Raising a tri-lingual kid. AMA!

[WakeAndBake]

DW and I are from different countries, live in a third European country and DD is nearly 2. So far she seems to be doing well in all three languages!

Anyone got any questions or tips on the subject?

[LemonSock]

I’m more used to bilingual set-ups where each parent exclusively speaks their own language to the child, or both speak the non-local language at home so that the child picks up the local language outside the home.

How do you ‘divide’ things linguistically?

[mulkshake]

What are the languages? I think what you're doing is so fantastic for your child and will be such a benefit to them

[bookmum08]

I knew someone once who was tri-lingual. I asked her once what language she dreamed in. She thought about it and said she didn't know. Not really a question for the OP but have always been fascinated by that.

[FrownPrincess]

Young children are like sponges when it comes to absorbing languages. My DC grew up trilingual, and my DGD is pretty much quadrilingual at the age of four, having started learning language number four at pre-school with total immersion.
Don’t worry if DD mixes languages occasionally, she’ll soon learn not to. DGD went through a phase of not speaking her mother’s language (although she understood it), perhaps because DIL was the sole speaker so there was less interaction than in the other languages, but a couple of weeks’ holiday with grandparents and cousins got her up to speed and she now speaks like a native of that country.
My main advice is to persevere through the occasional blips you may encounter, and don’t listen to people who say it’s too much. In quite a few countries it isn’t unusual for children to be trilingual or more, and they manage just fine.

[PantTwizzler]

Think OP hasn't quite grasped that she has to come back and answer questions. Shame!

[WakeAndBake]

Sorry to reply so late! The languages are English, Spanish and Swedish. Our technique is to say everything in all three languages as much as possible. We don’t separate the languages at all and frequently use all three in the same sentence! Seems to be working so far!

[PantTwizzler]

Lucky child!