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.

I would say depending on the other language then kid books might be hard to get hold of, if it's like Zulu or Tagalog or something. Not your problem necessarily but something it might be nice to support the family with.

Oh, and although I don’t have the confidence to speak in Italian, I do understand a LOT of it and respond in English. And that’s despite me and Ex splitting 5 years ago so I’m not exposed to it as much any more.

It’s a fantastic thing for a child to grow up bi or tri lingual. Your DGC is so very very lucky.

Children may take longer to speak, but they will probably speak and comprehend both languages well.

You should model speaking your language as perfectly as you can. I’m part of a bilingual family in the next generation down from me. I learnt the other language on and off so can follow conversations - you could do this. We all tend to bounce around in both languages although the children do rather laugh at my attempts at their other language and just switch to English.

But it is fantastic and your DGC are very lucky!

My kids are bilingual- English and Scots Gaelic. We speak English at home but I can understand a reasonable amount of Gaelic. They go to a GME school and speak Gaelic with their friends. It's amazing though to hear them switch from one to the other mid conversation.

My only problem was that I had to get a friend who spoke more than me (at the time) to tell me all the swear words because my little monkeys thought it was hilarious to swear knowing I didn't understand them.

If its a language that's on duolingo why don't you learn a bit of it yourself? Impress your grandson by being able to play games like hide and seek in his language.

It's important that parents consistently speak just one language to the child

One of the parents is consistently speaking both.

If its a language that's on duolingo why don't you learn a bit of it yourself?

I have been doing that. It is not going terribly well. Even dou lingo is telling me to be careful of my pronunciation!

You sound very like my parents did when my oldest niece was born.

Lots of 'subtle' questions about how it was going to work, what was going to happen, how clueless they were.

It really irritated my brother and sister-in-law. I would try to work out a strategy so you don't come across as judgy. I am sure if they want you to do something particular, they'd be able to say so. If not, chances are they're not too fussed what you do.

FWIW when my niece was born, my SIL was fluent in two languages and my DB was only fluent in English. All the children are bilingual and perfectly able to assess who they need to speak one language to, and who will need the other. My brother's second language has become more fluent though he will never be mistaken for a native speaker (you could mistake my SIL for a native speaker if you weren't paying close attention to her accent).

I don't think all of the children's teachers/friends at school even know they speak another language - it's just not obvious or a problem.

@seekinglondonlife

There's a very good book called Bilingual by Choice that you should read OP, it answers lots of questions.

Thanks. And I will have a look at the other links too.

And may message the poster who said she may help me with finding books in the language.

About the toys- a lot of toys don't need a language to play with them unless they're one of those hideous all singing, dancing and flashing things.

Mine are playing with lego at the moment which is definitely a bilingual thing

Lightand

Look on Amazon. There are loads of books on there

We are part of an expat community & speak English at home, but our son is due January and will need to speak English & french. We speak both but only English really at home unless something on TV or friends round etc. I anticipate baby learning English first really with us, but we will make an effort to expose him to french and then when he’s at nursery etc he will be surrounded by French. We have lots of expat friends in same situation, I’ve not seen any of the kids struggle apart from the older ones who join french school at 8 years old for example and it’s a baptism of fire. Even then 3 months in and they are almost fluent. They are very quick to learn and honestly kids don’t have the same inhibitions as adults- they just try and understand. You could try and find some bilingual books or even make some flash cards with animals and the two languages on which will be a great help to them. I wouldn’t think too much about it- they will just carry on oblivious! You will find they will be stronger in one language than the other if there is one language they speak much more frequently than the other. Xo

@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.

This is coming across quite demeaning. You clearly look down on the other parents country of origin. Being bilingual is amazing for children's development, you should be thanking your lucky stars that your grandchild shall be bilingual. I hope your attitude won’t be picked up by your grand children

OP, it won’t hurt the child’s development in the slightest to grow up hearing 2 languages at home. Billions of people grow up like this. Multilingualism is actually more common than monolingualism across the world.
Bilingualism doesn’t necessarily mean that the person ends up speaking both languages exactly as a monolingual speaker would. And that’s fine. Your grandson won’t be damaged in any way if he ends up writing better in the language he uses at school rather than the other language for example.
The only thing that could have a negative effect here is if the parent who speaks the minority language (so the one not used in the wider community /school etc where the child lives) becomes convinced that they must not use their native language with their own child and must instead speak their second language. So imagine a French mum living in the UK who is told she will stop the child achieving well at school if she speaks French at home. So she feels obliged to use English. But her English is not very strong and she doesn’t have a wide a vocabulary as she does in French. So the child will learn less about the world around them from their mother than if she had been confident enough to use the language she knows the best.
Don’t suggest to your child and their partner that raising their child bilingually is wrong.

My children are bilingual. My first language is English which I spoke to them unless there was a Greek speaking person present in which case I used Greek. My ex dh did the same. Greek or English if non Greek speaker present. Children are now adults and are bilingual though we tend to use both languages together depending on the circumstances. Occasionally some sentences are a mix of both.

Some children raised in two language households speak a bit later, but immediately in two languages, others initially have more confidence in the primary carers language (if they have one) and their other language comes a bit later. Just like children raised in houses with only one language every child develops at their own rate.
Learning two languages from birth has been known to develop strong neuro pathways so can, in theory, mean they find other skills easier such as at school, but again every child is an individual. It’s a real gift to be able to speak two languages fluently and you’ll find your grandchild will, in time, switch easily between their languages depending on whom their taking too. I once taught in an international nursery school. I remember at parents evening having a conversation with a 4 year old (in English as that was the language used in school) she also spoke to her mum in German and her dad in Spanish. We had been learning about animals and as the French teacher passed she asked (in French) what was the word for monkey in English as they had been learning a song in French. She then asked her parents what the word for monkey was in their/her respective languages - it was unbelievable to watch. She spoke four languages in the space of a two minute conversation and knew exactly who to speak which language too. It was incredible to be part of. Don’t worry OP. It’s great that you’re aware and want to learn and understand.

The only thing that could have a negative effect here is if the parent who speaks the minority language (so the one not used in the wider community /school etc where the child lives) becomes convinced that they must not use their native language with their own child and must instead speak their second language

She seems to maybe use her native language when it is just her and the child. And English mainly, when with others. She regularly uses the other language for his name. I dont think she will drop her own language at all, and I dont expect her to.
Feel I may be a bit telling tales out of class, so wont write too much more.

My kids are bilingual in a language that DP and I don’t speak (Welsh) they’ve been at Welsh nursery and school and are now completely fluent reading and writing in both languages. It hasn’t been an issue at all and the older one is now moving on to French and Spanish and finding it comparatively easy (to my experience anyway!) They did sometimes mix up the two languages earlier on but they’d stopped doing that by 6/7.

Speaking more than one language is a wonderful skill to give your children if you are able.

Will be fantastic for him. So much research on the benefits. Most of the world is multi-lingual and the best time to learn languages is when young.
He will jumble words from the two languages to begin with, but it's a natural part of the learning journey and is not a problem. My kids were brought up with two languages and I only wish I'd added a third.

Dd is bilingual nearly trilingual. We did not stick rigidly to one parent one language. She had delayed speech but then sorted out the two main languages and doesn’t make mistakes in either of the main two - language 3 is in school and only recent but she seems to be doing ok in that too.

Hello OP.
This is an absolute gift for your grandchild. My son is trilingual and speaks the third language (his school language) better than either of us. We are extremely happy knowing this skill is an insight into culture as well as language. He was slightly slower on language benchmarks than a monolingual child. My husband was about to give p with his language but persevered and so glad he did. Have patience. It's wonderful!

@lightand

It's important that parents consistently speak just one language to the child

One of the parents is consistently speaking both.

The original comment here is referring to 'one parent one language,' which is one option for bilingual children. It's not appropriate in all circumstances. FWIW, as I've said, my brother's children became very easily and unproblematically bilingual without needing one parent to keep consistently to one language. Their dad needed to practise speaking the second language to improve his fluency, and their mum lives and works in England so found it natural to speak some English to them. What they didn't find helpful was for people to speak very bad versions of either language, so we all avoided that - but again, that's probably personal choice and I'm sure they could let you know.

Oh, and - interestingly, my oldest niece was very slightly slower than expected to speak (she was still well without the bounds of normal, but she had quite a long period of being a little 'stuck' on the very early stages), but her siblings haven't been at all, as they had not only parents, but also siblings, who were speaking both languages to them.

It’s already normal for your grandson that mum uses one language when it’s just them and another language when there are others around who don’t speak the first language. He’s been hearing her native language from before he was born, and English too as it sounds like she would have been speaking that everyday too. The switching won’t perturb him in the slightest.
Honestly, if they are living in an English speaking country then you have absolutely nothing to worry about here. It’s not your responsibility to speak his mother’s language to him since you are a total beginner learner. If interactions with dad and school and friends are in English then he will speak English with no issues so you won’t have any trouble communicating. The only thing I think you should do is read up a bit about bilingualism so you can tell anyone expressing misplaced concern that they don’t know what they’re talking about. Also you should be unfailingly positive about your gs speaking 2 languages. Your DIL will thank you for it. Helping source children’s books in the other language is a lovely gesture, as long as DIM reads the language and as long as the dialect children’s books are written is is the same or similar to what your dIL speaks.

I'd add please encourage your DIL to speak her own language to her grandson, even in your presence. Don't make her feel bad or excluded about it. It feels really weird speaking to your own children in a language you're not comfortable in.

What is the language?