Time to start correcting mistakes?

[ofelixculpa]

I'm a single mom in a country where the majority language isn't English (Hungary). I speak almost exclusively English at home with my kids. When my older one, now 5, first learned to talk, English was definitely her stronger language. But now that she's in public school and uses Hungarian all day long with her teachers and peers, I've noticed her making more and more mistakes in English that she didn't use to make a year ago. Some examples of the grammatical errors she's picked up in the last 6 months, that she wasn't making this time last year, are

• past-tense irregular verbs; she applies -ed endings to all verbs, e.g. "I falled down at school today" (yes, I know this is normal at first but as I said this is a new error she's picked up)
• past-tense negative verbs; she uses both didn't + past form, such as "I didn't falled down at school today" (again, new error)
• uses he/she, him/her, and his/her interchangeably (Hungarian doesn't have gendered pronouns)
• uses conditionals wrong, e.g. "if I will eat all my dinner, I can have a treat" (of course she's not aware of the grammar but she wasn't doing this before, either)
• wrong order for indirect questions, e.g. "Do you know what day is it?"

Now, I teach English here and I know for a fact that a lot of these patterns are common when translating directly from Hungarian to English. She also uses peculiar vocabulary that's clearly a mirror translation from Hungarian so I'm afraid she's applying Hungarian vocab/grammar and translating it in her head.

Now, when she makes an error like this, I stop her, say what she said but with the correct words/form, and she will stop and repeat it back to me correctly, then continue talking (I don't stop her and say "repeat after me" or anything like that; she's kind of caught on that I'm correcting her and she'll repeat after me on her own without me prompting her).

I feel like correcting a kindergartener's grammar isn't the most helpful but I want to nip this in the bud before these become fossilized errors. She also watches English cartoons and we watch movies together, so she's picked up a lot of vocab that wouldn't typically come up just in our household or day-to-day life which is great. But I'm the only native English speaker she has any regular interaction with.

Is this the right time to start correcting her, since I know the errors are coming from directly translating from Hungarian? Since we're not really around other kids who have a native English speaking parent (we know other families who speak English but they're NNES, so it's common to hear those kids make these same mistakes too), I don't know what I should expect at her age in terms of grammar and vocabulary development, but I do feel her English is backsliding since starting school full-time.

 

[chubba1025]

@ofelixculpa My husband and I do OPOL and we do correct our 3yo. Mostly we do so by repeating the phrase/word correctly or by saying we are not sure what he means (especially when he uses the community language grammar or lexicon). If he "regresses" to make mistakes he now knows are incorrect, we will just tell him to correct himself. I don't think it's a bad thing to address certain linguistic issues as long as it does not upset the child or interrupt communication.

 

[tanasee]

@ofelixculpa My child did this as well when she started school, pre-kindergarten here, and I corrected by repeating her statement correctly. ("I falled down." — "You fell down? Oh no! Did you get hurt?") Sometimes I'd point to the difference if it was bothering me: "Fell down. Isn't it neat you can say [regular past tense] in X language but you have to say fell in English? Did you get hurt?"

It lasted a few months and then disappeared again. I only see it now when she doesn't have the vocabulary / grammar she needs in one of the non-community languages she speaks.

It's the right time to correct her, as you would with any child making language errors, including a native monolingual speaker. She's (unconsciously) testing whether Hungarian grammar rules can apply in English, and where the borders of each language fall. Confirming that she's making errors will help her figure that out.

 

[ofelixculpa]

@tanasee

She's (unconsciously) testing whether Hungarian grammar rules can apply in English, and where the borders of each language fall.

This is a great way of putting it, never thought of it that way before!

 

[jeff0803]

@ofelixculpa I believe constant correcting might affect the child's confidence in speaking the minority language. I know it to be true for my child in any case. We do not stop to correct him but rather model the correct use of the language.

For example, if he says, 'I falled on the playground', I would say, 'Oh no, you FELL on the playground? How did that happen?'

I know eventually he will pick up the correct grammar. I think a lot of mistakes you mentioned are age appropriate even for kids who grow up in the English-speaking environment. So, I wouldn't necessarily correct mistakes but model and expand on what the child says to make sure they hear the correct usage.

 

[ofelixculpa]

@jeff0803 Thanks, that's what I'm wondering now myself, is which mistakes are developmentally appropriate since we're not around other native English speaking kids so I have no one to compare with. She has some pronunciation problems too (th sounds mostly) but I'm waiting to see if that straightens out; iirc kids can take up to age 7 or so to completely work that out!

 

[aldredian]

@ofelixculpa I'd say yes. Correct her.

I correct my 3 year old all the time. He sometimes say stuff in Mandarin with English grammar.

I've noticed he now self corrects himself. Like, he'd start a sentence. Realises he's saying it with the wrong grammar. Restarts his sentence until he gets it right.

 

[hollyroller7]

@ofelixculpa I’d be careful in correcting and having you interject and her repeat while in the middle of talking. That interruption and breaking her flow could become frustrating and decrease her confidence. I agree with others that the best thing could be that you mirror the right language when talking to her such as “I didn’t falled down” “oh, you didn’t fall down, I see!” I think long term that will lead to less frustration

 

[stacyk]

@ofelixculpa Hi, I'm a Hungarian speaker in a primarily English speaking environment. It's also my 3 year old's strongest language.

However, he also frequently uses the mixes up pronouns. I usually gently correct him and advise everyone else to do so as well. He would then normally repeat the sentence correctly.

 

[ofelixculpa]

@stacyk Köszi! Nem hiszem el, hogy most már 8 éve Magyarországon vagyok, és még mindig alig magyarul, de a gyerekeim tök jól beszélnek!

 

[stacyk]

@ofelixculpa Így szokott ez lenni! Én 10 évet húztam le Angliában de még mindig nem sikerült teljesen levetkőzni az akcentusomat (pedig keményen dolgozom rajta). És bevallom néha amikor gyorsan beszélek én is összekeverem a személyes névmásokat.

A férjem (német anyanyelvű) évekig járt magyartanárhoz de nem sikerült teljesen megtanulnia, nagyon nehéz nyelv egyébként is!)