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Categories > Your Questions — General > How are multilingual families using "apps" on ipads and smartphones?
 
 


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Melania
  Posted   Reply with quote  #1 
Hi Everyone, 

My husband and I, as well as our nanny, speak and read to our daughter (20 months) in Ukrainian.  She is already hearing some English at home when my husband and I speak to each other in English, and on television.  At this time, my focus is to help her develop Ukrainian language capability as she will learn English at school and outside the home (we live in the US; our community language is English).

I have downloaded some age-appropriate “apps” to our family ipad and smartphones for our daughter and I allow her to play with these from time to time.  All the apps are in English.  Sometimes I turn off the sound and narrate the apps myself.  Other times, I leave the sound on, and add my own commentary – repeating key English words in Ukrainian, explaining content in Ukrainian, asking questions about the characters in Ukrainian etc.  

My question is for multilingual parents who are also using apps on tablet computers such as the ipad, and smartphones: how are you using apps in your multilingual home? 
Do you seek out apps in your home language?  Do you turn the sound off? Do you add commentary in your home language? What else do you do? What do you find effective (and frustrating or ineffective)?  And are you interacting with your child and apps in the same way that you do (ie. using the same strategies) for reading books?

I would really love to hear any comments, ideas, questions or feedback that you may have!  

Sincerely, 
Melania
1. I live in the US
2. Our family speaks Ukrainian at home
3. Our child is 20 months
4. Language system is [email protected]
 
irina
  Posted   Reply with quote  #2 
Hi!

My daughter who is 19 mo is exposed to Russian from me and Spanish from my husband.  She also hears a lot of English.  We are utilizing the OLOP method and it seems to be working well.  As for the iPad we have actually found some apps in all 3 languages that she is exposed to.  Our favorite one is called LinguPingu which combines Russian and Spanish – our minority languages.  I don’t know if there are any Ukranian apps since (while I speak it as well) we have chosen not to introduce a 4th language at this time.  I found that people who bought their iPads in Russia have a lot more Russian speaking apps, perhaps this may be the case for Ukranian as well.

Good luck!

Irina
 
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