Has anyone successfully taught their kid a language?

[Elmonster]

Me and DH are both native English speakers but we both also speak Spanish fluently. I actually spent a few years at school in Spain as a child, so while I’m not bilingual, I speak Spanish very well. We obviously speak mostly in English at home but do speak some Spanish with each other.

Has anyone in a similar position successfully taught the language (or a bit of it!) to their kids? Ours are 5 and 7 and I have started introducing Spanish words just as part of normal life (eg “look there’s una vaca”). Is this a waste of time or could kids pick up a language in this way if done consistently over a few years?

I agree, @spiderplantmum , consistency is primordial.
I will always regret for my kids that I didn't have the courage to speak consistently in my tongue. You were lucky that your parents did that. To me it felt artificial and slow to always be translating into English when we all understood the home language. This said, my second DC managed to become bilingual because he worked at it and took advantage of many opportunities to better himself. So there is hope!

P.s. I definitely agree with @VIPNanny about using whole sentences and not just putting Spanish words into English sentences.

I was actually speaking about this to a German friend of mine living in London with her 2 DC and English speaking DH. She does speak to them in German but when they were younger it was mostly nursery rhymes and stories. Now they’re older she still does speak German to them but not all the time and they go to German school.

I sort of think there has to be some usefulness in teaching them bits. And it almost feels like a duty to share what I know. In some ways it’s a bit odd that we speak fluent Spanish and they don’t understand a word. I’m just trying to work out whether it really does have to be complete immersion (not possible for us) or there’s no point.

If you really wanted to do this you needed to only speak Spanish to them at home - they would pick up English at nursery and school.

I knew a lad once whose family was Italian; he was about 6 and his English was amazing with his football teammates; then he turned to his parents and was babbling in fluent Italian. So wonderful. But I think they had only spoken Italian to him from birth.

If you do what you say (or even better, as @VIPNanny says, full sentences) they will pick up words and phrases. And if they take Spanish at secondary you can support them with GCSE which will be great.

On holiday in Spain we got chatting to an English restaurant owner. She had gone on holiday as a teenager and fell in love with a Spanish guy . They corresponded when she flew home and she eventually moved out there to be with him. When they had a child she spoke only English to the child and he spoke only Spanish. (Both parents were bi lingual though by this time) . When their son was about 3 she asked him in English to ask daddy what time he wanted dinner. He went to daddy and asked in Spanish, daddy replied in Spanish then their son gave mummy the answer in English. She told us this and said he had no idea that he'd done something pretty impressive, to him it was just normal. What a fabulous life skill he was learning.
I was at school with a girl in a similar situation, mum German dad English. She spoke fluent German and always had done. Another girl had a Spanish dad and English mum and they had never bothered to teach her Spanish which even at 12 I thought was a waste.

I think they will still gain a lot of vocabulary even if it isn’t total immersion or OPOL.

With my DC, as I said upthread, I didn’t feel natural speaking in my second language when alone with them but when with DH or his family, we switch to their native language now. I have to translate for the DC a bit at times but it’s getting less and less so even though they have not been totally immersed in two languages, they are still making a lot of progress in the second language. We go to France about four weeks a year and they stay alone with French family sometimes and are building up confidence. If you go to a Spanish-speaking country, the language will come alive for them even more. I hope it will help my DC with MFL in secondary and that they like learning languages cos they can see the point of them (I am a teacher and a good proportion of my secondary pupils seem to think there is no point learning a language cos they think ‘everyone speaks English…!’ So at the very least, you speaking to them in Spanish will get rid of that narrow-minded view.

I lived in France for a few years when I was young and at that time I spoke like a native. I still have the native accent but I sometimes struggle for less commonly used words and have to really concentrate to get the grammar 100% but anyway I decided to teach my son and have spoken to him in french since he was born. I only speak French to him when his dad is not around as I didn't want to be shutting him out of conversations so we don't speak a huge amount of French together. Son is 6 and speaks well but not on the same level as a native kid. We have a French au pair every summer and once a week a French speaking rhyme time type club and every two months there is a library with a French storytime.

In my option the children need as much exposure as possible if they are going to learn a language and just throwing in a few random words now and then won't really lead to much. Of they want to be able to communicate they need to know how to decline verbs and speak in past and future tense too.
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I’m afraid the window for “effortless” learning has largely gone for your kids, unless they’re in an immersion environment. I’m also astounded that your own experience of language learning has left you with the impression that throwing a string of random nouns at them will help them learn a language. They need the framework/structure (otherwise known as grammar) to be able to put it together. If you were a GP, would you expect them to learn about medicine from you saying “cartillage” to them when someone flexed their knee? You need, at the very least, to say full, simple sentences to them, but don’t be surprised if they get fed up. They already have a means to communicate with you.

I know this isn’t the point of the thread but we’re going on holiday and booked in to have a dolphin experience and I’ve taught my kids ‘dolphin speak’ 😂😂😂

They really believe me and il be in a lot of trouble when they figure it out 😂😂😂

How do you manage to find a French au pair? Thought that was impossible since brexit.

Well I was planning to build up to full sentences! But as I said I’m not aiming for them to be able to speak like natives. I learnt a third language at school when we returned to the UK and although as a pp has pointed out, it’s a very imperfect method, I learnt enough to be able to have a basic conversation. I just thought it would be great to do some of the groundwork at home, particularly when they are young enough to develop a reasonable accent. I don’t want to waste my energy if it’s completely pointless though. We do go to Spain a lot so they see the point of it and are often annoyed when they can’t understand people there.

Brilliant

This isn't anywhere near what most posters have done, but my child did a little Spanish at primary school (sadly stopped at lockdown) and we used to go to 'sing in Spanish'-type classes. My child is now doing really well in Spanish at secondary, with speaking a particular strength. I think anything you can do regularly during the prime language learning development of the brain (up to 10 years old, I think) will improve the child's ability to learn a foreign language and is definitely worth the effort.

Slightly different situation as only my husband speaks the other language, but he speaks to them in it a lot (not all the time), until they knew it fluently, they were only allowed to watch kids TV in that language, which I think really helped!

I’m British but I live in Japan with my Japanese husband and our children. DH doesn’t really speak English so we use Japanese when we speak. I speak only in English with my kids. The eldest speaks English with almost native pronunciation because I spent a lot of time with her reading in English, playing games, etc. The other two understand English but don’t speak much unless absolutely necessary. I didn’t have as much time to spend on doing the same things with them. However, when we go back home, they soon start speaking because they e already had plenty of listening input.

With languages, anything is better than nothing. They don’t have to have perfect native pronunciation to be “bilingual”. As other posters have said, using phrases or “chunks” of language is better than just words. I’ve noticed my DCs remember chunks rather than words, then start to substitute words into those chunks later on.

Gamify language learning if you can. For example, I play the anima hint game with my kids while we walk to nursery. “This animal is usually black and white, but sometimes it’s brown. It eats grass. It says moo and it gives us milk.” The kids then battle to say “cow” first. I’m sure you could do that in Spanish.

Good luck and don’t give up!

I'd get a bilingual Spanish nursery

They are too old for that. Also doesn’t exist where we are.

My now 15 month old understands (and speaks a few words in) European Portuguese well, even though I learned most of my language after she was born (I'm half Portuguese but my mum stopped speaking to me after 2.5yo). We have a Portuguese babysitter with us 3x a week, but dd has English childcare the other days. DP speaks Dutch to her, although not exclusively (he sometimes uses English sentences/Portuguese words). He and I speak English together. I have to work hard to keep one step ahead of the game, but so far I've enjoyed the project/challenge and will be curious to introduce languages that I'm more confident but in no way fluent in (eg. Arabic, French) later on. I think if you are able to put in the work and arrange trips/family visits, etc. it can work. Next project is to teach DD to read using EU Portuguese phonics so she has less excuse to prefer English once in school.