To wonder how on earth to raise a child bilingual?

[EstherE]

DH is from country X, I am English and we live in England. DH’s family only speak their language, my family only speak English. I speak X language but not perfectly fluently. We want to move back to X, but it won’t be for ten years or more.

How can we raise our child to be bilingual so they can communicate with their paternal family integrate when we move back? I don’t know anyone who’s done it successfully, and we can’t send our child to an X language school as they’re only in London, or boarding schools.

My god. This is me. They are 8 and nearly 4. I won’t give up I guess but I’m fucking broken trying One Parent one language.

Doesnt help that grandparents and relatives all
soesk fluent English and English is one of our native tongues anyway as income from a former British colony where English is the official language.

meanwhile my Nordic and Greek friends have kids who were forced to learn these languages as relatives simply don’t speak English!

@Combusting Despite my ritualistic rigorous One Parent One Language - DD who understands me perfectly does not speak my language. Unless pressed and pushed to say just two or three words

But this only works because you ‘understand them’. My friend basically pretended with the kids that she didn’t understand a word of English. You want something, you ask in the right language. Are you giving your child what they want if they ask in English? Easy to do as a toddler/young child. Obviously, when the kids got older they realised that mum spoke with other people, such as school parents/friends in English and tried it on, but she was very strict. She would hold up the stop hand if they came up and spoke in English and said her ears were shut, they needed to speak x🤣. And would follow through, look confused, shrug and just ignore them until they spoke the correct language.

Yeah that won’t work as DH is white british and I have a fully functioning life and profession where she sees me speak English. And for me personally I draw the line between the desire for her to learn my language versus what I assess is best for my relationship with her… if language is sacrificed or just doesn’t work out so be it

Wasn’t clear - was easy for her to convince them she didn’t speak English when they were young. For example, if they asked for water/drink in English, she would pantomime confusion. They would point to water and make clear. She would work with them to say ‘I want a drink of water’ in that language and after they did it would give them the water. They would never get the water otherwise. Substitute food/toy/whatever they wanted for water. Want is a very powerful thing for little people.

If they have the passive understanding, one long holiday in the area of the second language is enough for them to switch over.

Is much of the advice assuming the two languages have the same alphabet?
The advice may be OK for talking/speaking, but what about writing?

That's not failing though if they understand the other language fully. They have the ability to speak fluently but choose not to at the moment. If they speak to someone who doesn't speak English they would usually then use the second language.

You need to be really strict with each parent talking their language and you might want to communicate to your dh in front of the children in the minority language. Have books and music and cartoons in the minority language. If you can access Saturday schools in the minority language that also helps.

You can google the Minority Language Method to read up on it. It works but you need to be consistent at it.

My 9 and 12 year olds are fully bilingual in French and English despite always living in France and going to French schools.

We do OPOL (although I am fluent in French so will not always insist they speak in English if they're struggling to find the word and they're upset (e.g. about something that happened at school)).

But 95% of the time they speak to me in English.

I made a huge effort from birth to expose them to English. Books, DVDs, music...

Their level in English is really high even in reading and writing. My 12 year old reads YA fiction in English (its actually harder to get him to read in French). They often prefer TV in English too - old episodes of Top Gear is the current favourite.

At home there is a mixture of languages. I speak English to them and French to DH. DH only speaks French (though is actually fluent in English). The DC speak French to DH, English to me, and 80% French to each other.

They spend several weeks a year with family in England too.

It's not easy when they are little and required consistency, but now they are older it is so natural for them to speak both languages.

Have you considered an online tutor? My children have an hour a week with a tutor from our “native” country. They require my support checking writing formation and similar but it’s worked really well. My oldest happily converses in said language and can read and write fluently, my youngest can speak semi-fluently and can read and write the basics. DH and I usually speak in English but try to use the other language as often as possible

It's not easy!

My DH has spoken Hebrew to both DD (3) and DS (1) since the second they were born. Not a word of English has passed his lips when speaking to them. MIL speaks to them in Hebrew but we only see her about once a month. SIL too but she's abroad so we Skype.

DD understands everything, but replies 90% of the time in English. A friend who is raising her DS with Turkish said that when they went to Turkey, he miraculously came out with perfect Turkish after 4 years of just speaking English! That gave me hope.

DD watches Hebrew cartoons on the iPad, and DH reads a Hebrew book to her every night after I've read an English one.

It's a huge slog and DH sometimes feels like giving up, but he was raised the same way with one English-speaking parent and one Hebrew-speaking parent, and he is now fully bilingual.

The key is not to give up.

My British dad became pretty fluent in my mother's language (she's also very fluent in English) so at home they used both languages quite interchangeably. I think this helped me become pretty confident in answering wider family in my mother's language (I'm British, brought up in UK). But it also led to a confusion at times. So learning to read/write in the other language early on if you're being brought up with 'conversational' learning is a good idea too.

A friend who is raising her DS with Turkish said that when they went to Turkey, he miraculously came out with perfect Turkish after 4 years of just speaking English! That gave me hope.

that was my experience too. In our case English was the minority language. Not a word passed DD’s lips (except “urgent” stuff like “carry me”) until we had English only speakers visit when she was 3. She managed to come out with complex sentences and explain the workings of hapless relative’s technology, all in perfect English. After that the floodgates opened. I was beginning to despair!

Each speak your native language. Doesn’t matter if child answers in English (not all do), they will understand.
visits to x country so they can speak with extended family. They need to be interested in the language in order to want to speak it.
language school (Saturday school or afterschool classes) once they are in school, or if they don’t have any, a tutor or an online school as a more formal setting will help with grammar etc.
it is hard work. But very worth it. Where we live in London, the majority of children in my DC’s Reception class is learning a second language (at least one, either because of a parent, or because they are interested in it).

Usually OPOL. But it's difficult even then. My brother managed it by having a home language and an outside language. It was a struggle-particularly as they only had arched Spanish TV.

I would all speak X language at home and leave English for school. A friend did something like this when she moved overseas when her child was very young. Although she was fluent in the local language, her other half wasn't, so they all spoke English at home and their child went to a local school and was taught in the local language from kindergarton onwards. She was fluent in the local language within a year and had maintained her fluency with English as well.

I started a thesis on bilingualism (has to stop because of finances) and it's very common for children to refuse to speak one parent's language, up to adolescence and even adulthood. All language learned in childhood is actually stored in the same place in the brain and can therefore be recalled much more easily at a future point, even when not practised.

Whereas once we get to adolescence, we start storing new languages in a different part of the brain, making acquisition much more difficult. It's impossible to say at 4 or 5 that the bilingual education has "failed" (and, in fact, it almost certainly hasn't).

I am bilingual. Born in France to an English mum and French dad. Mum would speak to us in English and we would speak French when dad came home from work in the evenings. So I learnt both languages from the off.

Do not speak the second language unless you are fluent in it. My child's teacher insists we don't teach French at home. She learns it at school. Otherwise she has to unlearn all our mistakes!

A friend of mine has her Mother's native language as her second language and utterly refused to speak it as a teen. But she now does use it and has had lessons to improve.
Even if not seemingly used, the second language is still there if you expose (consistently) the child. But I wouldn't be surprised if they use a preferred/dominant language.
Another friend was bringing their child up with English and German. As a toddler they often spoke a mash up of both.

This is interesting. I didn’t start to learn a second language until adolescence and it’s hard whereas DH and his friends all started learning English as children and even the ones who’ve never been to England still remember some.

Minority language at home.
You and husband speak only language X in front of the child.
That is, if you can stick with it.
Next best, you H speaks only language X, you speak as much as you can and switch to English when you cant. But it is not as effective.

This advice of not speaking the language unless perfectly fluent is not supported by any study about bilingualism.
Absolutely Do speak the language to the best of your ability. If you are afwul, study hard to improve.

I have also failed to teach my children my mother tongue. It is tiring as it is to work and look after children and constant switching between languages just make me feel like my brain is about to explode. They now started to go to Sunday school to study my language but their level is probably the same as I had when I was learning English at their age, so basically being exposed to my language from birth didn't help at all. In my friends circle, it is mostly families where both parents speak the same language or where children spend a lot of time abroad (1 month+) who managed to raise fairly fluent in mother tongue children.