I am always curious about other families like us (trying to teach their children Japanese). Where do they live? Why do they want to teach their children the Japanese language and culture, and how do they do it? What is their cultural background? Do they have a blog? What’s their story?
This page is under construction, but I am hoping that in the future, I will have guest posts by other families, sharing their experiences with us. All of those posts will be showcased on this page.
If you are interested in sharing your family’s story on my blog, please send me an email at hiraganamama at gmail dot com. I am hoping it will be a great way for all of us to connect, find support, share tips, discover new resources for learning, and maybe make new friends!
Well my mother is helping me learn Japanese culture and language because of my determination to learn it. She has bought me some software and is even in the process of getting me a tutor. We come from a Hispanic background. Our family is generations out of spain and I myself moved to America from Colombia. I am not contempt with learning just a few phrases and memorizing how to spell or read a few words. I am into engineering and would love to get a job in Japan in around 6 years to help fix all the problems with overcrowding and develop new technologies .I want to learn from scratch and I am glad you have already gathered some resources for me to use. Thank You Hiragana
you’re welcome!
Hi! I’m an Italian mum, married to a Japanese and raising my children trilingual (Italian, Japanese and English) in the UK. Our daughters are 3 and a half and 2 yrs old.
Your blog looks very interesting and I’m sure I’ll find very useful resources for my girls!
Thanks for the visit, Gemma! I’ll be in touch!
Hi Hiragana Mama!
We are an English speaking American family living in Tokyo. Both my husband and I beginners in the Japanese language and we have two daughters who were born here in Japan aged 1 and 3. We are hoping to send our girls to Japanese school so we are starting to teach them hiragana and read simple Japanese books to them. Your website has been a great resource already. We are preparing for Hina Matsuri and we are going shopping for ingredients to make strawberry daifuku and chirashi zushi tonight. Thanks for all the info on your site. My daughters love watching the Japanese youtube videos you post.
Thanks!
That is great! Sounds like your daughters will become bilingual for sure :)
I’m a Scots artist/teacher/occasional artists’ model (hey, whatever pays the rent!) and full time single dad to two Nagasaki girls.
One art project I did for my teaching qualification was a bilingual book for chibis which I just loaded up to the Amazon Kindle store here;
Where is Baby's Room?
Apologies for the spamming ;) But I have a reason; bilingual books are pretty hard to come by even in English, if anyone wants to put it into other languages for their bilingual kids, I’m quite happy to put it up on Kindle for free download for them. It’s never going to be a huge money spinner anyway!
Just to add, I’ve downloaded it myself just now and the formatting is all wrong, so nobody buy it until I’ve sorted it out ;(
Cool, let us know, and good luck!
I am a Nikkei Sansei who lived in Japan for 5 years (Nagoya for 2 years and Tokyo for 3 years). My Italian American husband and I have 3 children, a 5 year old girl, 3 year old boy, and 8 month old boy. I have been trying to teach them about Japan through the holidays, foods, and books and TV. My 3 year old is crazy about sumo! We watch the sumo bassho faithfully every 2 months, and he loves Baruto, Hakuho, and Harumafuji.
I am an American Mom of a 5 yr old Daughter. My husband was born in America with a German father and a Japanese mother. My mother in law passed away two years after my daughter’s birth. Needless to say my Daughter will never know her grandmother “Mamo”. My husband is teaching her some basic Japanese. He was taught French by his mother and not Japanese. :O) So I am trying to keep the Japanese alive for my daughter. I LOVE your website very much. My only problem is I have no idea where to start with my daughter. I have printed a Hiragana chart that my so my daughter and I can learn together. Is this a good place to start learning to speak/read Japanese? Thank you for your website.
My husband and I are both Caucasian and living in America. We lived in Japan briefly which is where I was when I found out I was expecting our first child. We decided to come home where our situation was more stable but the experience stuck with us and we decided to continue our Japanese studies here and to include our two children in it. It’s valuable to know more than one language and to have cultural sensitivity and it’s fun too. We’re hoping to eventually add Chinese to the mix but are sticking with just Japanese/English for now. Our kids are far from bilingual but have a pretty nice Japanese vocabulary that we are constantly increasing. They watch movies in Japanese and we translate some of their kids’ stories in Japanese. We play together while speaking Japanese and teach them words while we’re out and about. They even attend church monthly in Japanese and love it! I love your site and all the valuable resources it brings to us. We’ve gotten help in choosing age appropriate youtube clips, we’ve introduced a bit of hiragana, and we’ve gotten book ideas. Thanks for all your work!
Thank you so much for your comments!! How are you able to attend a Japanese church in America? That’s pretty lucky. Good luck with everything!
My husband and I are both American, but I majored in International Relations and Asian Studies and minored in Japanese. (We live in Northwest Arkansas–the university here has an amazing Japanese program!)
I’m hoping to get into the JET program or the Foreign Service in 2013. We have 3 kids (ages 4, 7, and 8), and I’m trying to teach them Japanese so that if/when I get a job in Japan they will know enough to get by and go to the local schools. I don’t want them in an international school. I want them to go to school with kids in the neighborhood and to be able to communicate. They already enjoy watching shows in Japanese, some animes (and they’ve even watched some J-dorama’s with me)!
Good for you for doing what you can to prepare for the future!
Who would have thought that Arkansas of all places would have a great Japanese program? That’s great!
Good luck getting into the JET.
My husband, two young daughters and I have been living in Japan for 1 year. It’s been a real challenge for all of us to learn Japanese but it’s also been fascinating and rewarding. We’re heading back to our home in the U.S. and I want us all to keep learning once we’re there. Thank you for putting this page out there, it’s always great to find welcome communities of people for sharing knowledge ^_^
Japanese is definitely a challenging language to learn, especially when you’ve only had a year to learn it!
Have a wonderful trip back to the USA!
My husband is stationed in Japan on a Marine Corps base in Iwakuni so my 3 year-old daughter and I are living here with him. I am studying Japanese, as well as the history and culture, as part of a 4 year degree program online through the University of Maryland. We are all American and have no Japanese ancestry, but I have been fascinated by Japan for years. I just never got motivated to learn more than the basics as far as language goes. We’ve already been here a year and I’m ready to really buckle down so that I can use the language before we have to move back to the U.S. in 2 more years. I considered putting my daughter in a yochien but have opted not to as we homeschool and it is very important to me that she be home with me. I found your site while looking for resources to keep my daughter and myself learning and growing in the Japanese language and culture during the rest of our stay here and beyond. Since we are homeschooling, I am currently working on the English alphabet and such with my daughter so I’m trying to figure out the best way to approach teaching her Japanese, as well, without completely confusing her.
Sounds like a fun adventure! :) Have you already checked out starfall.com for learning the alphabet?
Yes, starfall.com is in my arsenal for later in the year. My daughter Anya recognizes most of her letters but hasn’t gotten the hang of the fine motor skills necessary for tracing and writing yet so I’m working on that with her now by helping her write with my hand over hers and letting her trace with her finger instead of a pencil to get her ready for some of those awesome printouts starfall.com has. We do the animated games together, and my daughter loves them so far though I have to do the clicking and she dictates where to put the letters because she cannot get the hang of only clicking one half of the mouse. I need to get her a mouse made for little hands. : )
Hi! I am a Japanese mom, raising 2 young children(almost 5 & 3 years old) in the U.S. My husband and I were born and raised in Japan, both of kids were born and are to be raised in the U.S. I think my kids’ situation is similar to yours as a child. My kids still speak Japanese better than English. However, as they acquire better command of English, how I can help with my children to keep and improve their Japanese is getting a new challenge for me. I am so glad to find your blog! Looking forward to reading your other posts.
Thanks you for the visit, Michi! Are your children attending Japanese School? Growing up, my Japanese friends who attended Japanese School on Saturdays ended up being the most fluent as adults. I didn’t attend, but my parents worked really hard to teach me at home using Gakushuusho. It was definitely a struggle at times. Good luck!
Kids are still too young to attend Japanese School. I probably consider sending them to Japanese School when older one turns 1st grade of Japanese school system. Currently some of families with 5-6 year-olds gather once a week, and moms are trying to introduce children Japanese songs, kana-letters, stories etc. Very casual, small group. We are trying to find better way to keep kids’ interest, and usually find it very difficult! I’m simply amazed that you and your parents kept high motivation to learn, and made a lot of effort.
im 15 so im teaching myself japanese so i know it isnt the easyest thing to do esspecially the structure of how you learn things im from the uk and it seems people where i live arnt that into japanese :) just thought this would be fun to share