excuse that " When I speak to my own son in my native language he can't understand me and I feel awkward speaking it in my own house ...""
Please help me ! I have ordered Children books in Turkish I have lived in Turkey myself and I know some basic Turkish but my Turkish is the ""oh how cute she tried Turkish """ Ben git bakal Tamama *** I am trying to be supportive of teaching our 2 year old, and my husband wants him to know Turkish - but only HE can teach it to him...
Any suggestions??

PS great website - I have been here looking for about a month and I would like to say Hello to everyone out there!!!

You can help your husband by telling him to teach your son just simple words. The same way you teach him english! He doesn't have to speak in long sentences to him, There are also special 'turkish schools' which teach children of turkish parents who are born in england, but he is too young for this yet.

When you teach your son a new word, you can tell him the turkish and the english. just keep it simple for now. You probably have enough simple turkish yourself to be helping him become bi lingual. Put 'bi lingual children/teaching' or something like this in a search engine and see what you find. Good luck!

I ordered a Turkish satelite so that my 2 year old can watch the turksih cartoons. My husband doesnt really feel uncomfortable talking in Turkish to him, but just out of habit speaks in english. Which does my head in because this is the best time for him to be learning. I have taught him as hes going along as much as I know , but haven't really been trying to learn myself until now. But the Turkish cartoons helps a lot, and we have a little audio translator and he realises now that when we sit down and spend time working on his Turkish that it's Baba's and English is mine.

Thank you both for the great ideas.... We live in Texas and finding a Turkish school here is pretty out of reach seeing as though Spanish is the most common second language ... Half the people here don't even know where Turkey is..
I do have about 9 Turkish Baby books on order and can't wait for them to arrive, I am sure it will help both my son and I with the basics.
The satellite idea sounds great, I will need to look into that here, I do know some friends that have it instead of regular Cable TV..

the first 3 or 4 years is the key time window for a language to be learned as a native language. later it will newer be the same. the main rule here is that if a person speaks a language in front of the baby he should not speak another language with the baby again. so your husband must speak always in turkish with the baby but if your little one sees you talking in english then he(or she?) will be confused. if you want Turkish to be your babys native language you have to work wery hard in your case.