Hi everybody, BigBong here!
Today, I have the pleasure to be with the polyglot father
Tetsu from asktetsu.com
A few weeks back, I had the chance to receive
a Mandarin Chinese lesson from Ronnie
who is Tetsu's first son
And I was a little curious about how he raised all his children
So today, I've prepared a few questions for you
if that's all right...
So first of all, can you tell us a little bit about your background?
Sure!
Usually, I give a very brief background
and I say: I was born in Hong Kong
to a Taiwanese father and a Japanese mother
and we all moved back to Taiwan when I was very young
8 months or something...
So from there, up to 13 years old, I was living in Taiwan
I was sent to an American school
So I was educated in English
But I also spoke Mandarin
in Taiwan, which is the official language
with people in Taiwan, my family
and then also, I spoke Japanese with my mother
And in Taiwan, there is also dialects called Taiwanese
that's understood by maybe 70〜75% of the people
everybody speaks that and Hakka
which is a language spoken regionally
where my father came from
So 13 years in Taiwan, I was exposed to these 5 languages
Then I came to Canada, in Quebec
I lived in Montreal
I went to a little high school here, in French
So that's my first introduction to French
And after that, I think I learned Spanish
when I was 18 years old
This is the first language, I really learned by myself
As in actively learn a language
rather than living in a language
So after that, I thought: "Oh great, I can learn languages!"
I tried to study German, Italian at the university
Also traveling, I learned a little bit a Portuguese
When I say, languages that I speak
I always say English, French, Japanese, Mandarin and Spanish
in that order of fluency
These are the 5 that I always consider myself fluent in
When you decided to have a family and raise children
did you already know that it was gonna be in a
multicultural/multilingual environment
or was it something that just happened?
Think about it, I grew up in a multilingual environment
created by my parents
I cannot thank them enough
So I'm basically doing the same thing
for my children, kind of like a pay it forward idea
And for me, everything was planned
right from day one or I would even say
before day one, since I was speaking to my wife's tummy
to my first son
when she was pregnant with our first son
I was speaking always in Mandarin
We were living in Japan
And the plan was already, I would speak Mandarin
and my wife would speak in Japanese
and then later, we would introduce different languages
and create an environment for that
Now more about the methodology
What's your approach, how do you teach them languages?
I would say, we have a philosophy or a methodology
It's called "OPOL"
It's "One Person One Language"
Many people also refer it to "One Parent One Language"
But in our case, we have 5 languages that we're teaching them
So we need more than just the 2 parents
So OPOL basically means you have to apply
or attribute a language to one specific person
So I always speak Mandarin with the kids
My wife always speaks Japanese with the kids
And also we live here with my parents
So my father who's Taiwanese also speaks Mandarin with the kids
and my mother who's Japanese speaks Japanese with the kids
Then living in Quebec, we send the kids to
the community language is French
school, daycare, everything is in French
And also, this is something that was introduced strategically
we have au pairs
which are basically living nannies who live with us
We invite au pairs from Mexico
and that's the introduction of Spanish
which I think would be a very important language
in our children's life
I see that your children do many activities
including music or sports
Is it because you're active yourself
or because they want
or even because it's part of your educational strategy?
It is once again part of the educational strategy
We want the kids to have various talents
Because in life, we will face a lot of obstacles
So we want them to have this mindset of
if they want to do something... they can do it
they try, they work hard and they'll be able to do it
So for that, we let them do as you said
play music, instruments, do a lot of sports
team sports or individual sports
It's not necessarily because I am active in these sports
There are a few that I played when I was younger
But if it wasn't for them, I probably wouldn't be as active...
as I am today
But the strategy itself is quite similar to our language strategy
We create that infrastructure
So for music, we have a piano at home, we have guitars, drum sets
It's there, it's easy for them to access
And we don't hire any teachers... yet
We just figured, it's there
if they're interested, they'll do it
and sure enough, my first son, he is very interested in piano and drums
We have an electronic drums
so we set it up to a Playstation
with games that he plays
through that, he is learning how to play drums
he's never taken a lesson
Same thing with piano, we download some applications
on an iPad and he would just go on, it's like a challenge
or a game, and he learns how to read within a few weeks
He is playing "Imagine" and different songs
He is enjoying himself and that's the critical element
The kids have to enjoy what they're doing
In terms of sports, we moved back from Asia
to live here in Bromont
where we live right now, it's a ski town
The mountain is literally 3 minutes away
So it's very easy for us, one afternoon
to say: "hey it's nice outside, let's go out!"
And we just go skiing, the ice arena is right there
so playing hockey or skating
My daughter loves horseback riding
and there is ranches around and they have their lessons
Gymnastics, ballet, you name it
We have within a 10 to 15 minute drive
you have a lot of things that they can do here
So that's really what I mean by creating that environment
Well thank you very much for answering all my questions
If you're interested in raising multilingual and multitalented children
Go on his website asktetsu.com
and all his social media accounts
and we'll see you soon for more videos, bye!