To think you can have two first languages?

DD learnt BSL from birth but as she can speak people tend to assume English is her first language. She is fully bilingual in both.

I dream in Finnish sometimes, and think in Finnish when I'm speaking it, but I am nowhere near fluent so I don't think dreaming and thinking have all that much to do with whether or not a language is your first language.

My children have two first languages, both pretty equally strong now (it helps that the non-dominant language is English so its reinforced so much besides from me). My DD is educated in Finnish but she prefers to read in English (to the detriment of her school related reading...) but she is not good at translating, some concepts are firmly one language or the other, but my DS seems to be more adept (so far, he's only 5 so early to tell) at translating and keeping information in both languages.

For bureaucratic purposes though they're only allowed one first language, which I put down as English when they were born so means they automatically get put into Finnish as a second language for education which has its issues. They really need to make it so we can put down more than one mother tongue.

I learned 2 languages at schools never dreamt in them. It took few months after relocating for dreams in new dominant language to start. They now revert back few days in my visit to my native country.

Yes, as pps said you can absolutely be bilingual or multilingual from birth and consider both/more you mother tongue.

@Gwenhwyfar that's a current debate we are having at our (bilingual) school.

For me, to be bilingual means that you are fluent in both languages.
To speak a language (at most levels, below C1 IMO), is not the same as being fluent.

W

I lived in a European country for a few years and developed a good level of fluency in that language. I dreamed in that language as well as in English. So although the question of what language someone dreams in is v interesting, it does not demarcate (?) whether or not it's a mother tongue

I'm learning a second language and I've heard that you know you are getting good at a new language when you start dreaming in that language. I haven't started dreaming in it yet but I do think in both languages (or at least try to think in the second language as well). I've spoken to other people who have English as a first language and learned a second language who have said they started dreaming in the new language when they got good enough.

My sons' first language will be English, but the hope is that they will be fluent in both languages despite starting with only English, so I suppose they will only have 1 first language technically but should be equally proficient in 2?

Yes, although you can be bilingual with only one first language and being completely fluent in another. I wouldn't say it has to always mean native level in both languages.

I’m the daughter of immigrants and I initially only spoke my parent’s language - they could also speak English. But spoke their homeland language at home. To the extent that I only learnt English when I went to school. I was definitely bilingual and still am but now I’m much stronger in English.

I'm also a Welsh speaker. Welsh is my mother tongue, but I actually make a living out of being an English native speaker.

'S e Gàidhlig a' chiad chanain aig mo nighean (aig an taigh agus aig Sgoil Araich), ach bruidhnidh i sa Bheurla gu h-àbhaisteach. Bidh e inntinneach dè chanas i anns na bliadhnaichean ri teachd.

(My dd's first language is technically Gaelic, it's what I speak at home and she's in Gaelic education) but she mostly speaks in English. Will be interesting to see what she considers to be her first language in the future.)

Being monolingual is actually unusual from a global perspective. I'm surprised about the dreaming comments (pps wondering about dreaming I mean) - even when I spoke A-Level French and Spanish, they infiltrated my dreams which I'd have thought would be a fairly common experience. As for what language you think in, we have lots of words that mean the same (close and shut for example) and we don't translate one to mean the other. It's just that on a larger scale. I don't translate a phrase like Je m'appelle into English. It is familiar enough that it holds meaning in its own right. Also like when you're familiar enough with the 24 hour clock you don't translate it back to the 12 hour clock, it just means what it means.

Yes, but it's very hard to understand if you're not bilingual. I'm not and it's hard for me to imagine, but I also accept that just because it's hard for me to understand doesn't mean it's not someone else's experience.

What language do you swear in?

I think it's possible, but really hard in practice. My children were totally bilingual, but with school, life and TV in English is has naturally become the first language. I think you'd need to be using both languages really regularly, she's even then the danger is language would become correct dependant.

My daughter speaks English and French fluently. We speak English at home but she started in a creche aged 2 and was entirely educated in French. Her vocabulary is stronger in each language depending on the topic. She watched a lot of UK tv growing up but read books in both languages. Now she's away at Uni and speaking French all the time, she's told me she keeps forgetting words for things in English. I must ask her what language she dreams in.

my children speak English and Polish (I'm from Poland)

Yes of course you can. There's usually a language that is at least slightly dominant, though. Language dominance can shift over time and often varies by topic or situation as well. I don't think you can be totally 100% balanced but you can certainly have more than one first language.

First language also doesn't have to be your most dominant language - it's even possible to completely lose a first language in certain circumstances.

Some people have more than two "first" languages.

I live in central Europe. Two of my English friends here are married to partners from other EU countries which both have their own languages, neither of which is the language of the country in which we all currently live.

Their children speak English, plus the local language, plus the language of their other parent - so they speak three languages fluently and alternate depending on who they are speaking to and the setting, and often they'll say something that changes language mid-sentence.

I am bilingual and dream and think in both languages.
If I am learning a new language, my mother tongue is stronger than English, so I would say that despite being completely bilingual, my first language is dominant.

Yes you can. I grew up speaking Welsh and went through Welsh medium education. I speak English with my friends and some relatives and watch mainly English tv but speak Welsh all day at work, in lots of shops and in the local area. I speak both with my children who are also going through Welsh education and are bilingual.

I wouldn’t say that. Bilingual can encompass a whole range of language abilities. Most bilingual people I know do have one language that they regard as their first and not the other. You do get fully balanced bilinguals though.

For me, it depends. My ‘default’ is whatever I’m predominantly speaking at the time. If I’m mainly speaking English, it’s English. If I’m mainly speaking Serbian, then I think and dream in Serbian. Same for Russian.

I do struggle at time with making translations, because it feels like I have to ‘reset’ and switch to a different part of my brain to process it. It’s hard to explain. You can also fall out of practice with a language. I forget a lot if I haven’t spoken a language for a while, but then it comes back once I start again.

Typically children with parents who speak different languages start spezking both at the same time and for a while mix the two.
As others have said, as they get older one language becomes dominant but it is not always the same.
I am not bilingual from birth but have lived and worked for a long time in a country that speaks a different language. I dream in both languages. If I am dreaming about a specific person they speak in the dream in the language they use in real life.

I live in an area with a lot of bilingual Welsh / English families. Lots of the children have two "first" languages.

Yes of course. It's called being bilingual.