To ask if your DC speak 2 languages please share your experience.

[AHedgehogCanNeverBeBuggered]

We're currently on holiday with PIL. They claim that DS (11 months) will NEVER speak DH's mothertongue because at home we speak English as a family and it's impossible for a child to speak a parent's language unless it's either the lingua franca of the country they live in OR the language they speak as a family.

What is your experience?

Yes @dnawrangler I agree that you can’t expect kids to just ‘pick it up’. Some might (DC2 did), but with most of them I think you really need to be consistent and put the effort in. DC1 loves reading in English (which makes me very happy) and his passive knowledge is very good, but speaking is more of an effort for him whereas DC2 picks up and uses new words and phrases very easily and confidently.

Sorry, meant to add that even though it's probably annoying to hear it's good that PILs have brought this up so that you have a chance to strengthen DH's language.

I also had a minority language myself as a child. It was very hard to learn (total immersion from age 4). Even now the older generation insist that I just picked it up and was fluent in weeks. Total bollocks, I spent many months not having a clue what was going on (I moved schools eight months in so have good time markers!).

Rambling aside, my point is that speaking a language is a very active process that takes a lot of practice.

Good luck

My daughter speaks English and German, both fluently. The German she has learned through being born and always living here in Germany, the English from it being the language we speak at home (my husband and I are both Brits).

In my experience of constellations like yours, the main thing in getting your child to speak and understand your husband's language is that your husband always converse with him (and encourage him to reply) in that language (at least when it's just the two of them) so that it becomes their 'natural' way of communicating one-on-one. The main issue that I see is the amount of time he spends with your husband for them to do this. It seems to me that the PILs could be of help here though. How about some FaceTime or similar once he's old enough so that he gets regular input from them too?

I gather you live in the UK?

The only exposure DS gets is through his grandparents then? Does he see them regularly, or do they live abroad?

DD speaks three languages. I was a SAHM for nearly three years with her and I always speak my language to her at all times. I think some people find it rude but maybe that's the price I have to pay. I work four days a week now and my language is still her strongest. She switches instantly as soon as I pick her up from nursery. She learned English quickly from nursery and it's now her second strongest language. Her weakest is DH's because unlike me, he works full time and comes home quite late. However she does speak and understand it okay and is able to communicate with his side of the family. (They don't speak English.)

Two things are important here, I think: consistency and exposure. We never speak English directly to DD, but repeat things if the other doesn't understand. We try to read stories every night in both languages and DD mainly watches movies in either mine or DH's language. It does require some work. Children are not quite "like sponges" (as people often like to say) and they can only "soak it up" if they hear the language for a substantial part of their waking time.

We plan to take DD to language sessions held by an organisation from DH's country every weekend when she turns four. We also organise regular playdates with children from my country. It's going well, but we do prioritise it.

Sorry for the essay!

Thousands of children in Wales are schooled exclusively in a language that isn’t spoken at home.

Sorry to hijack but have always wondered if one parent only speaks to dc in one language and the other in another language how do you have family conversations.

FWIW I'm a Brit living abroad, I speak to DS in English only and I am religious about correcting his grammar.

DH speaks to him in French, French speaking country and daycare.

He's totally bilingual and has been since age 2.5. Switches like there's no tomorrow!

zwellers

Zwellers, me and DH speak to each other mainly in English. Dinner times are a mix of both. Sounds odd, but it works. It's total bloody chaos with the kids anyway!

Well there's often a reasonsble understanding of both languages by both parents zwellers, so no need to repeat everything.

A family I know, their kids speak three languages!

Mum talks to kids in Polish and English. Dad speaks to the kid's in Indian and English.

DH and i speak English at home, tv in English and some reading. DS' schooling is in Spanush and Catalan (Catalan is the school language, Spanish for rhe playground). He was born here (Spain) and has no real problems grasping any of the languages, although we try to read more local-language than English as at 6yo it is more important.

He spoke quite late as he had 3 languages bubbling around in there but now can flit through the 3 without batting an eyelash

His cousin speaks not very much English, and with a local accent, as only her mum (DH's sister) speaks English to her. Sil isn't very pushed on getting cousin to answer her in English, Catalan reigns.

We often go to France for holidays and it is lovely hearing DS say bonjour and trying to chat with local kids.

I digress.... I also have friends who are he: Catalan-Dutch; she: Belgian French. Dad speaks Catalan, Spanish, Dutch, proficiency-level English. Mum speaks French, Catalan, Spanish, advanced-level English. Both dc speak Catalan, Spanish, French, English. Even though the first two are stronger, the other two are to a very high standard. It can get freaky

At 16mo who knows what languages your child will be proficient in. It is quite a fun ride finding out.

To the OP: I am afraid your PILs are right. If you live in an English-speaking country and the family language is English, your son will only ever speak English.

I am guessing that you think if your husband speaks to him in his language, he will pick up that language. That is very unlikely. Kids are stubborn little sods and the most that you can expect that way is that ds will be able to understand - a passive knowledge of the language.

Dd was born in dh's country and we lived There until she was 3. She used to speak dh's language and English equally. We moved back to the UK. At 6, she has not said another word in the other language since we moved here. Dh is a lazy bugger and he only speaks his language a bit here and there. She still understands a bit but we have now realise that we can't expect her to just pick it up. We need to be a lot proactive.

@zwellers
My parents are diff nationalities, say mum is english and dad french (not french but for anonymity).
My dad spoke french to us and mum, we answered him in french.
My mum spoke english to us and dad, we answered in english.
My parents used to often have bilingual conversations, where they each spoke their own language but understood the other.
Actually when we were little we often spoke kind of a mixture... sometimes we didn't know which language a word "belonged" to...

My dh's aunt has lived in Italy for more than 40 years. Her two grown up sons speak Italian, in the main, though they understand a bit of English from their mum and from what was learned at school. We communicate with non-verbal communication and their mum translates. English was never strongly taught at home. DA now teaches English to local children as a source of income, as it's on the curriculum in their area.

My exh and I shared my language, which we used to communicate with each other but he talked to DS always on his (which could understand but do not speak). DS was perfectly fluent on both until exh moved out, we both meet new partners who didn’t speak those languages so English became the lingua Franca.

It took a year for the other languages to disappear, he can only speak English nowadays. Your PILs are right.

Obviously he can learn it later a subject in school.

Does DH speak his language to your DC when they alone? If so, IME he will eventually speak both languages but English better.

We live in England and speak English at home (English DH) but only Italian with nonna/at nonnas house (see her every week).
DS is 26m and speaks fairly well for his age in English I think (eg. We go nonna house get james?). Otoh he understands everything we say in Italian but only says about 10 words.
My friend lives in Spain and her DS is older than mine. His English (2nd lang) came along aged around 3. They spoke English at home I think.

although we went to english-speaking schools, but now I can only speak my 2nd language with an accent, and I use funny archaic languag I learnt from my dad and gran, so not sure if I truly count as fluent.
Doesnt help that I never lived in the country of the second language, but spent a lot of time in another country that speaks the same language with a funny accent.

@zwellers DH and I are both fluent in each other’s languages and we generally each speak in our native language. So a conversation will consist of each us speaking a different language. We’re very used to it but friends sometimes marvel at how funny it is to them

Mealtimes are usually a mixture of the two languages around the table. The DCs often speak English to each other, especially when they’re playing, which warms my English-speaking heart. As a PP said, I went through a phase of having to ‘force’ DC1 to speak to me in English, but he does it naturally now.

we lived in a country where lots of expats had indian maids, and I remember hearing about a mother who was very upset that when her child started talking, it was in punjabi!
My mum said she should have brought up her own child rather than foisting it off on the maid!

my 3 dc are bilingual, I am a single parent speak only English at home, don't speak French that well myself, they go to a French school. They are fluent in both languages. It is possible and hugely beneficial to have two languages

Still don't get it For example if I had dc with someone who speaks English but whise native language is something else that I don't speak a word of then I am never going to understand them half the time.

Mmm

@zwellers I can’t argue with you there! But I’m not sure what your point is.

DH and I already spoke each other’s languages when we met, but if he’d spoken a language I didn’t know then I guess I would have picked up quite a bit by now. It’s hard work to learn a new language but it’s definitely doable.

English at home and French at school here.

Dd lived in the UK until she was 6 so learned French as a second language and is therefore more comfortable in English but happy enough in French.

Ds was 1 when we moved and for a long time French was his preferred language and he mainly spoke franglaise at home.

As he has got older though it has evened out. He spent 2 weeks in the UK with my parents when he was 6 and it really helped as they couldn't understand his franglaise and he was forced to make an effort with his English. Also both kids hate dubbed tv and movies so would rather watch them in version original which helps keep the incentive for English (even if it is AmEng).

Today ds complained about the 'infernal heat' and when I asked he told me he had learnt it from Ben10

If you want your dc to be bilingual your husband will need to make sure they have lots of exposure to his language and maybe time with gps in their country where they need to use it.