A child being bilingual

[lightand]

Hello

One of my grandchildren will grow up being biligual. He is currently 7 months old.

I dont know what to expect. Can people give me some pointers please? fwiw, the language other then English, will not be a European one.

Why does it matter the other language isn't a European one? You sound a bit weird tbh. Being bilingual is a great advantage for a child and if they grow up that way they will understand both languages if spoken regularly to them.

My niece is bilingual and speaks one language with English family and the other language with her other family. I believe both are used are home. It hasn't caused any issues.

A friend of mine wrote a really interesting article about this- she only speaks Mandarin to the children, her husband only speaks French. The children go to an English medium school and mostly speak to their friends in English. Both parents also speak fluent English although it's not their first language and speak English to one another. What she said was that as the children have got older, although they understand Mandarin/ French at a fluent level, they increasingly respond in English and that you have to just go along with that, given that they live in a country where neither Mandarin/ French are widely spoken and the parents speak it to one another.

However, other friends where both parents are German, only speak in German to the DC and the kids speak German back (they also know English as they go to an English medium school) , so I think if the parents speak the same language to each other it makes it possible to be stricter on it than if the parents speak a different language to each other than to the children.

My children are bilingual, they learned their second language at nursery/school.

Just keep reading, talking, singing in your language when you see your gc. They eventually learn to distinguish and speak each language separately.

Of course he isn’t chatty. He’s 7 months!

You speak to him in the language you and him share and he will speak to other family members in the language he shares with them.

@lightand

pointers such as

do they choose one language over another?
do they speak later, and with fewer words initially?
I presume young children mix the languages together frequently?

as you can see, I am clueless

The language they are most exposed to is usually favored. Children will often associate a particular language with particular people so if Mum speaks English and Dad speaks Arabic you might find your grandchild tells Dad off if he speaks English.

There is no reason to speak later, most children in the world grow up bi or multilingual. Children brought up with a sign language usually sign from a younger age and have a wider vocabulary but this is because it is easier to make hand shapes than clear sounds.

Very rarely will they mix up the languages, there are a couple of times they will eg if they don't know the word in the language eg when I was about 10 we had neighbours with a Dutch mum and English dad, the only time I heard their little boy mix up words was when he was talking to my mum about the vacuum cleaner. His mum did the vacuuming while dad was at work.

There is also something called 'code switching' this is used between people who are bilingual or people who share a dialect.

So lets say you make shortbread for your grandchildren, it might become known as 'Nanny's shortbread' and it will stay that way when your grandchild is speaking their other language.

Bilingual books can be found in the UK and you may also get them from the other language's country (ies).

He is very young but once he starts reading he might like to have the books in both languages,

Reading / writing can be a bit tougher particularly if the language has a different alphabet. It's easier if the other language uses the same alphabet and is phonetic, in which case you teach the child English reading and writing and they will pick up the other.

If you want to do some reading your local library will probably have some books, David Crystal's 'The Cambridge encyclopedia of language' is a good place to start if you are interested in language generally,

I think your just talk to the child in the language you share with them.

@lightand

For instance, I dont think he is currently very "chatty".

Over christmas, he had people from both nationalities in the same room[which wont happen that often]. If I was a young child, I would be confused by two languages at the same time, as well!

And yet people in India survive hey? Official language English, national language Hindi, and mother tongue local langauge of whatever state you are in so Tamil Bengali Punjabi whatevs. Trilingual from birth - Indians somehow still make it in a cacophony of languages and scripts.

Jesus wept. Leave them be - let the kid learn what they learn. Highly unlikely they will successfully learn the minority language anyway given such a monolingual society in England. Poor parent will possibly try One Parent One Langauge and very often feel despair and frustration and sadness - least you can do is be supportive.

The OP sounds weirdly insular. Have you never lived in a bilingual country OP, or been in an environment other than English England? Are you aware all former English colonies and French colonies very successfully speak English alongside much else? Perhaps you haven’t got any Moroccan or Indian mates?

we are a bilingual household. in addition we live in a third country so have to use an additional language out of the house as well.

it's not an issue.

there is very little mixig of languages ime and dc can comfortably switch depending on who they speak to.

talk to the child in your language and presumable family members from 'the other side' will talk to dc in their language.

My DS speaks English at home and another language at nursery. It's not enough for him to be bilingual but it's amazing for his development. No confusion at all. Their brains are amazing!

My granddaughter is bi-lingual - both parents speak to her in their native language - English/Italian - was a slight delay in speech but it is truly amazing to hear a 6 year old switch between the 2 languages mid-sentence. She has books in both languages and watches tv in both languages - not sure what is worse - Peppa Pig in English or Italian lol

DC from bilingual families usually start speaking a bit later, they have lesser vocabulary for each language then average speaker but greater vocabulary altogether.

@lightand

and what about books? have books in both languages? though I dont think there are that many baby books in the other country. But I dont know that for 100%. I do know that toys there are in short supply and poor quality.

At this point I feel you need to butt out.

Thanks for the replies.
I will take time to read through all the posts.

One adult cannot speak the language of the other. The other parent is fluent in both.

Reading / writing can be a bit tougher particularly if the language has a different alphabet

Hadnt thought about that.
Same aphabet as far as I know, but several letters have different pronunciations. G may become c, D sounds like G etc

my grandchildren are trilingual - all European languages.

Before they started Kindergarten, the two languages they spoke were from the mother and father but more rarely from the country they live in. However once they started Kindergarten the language of the country they live in became the one they used between themselves.

What really amazed me (and still does) is that they used the relevant language depending on whom they spoke to. With a neighbour they automatically switched to the language of where they live, but with mother's relatives they spoke the appropriate language and the same with relatives of the Dad. They just automatically spoke in the relevant language to the person they were speaking with. They didn't wait for the other person to speak first so giving them a clue as to which language but just went right in using the correct one. They were too young to even understand that that there was a such a thing as different languages,.

Are you prepared to share which language?

Yes.
My pronunciation is bad though. See my last post.

I'm in Wales and know a lot of children who grew up with both English and Welsh. IME they're no later to learn to speak but often use words from both languages in one conversation or even sentence to start with - this is a passing phase and nothing to worry about.

If they're taught to read and write in one language first, they may spend some time writing the other language with the spelling of the language they've been taught to write in. In general, again this is nothing to worry about, though I do know a few adults whose spelling in one language (generally English, because they've been to Welsh medium schools) is not great.

Typically bilingual children speak a little later and at first can confuse between the languages but by 3 or so many speak more than one fluently. Written language is harder especially not using the standard alphabet, many parents choose to send them to supplemental lessons eg Saturday school or teach them themselves. Have many bilingual friends and their kids speak the parents native languages but written varies a lot

DD goes to a bilingual school which also helps her be multicultural not just bilingual

I can see that happening in a few years time.
Oh, you dont mean sat morning classes. You mean a school school?
Not sure there is one where they live currently. There is a cafe, but not quite the same!

My children are trilingual. They have the same language development as their peers.
I am bilingual, but I only speak to them in one language. They have always recognised all four languages instantly and even as babies were surprised when people spoke languages they weren’t “supposed” to be speaking.
They can tell the difference between languages easily as long as all the adults in their lives use a single language consistently. My mil doesn’t, so they mix sometimes. They will figure it out eventually.

I don’t think there’s currently a research consensus that bilingual children speak later. What you do have to do is add the words they know in all languages, so a trilingual child with four words in each language is considered to have a vocabulary of 12 words.

We brought our kids up like this - one parent one language - and it worked amazingly and with no delay in speaking.

Once when my daughter was a baby I pointed at a picture of a bird in a book and said 'bird', and then my husband said to her 'und auf Deutsch/and in German?' and she replied 'Vogel'.

We were gobsmacked that she could sort the languages before she could walk.

No need to worry, it's amazing for them.

Don't worry about it, he'll be fine.

My DD is trilingual. From a baby she was exposed to three languages- English spoken with me, Italian spoken with DH and French in school as we live in French speaking Switzerland.

She switches easily between all three languages, will pick a word from another language where vocabulary is missing and she speaks franglais with her friends but mostly English.

If you don’t speak any of the languages except English, there’s nothing for you to do.