A nice Washington Post story by Monica Bhide about teaching her son another language:
As a very young child, my son Jai had an unaccountable aversion to learning any language other than English. Yet, I was determined to teach him Hindi, my mother tongue, to ensure he did not miss out on a culture and heritage for lack of simple knowledge of its language.
I would point to his clothes, toys and books and encourage him to respond with their Hindi names. Eventually, he spoke a few words — he could point to a chair and call it kursi and say the numbers from 1 to 10 in Hindi. But he did not know simple phrases such as “How are you?” or “My name is Jai.” He could not have a conversation in Hindi.
That all changed during a trip to India when Jai was 4. I was sitting with my mother on the floor, shelling peas. As we were laughing and talking, Jai wandered over, picked up a pea pod with great curiosity and asked what it was. It is mattar, my mother told him. Peas? he wondered. Inside this? He loved the fact that he could open the pod and find a treasure. He opened one, then another and another. He sat still, which in itself was an achievement. He began to listen to us, to ask questions.
Some mothers like to color with their young children, some read books, some watch television. I could never have imagined our time together would be used to shell peas.
Once we were back in the States, I searched supermarkets and farmers’ markets for peas in pods. I rinsed them, patted them dry and waited for 3 o’clock so I could pick up Jai from school and we could shell peas. When pea pods were hard to find, I cheated, more than once passing off edamame as peas. Rarely were we able to eat the peas for dinner; by the time Jai’s tiny fingers got them out of the pods, they were too squished or had gone straight into his mouth. I didn’t care as long as we sat and shelled and talked…
It’s a touching account that helps me understand how stories and languages get passed on. Maybe my mother would have learned her parents’ native Norwegian if instead of offering a penny for each word learned they’d sat around the kitchen telling stories and preparing food. (Via Taccuino di traduzione.)
Indian culture is great, one just needs to understand it’s deepness to attain any heights of the world, success starts from the right basics, which are taught sitting on mother’s lap and not sitting in Mc Donalds eating fast food!! 😉
I’m disappointed you didn’t title this post “Peas and Understanding”.
Hey, what’s so funny ’bout peas, love, and understanding?
I’m actually disappointed this wasn’t called “Matar and child reunion”
I’m hiring Dr. Weevil and michael farris to title my posts from now on.
All I am saying is give peas a chance…
I cant help but visualise whirled peas.
Peas learn Hindi?
“Peas learn Hindi?”
Yes, you might say it’s the Matarsprache
Ooh, very good!
Pease, bread, land.
I like to poop on cats to peas them off.