To want to raise our child Bilingual

[NewMumBGentle]

Bit of background DP is Italian, born in Italy, family still live in Italy, Italian is his native language, we've very much made a home here and have no plans to live there, although e go over to visit his family.

I'm currently 32 weeks with our first child, a little girl and the conversation tonight turned to her meeting the family when shes first born, from that id mentioned that i'd like DD to be raised bilingual. DP disagrees, he says we'll be living in England and that his parents speak conversational English so will be able to communicate with her that way, he thinks theres no point confusing her with two languages at home and is adamant he will not teach her. His parents so speak some English but there's still what i'd consider a language barrier there, i'd teach her myself but my Italian isn't the best. I just about get by when I'm there.

AIBU to be annoyed by this? I feel like she has this connection to this beautiful language and culture and he's denying her that.
AIBU

My children are bilingual and it has amazing advantages!

You should find out why your DP doesnt want to speak to you child in his native language. Why would he want to cut them off from half of their heritage?

My ex and I are both English but were living in Spain when we had DD. We both speak Spanish and living in Spain she was exposed to Spanish on a daily basis. We still spoke English at home but when she was still a baby, so didnt go to school etc, we made an effort to speak to her in Spanish too. Once she started Infantil (Kindergarten) we made it a policy to speak in English only at home.

When DD was a toddler her dad and I broke up and he moved back to the UK for a job opportunity. I noticed that his Spanish wasnt as good when he wasnt using it every day so it became even more important for DD to speak both English and Spanish so she could get by every day in Spanish but still speak to her family in English.

A few years ago we moved back to the UK and DD was nervous about starting school because she had only ever been to school in Spanish and was scared she wouldnt understand anything. She was behind for the first few weeks but it was mostly down to her confidence of using English and not speaking up in class, but now they cant get her to stop!

Despite the fact we all now live in England, Spanish is my DDs native tongue and I do not want.her to lose it, so she does extra curricular Spanish classes and we often speak Spanish at home (though more often Spanglish) and observe Spanish traditions too because I dont want DD to lose touch with her Spanish identity.

For example at Christmas, Spaniards celebrate the three kings visiting in January 6th more than Santa on December 25th. This works well with her dad and I being separated as every year one of us celebrates Christmas with her on December 25th and the other celebrates on January 6th. That way she gets two celebrations with both sides of the family and includes Spanish tradition.

I just had a quick chat with the DCs. DC(23) said that she has no issues with speaking either language and is equally comfortable in both. She mentioned that when they were small she sometimes felt out of step with her schoolfriends because we didn't watch much local TV (it's shit) but that soon changed. DC(21) is a student and said "I'm much more erudite and witty in English but that's because I consume most of my media in English" (we watch films in the original language, and we all read a lot - I have thousands of books mostly in English (I speak the local language pretty much like a native, but I prefer to read in English because I mostly read before sleeping and it seems like too much effort, I'm a lazy git)

It's never been easier to expose children to non-local culture. So, OP, in your position I'd try to get to the bottom of your DHs opposition to bilingualism.

As a SALT, by the way, the statistics show that bilingual kids might take. Little longer to begin speaking but but usually catch up and over take rapidly in terms of number of words they know. So they may have slightly fewer English words than a monoglot child of 2, but overall have more word combined.

The only way it works is if one parent speaks Italian constantly in the home and the other uses english all of the time. My friend wishes she had used her home language whilst raising her children, as she would have liked them to learn mandarin as well as english.

Me and my husband are both English but we speak french to my girl. There was a study done that showed how brain chemistry alters if a child is taught a foreign language before the age of 5 so that learning languages is easier. We both speak basic french but have been taking classes to improve so it’s not a true bilingual scenario but we are both willing to do this for her (as well as children love to learn languages) to improve her opportunities in the future. As an aside we picked french as here the primary schools learn french and both myself and husband were taught at school (I otherwise studied German and him Spanish so we chose the subject we had in common).
Netflix is good for this too as you can change the language so all the shows are in french (she doesn’t even realise this) and she does lingotots at nursery which is a nursery french class. We also signed up for one third stories which is a really useful postal language course for kids. You have an even better opportunity as you have a native speaker so I think it would be strange to pass that opportunity by

I think the dialect thing might be regional too - I remember going back one year and my cousins did on a whole school play in dialect, no idea about doctors but some schools encourage it.

@lovepickledlimes I’m not sure quite how to explain it. I’m not familiar with mandarin or German really so I am not sure if we’d have similar experiences. How do I put it? I can follow almost any conversation in either language, the basic comprehension is there but the nuance is different. When I think the thought is verbalised in English words but in a Russian way, it’s just not quite right. It’s like if Tolstoy wrote Pride and prejudice. Instead of being a Rom Com it would have been a very intense tragedy if wasted female potential. Words come out in the wrong order, they come out with the wrong intensity, the wrong connotation. When I think something is cold it’s dark and deathly silent and impenetrable like a grave stone as opposed to being somewhat removed from warmth. If I want to say something/someone is not warm I say a bit cold which is of course not correct. The thoughts just don’t match the words and often come in the wrong order. I often feel like I am think and speaking pig English. The same in Russian it’s very much influenced by English. I can fully understand advanced English or Russian speech but when I use either language it comes out ever so slightly wrong. It’s like having two piece of music at different tempos and play both at an I between I guess.

@Continentalmama you were asking for tips - one thing that we hit when the DCs got to school was that neither of us had been through the local school system so helping with homework wasn't easy (history in particular). Also not being native speakers grammar, punctuation and spelling were something we had to work hard at (in the local language) and didn't always get right.

(I did have several small "run ins" with the English teacher at primary school who tried the "I'm the teacher" schtick with me, but I'm an English teacher too so we soon established a way to work together...)

Another thing that happens is that the children can often only talk about things they've learned at school in the local language, so if they're telling, say, their grandparents about it in their other language, they can't properly explain it because they don't have the vocab. You'll need to brush up your language skills to help there, I think.

Your DP is a fool. I just had a baby and between my DP and I our DC will be raised trilingual - otherwise he won’t be able to communicate with DP’s side of the family as openly as he would like. Anyway knowing Italian people as I do, if there are visits to Italy involved, it’s likely the decision will be taken out of his hands when his parents get involved — I know many Italian origin kids (and many Indian origin kids for that matter) who learn languages because their grandparents teach them.

@Velveteenfruitbowl I think I understand what you mean though don't experience this myself. Maybe it is because I was so fully immersed in all three cultures that I am fluent in all 3. I am a different version of myself though I have noticed depending on the language and environment I am in. It's still me it's just a different side that becomes more prominent. I have heard that mimicking the people around you and you are currently talking to is not that usual though

It’s putting her at a great advantage to be bilingual in the workplace. Can he see the benefit in that?

Definitely insist on Italian as well as English. Being bilingual never confused anyone and is normal in many countries.

DS was raised bilingual for the first two years until I separated from XH. He regrets losing that link with his other language and culture.

My son is bilingual, I only speak Urdu at home (unless directly speaking to a non-Urdu speaker). He is equally fluent in Urdu and English, he has even started translating what I’m saying to other people, so now I have to be more careful about what I say.

Your partner is foolish, but only he can decide which language he would like to speak to his child in.

Velveteen I also know what you mean, I have taught many students and know lots of bilingual families (not all from birth though, many learning English later) and it's easy to spot, because the writing although 'correct' in many ways either uses unusual words or sometime the thinking is just a tiny bit 'off', I have noticed the same in the speech of my friends children who were brought up with one minority language at home then speak English outside the home.

That said, this is quite individual, I have a friend who speaks perfect English and writes at a high level, and if it wasn't for the teeny tiny trace of an accent, you would never ever know she wasn't English speaking at birth.

This is going to sound a bit horrid, but when people say their 2 year old is bilingual- great, but it's much harder to maintain and reinforce when children are older, not so hard when they are saying 'cup' 'ball' or 'let's go'- it's when they are older and all their friends speak the dominant language that you have to dig deep. Mine have learned the written version of the language though even if they don't speak fluently and that in itself will be useful if they ever decide to live or spend a lot of time in the other country.

Continentalmama I'd say mix as much as possible with native speakers of the local language.

We use English as a family language despite DH being German because we live very rurally and every element of the children's lives happens in German. Slowly as the older two children are now secondary age more German has crept in (especially school specific language - maths terms particularly) but even now German DH speaks English to the children 75% of the time even if I'm not home.

The children's German was actually stronger than monolingual peers when they started kindergarten and school, especially grammatical structures, according to their teachers.

What I made a point of doing from the moment we moved (when I spoke about 20 words of German) was hanging out in the local village playground for hours every day, joining multiple baby and toddler and music classes, inviting neighbours with children over, really making a job/ mission of integrating my children into the local monolingual German/ (and arguably though less successfully as "outsiders" meaning German speakers who can't trace their ancestors back 99 generations within the same village, the bilingual German/ Bavarian dialect) community.

I did join an English speaking toddlers group at one point but all my children's friends and 98% of their social contact outside the family has always been in German.

We did also have Oma and Opa, neither of whom spoke English, when they were small, though they lived an hour's drive away so that was contact once every 6 weeks or so.

My children didn't actually go to any form of childcare until they were 3, when each started kindergarten the month of their 3rd birthday. The research I did emphasised the paramount importance of a very strong foundation in a well spoken, gramatically solid native language coupled with daily exposure to the second language, and the also great importance of all languages the children are exposed to being spoken well by native speakers. I had to be very clear with kindergarten not to try to speak English to DD (she was the first non 109% German- Bavarian child to attend the kindergarten and a few teachers wanted to try their school English on her but I had to ask them not to).

So I'd absolutely agree that you should not speak a language badly to your children. Although my German is now fluent enough to work and study in a monolingual German environment my accent is really strong and my grammar often still wonky. I never speak German to my children and they speak perfect (though not age appropriate in that they lack teenaged slang) English and perfect (and age appropriate complete with slang) German. They don't use much dialect although they understand it though, dialect seems to be a separate issue and a big divide. Lots of local Germans who simply don't have multiple generations of ancestors from within a 10 km radius also don't use dialect though.

Good luck - you do have to work at avoiding an English ghetto and at keeping the passive English vocabulary building through reading aloud.

Friend did this the other way round; child grew up in Italy and mum spoke English to her. She came here for university and did her degree in English. Having two languages gave her the opportunity of some wonderful holiday jobs that weren't available to her friends and so she entered the job market not only with languages but with better work experience. Now she's in her 20s with a good job in the travel business and using both her languages. You would be mad not to give your child such a head-start in life.

My little boy at 3.5 is bilingual. Equally fluent in English and Spanish. Its a beautiful gift and connects him more to his Spanish heritage. His dad talks purely with him in Spanish and at my house it’s mostly English. I try with the spanish but my spanish is ropey at best. You can’t force your DH to talk to her in Italian but its of no disadvantage to your daughter. Its so good for brain development. My little boy is proud he can speak both.

I'm bilingual and so is my chance. It has been a huge advantage for me so I think YANBU

@Abeautifulstar1 no, see it doesn’t come out right. It wasn’t negative I just used a lot of words that sound negative because my thought patterns work in ways that don’t fit well with English. I was obviously capable of communicating just fine by ten but hadn’t caught up to my own intellectual ability. There were many things I wanted to express but couldn’t iyswim? I struggled for many years with having thoughts that I couldn’t put into words the right way. I only cottoned on to the fact that I was using words differently and thinking differently to most people who only spoke English as a child when I was in my twenties. Obviously there were earlier signs of the effects on my brain (like struggling to speak English the right order, ordering of words matters less in Russian) but I’ve only become fully aware that I speak English differently as opposed to simply making mistakes recently. It’s had a profound impact on the breadth of my human experience (which is of course good) but has come at a cost in regards to human interaction. It’s difficult to conceive something you don’t have a word for, equally it’s difficult to communicate something that your listener doesn’t have a word for. I have an awful lot of bilingual friends for this reason, the more self aware ones can empathise and are more flexible with their communication I guess. I really am struggling to find words to really express any of this so it will sound very garbled no doubt, I’m sorry. I constantly fall short on this front.

I do think that the almost exclusive use of Russian (I was trilingual for a short period) did have an impact though as you say. The first four years of my life were mostly in Russian. The next three were roughly even. After that it’s been mostly English. But I do think the early language formation has had a lasting impact on the way my brain verbalises my thoughts to the extent that I can’t do it properly in e flush although at this point I can’t do it properly in Russian either. It’s all a bit difficult to explain and I’m not sure I’d be able to unless you think in a similar way to me and have had similar experiences in language use.

@Brefugee
I hadn't even thought about the fact I'll have to help with homework one day! Yep I think it all comes down to me needing to widen both our social circles and get better at the local language, both of these things I know already but I didn't realize the impact it will have on DC if I don't. My problem is I really am terrible at languages, always have been. Science, maths etc no problem but languages I find really difficult but I do need to persevere as I have become far too comfortable in my little bubble. Thank you for the advice!

well my DCs survived school, one is at uni and one is just finishing their apprenticeship so it worked out ok in the end.
And now you mention it, the most difficult subject for me was maths because I simply don't have the vocab for it in the local language!

I'm sure you'll be fine.

Haha. I have been talking to my son in my native language for three years and he still mostly responds to me in English. It's so frustrating but it's because we live in the UK and he goes to an English nursery. It was glorious when I was on maternity leave and could shower my baby in my native language all day ever day. I know he understands me though, and has started translating what I say to English speakers, so I'm going to persevere and hope that he'll get the hang of speaking my language eventually...

I would totally raise my child bilingual. I think it would open up different worlds to her, and could be a real advantage growing up, even if she doesn't speak the other language "perfectly". It can require a lot of effort, so maybe research it together with your husband first.

Studies have shown that bilingual children tend to do better overall, so YANBU. My DC are bilingual, although it's a slightly different situation as they've been through the Welsh medium education system instead of learning at home. I chose for them to learn Welsh because I want to set them up for the future. If there's a language barrier, that's even more reason to teach her.

My 3 kids are bilingual-Welsh/English. Its a great advantage to be able to speak more than one language.