October 17, 2011

Thank You Doraemon

Doraemon (cartoon program on TV) has managed to do in 6 months what hubby and I couldn't in the last 3 years - make our son speak Hindi! Adi was a very early speaker - started saying single words when he was just 7 months old, 3 word sentences when he was 1 and by the time he turned two he was speaking fluent (rather, as fluent as it can get for a 2 year old) English, Hindi, Kannada and a smatter of Tamil and Tulu. And then we moved to London and one week in the nursery was all it took for him to stop speaking (or did he forget?) all languages except English. I spoke to him in Kannada for some time but eventually gave up when all I got was responses in English. Hubby dear pursued though and spoke to him mostly in Hindi throughout our time in the UK and although Adi kind of understood Hindi he never spoke it - only the Queen's English would do for him! And that too with a Brit accent!

The biggest challenge was communicating with his grandparents - who spoke Hindi. Every time they called, Adi would refuse to speak to them - only because he felt that he needed to speak in Hindi. Often we would prompt the answers and he would repeat after us - but he was never comfortable with this. When we told him that we were planning to move back to India, his biggest worry was if he would be able to communicate with everyone here - he thought that people in India only spoke Hindi and no English at all!!

Three and half years later, we returned to Bangalore and Adi had a four month break before he joined school.  During this time, a lot of TV watching was done and Adi just loved all the Indian cartoon programs - come to think of it, he even stopped watching his favourite program - Ben 10 - as he now preferred Chota Bheem, Krishna and Balram. As long as it was a cartoon program the language didnt matter - he watched both Hindi and English. Slowly he started using a few hindi sentences that he would hear on TV and also ask us the meaning of some words. In the last few months one of his favourite program has been Doraemon - which airs in Hindi. Ever since he has started watching this program, his Hindi vocabulary has drastically improved and with it his confidence to speak a language which he was for a long time not comfortable with. Thanks to Doraemon, Adi now speaks decent Hindi and also responds to us in Hindi. During our recent visit to Delhi and Punjab, he conversed a lot with his grandparents and cousins much to their delight.

Looks like the kiddo is slowly getting there and boy, are we happy!! Speaking to other parents, I realize that a lot of kids here also speak only in English and don't speak their local language or mother tongue anymore. So am thrilled that Adi is speaking a lot of Hindi now without us having to tell him to. He is also slowly picking up Tulu (my language) due to our frequent visits to Malpe. He knows a lot of words but doesn't form sentences as yet - only a few which he uses with his cousin Ridhi. I guess he will be fluent in Tulu as well in a couple of years or so - I am in no hurry and I know that he eventually will :)

Meanwhile, thank you Doraemon :)

2 comments:

Aparna said...

Did not realize this side effect of TV watching :). That's really great - I can imagine the joy grandparents and relatives feel when they hear their mother tongue from the children!
Unfortunately I don't like the sound of the Tamil or Mallu TV serials - cartoon or otherwise, so will have to just hope some other way will work out for my kids.

poornima said...

Aparna - yes, Adi's grandparents were thrilled when they heard him speak hindi. It makes it so much easier for them to converse too. I guess over the last few years even they became less hesitant to speak English but they are much much more comfortable speaking Hindi and am glad they can do that now.