Should I raise my child bilingually

[motherofbabydragon]

Posting here more for traffic then anything as i could really need some help. I grew up first bilingually and then picked up english once i was 8 years old going to an international school. I am fluent in all three of the languages I speak and would like DS 5 months to be fluent in one of my languages as well as english.

This is highly outing but one of the languages in Mandarin and the other German. The plan had been for me to speak to DS in mandarin and so far I have been consistent with it following the one parent one language rule. I am now questioning if this is the right choice out of multiple reasons.

It is a lot and I mean a lot of effort for me. Trying to find baby videos that are in mandarin rather then in english, especially when it comes to nursery rhymes. I don’t any longer know them in Mandarin and often find myself ending up singing the songs in english as that is the way i know them now (having worked in a nursery), so I am also having to watch these baby videos on repeat again and again until the Mandarin lyrics are imprinted in my mind over the english ones.

It’s not cheap. It’s twice the amount of books i will need to buy, twice the amount of audio books, twice the amount of movies etc everything we buy in english I will need to buy in Mandarin as well if I want him anywhere near fluent.

I speak Mandarin fluently and understand it fluently. Unfortunately when it comes to writing and reading I am basically illiterate which can make it even more tricky to source the material.

There is also another problem. One side of my family is German and I have been thinking if I should maybe speak to him in German instead. Arguments for this would be a) I can actually read and write in German, and b) my German family unlike the other side do not speak English. By not teaching him German I will essentially be cutting him off from my family. Though I do want to point out that my father and both grandparents have passed away so no close relatives that he would be missing out on.

My main concern is that he is 75% european and i worry if i do not speak to him in mandarin he will not feel very connected to his asian heritage and culture.

I am just so torn and at times do wonder if it is even worth the effort as I know realistically him speaking to me in Mandarin and being fluent rather then just replying to me in English are slim. I am fluent because my parents divorced and my mum being my primary caregiver even though I grew up in Germany meant I was in a Mandarin exclusive speaking household. This is something I won’t be able to replicate.

I do want to add DH and his family are very supportive so it’s not a lack of encouragement or support that is causing me this doubt

Bilingual parent here @motherofbabydragon I have lived in SE Asia and when children were born we had Chinese Au Pairs. Please persevere with Chinese if you speak it like a mother tongue, the intonation is hard to grasp and you should absolutely make time to speak it and read it with you. Are there any libraries where you could borrow books or look on the internet for second hand books. It’s worth the investment!

Sorry, scratch that, I just realised that is Japanese at the bottom 😳. Sorry, no Mandarin there at all.

But they do have Chinese (both Mandarin and Cantonese) audio on the other Winnie the Pooh content like the longer Disney films, which my DS loved when he was a toddler.

Do it! My children are bilingual. It was difficult at first because they took a very long time to start talking and at first they spoke their own “language”, they only started talking properly and differentiating languages at around 3.

My daughter is now 11, fluent in both languages (speaking, reading, writing) and she is also reasonably fluent in English (speaks, reads books and can easily follow most films) although we don’t live in an English speaking country. DS is younger and also can already speak some English and can read simple books in his native languages, although we make zero effort with English.

It’s unbelievable to watch how easy it is for them to learn other languages.

You don't need to buy two sets of books, you need to buy bilingual books.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bilingual-Chinese-English-Children-Chinese-Written/dp/B095S1QDLY

Netflix has some children's programmes in Mandarin.

https://spotofsunshine.com/25-netflix-chinese-shows-for-kids/resources/

If you can't access then then a virtual VPN can help, if you put on the subtitles it might help you learn to read / write.

Some people do OPOL as you are doing but others do a different language on different days so if you wanted to include German you could consider that.

Yes absolutely. It requires more effort from you now but i think it'll hugely benefit your child in the end. Even if he doesn't grow up fluent, it will make it much easier for him to pick it up himself in future.

Late to the party, but if I've understood correctly, you were asking which language to persevere with, mandarin or switching to German.

For me the kicker is you said you are illiterate in mandarin. That's not a barrier per se as there are lessons and other resources, but it comes down to your own preference. It isn't too late to switch to German if you would feel more confortable.

Or you could speak mandarin as you are doing but do all nursery rhymes in German to get him used to the sounds of the language. Once you do that, by the time he is about four, you can start introducing German words to him.

When it comes to writing then, it won't be too alien for you to help him at home with German writing, and for mandarin script there's no reason why you can't learn that together.

Definitely persevere with it. It will be worth all the effort in the long run and you’ll massively regret it if you don’t.

It's not called Mother Tongue for nothing. Your mother spoke to you in Mandarin and you feel more comfortable speaking to your child in that language - do it. It's not easy raising bilingual children - it looks effortless to those outside who will tell you and your children how lucky they are, but it requires a great deal of effort and persistence on behalf of you as a parent. Kids need a reason to speak another language - they do it because they have to not because they want to. They don't understand that it's clever or desirable until they are much older - by which time it's too late to learn effortlessly. Mine grew up speaking English (at home), French (at school) and then German (because we were living in Germany and everything else - including clubs, TV and in the playground was in German). They spoke all three because they had to in order to communicate with people they wanted to communicate with. It wasn't until we moved briefly to the UK when DD was 7 and DS 5 that they realised English was so widely spoken - up until that point I think they thought it was a private language spoken among our family. We kept up the French (at school), but even though we had German friends in London their German fell by the wayside - because everyone also understood French and English. Fast-forward 15 years and DS has just finished a year abroad at a university in Germany where he has revived his German - with an apparently impeccable accent. My advice would be to give your a child a reason to speak his other languages - speak to him in Mandarin - seek out other Mandarin speakers nearby and use it, use it, use it - even if he sometimes replies in English. You could learn to read and write together. It won't be easy, but it will be worth it. Good luck.

I know of 3 families with an English speaking parent and an ‘other’ speaking ditto, where the now grown up children wonder why on earth they weren’t spoken to in the other language* from birth, and really regret it.

*Vietnamese, Norwegian and Arabic.

I used to have a German-speaking friend with a Greek-speaking husband. They spoke to each other in English, but both spoke to their child in their mother tongue. The child did sometimes mix them up at first, but absorbed all 3 quite easily.

Definitely keep speaking your language to your child, even if you can't teach them to read it. I have language sadness. I was born in a different country, so learned that language as a young child. My parents were English speakers, so when we moved here, I lost the other language through lack of use.

Dp has a non-English name due to one parent being from elsewhere. He never learned the language, so it does get confusing when people assume he knows it.

One of my kids is trying to learn Hawaiian on duolinguo, so there are a lot of resources available now that just didn't exist before. I wish I was better at languages and could have passed that directly on to my kids.

Thank you for all the support on here. We will continue with mandarin and thank you to the people that made me aware that a lot of disney shows and and netflix is available in mandarin. DH is beyond supportive and has suggested that we put mandarin as the default setting for any content we watch and put on english subtitles for him

We watched Peppa Pig, Dora and all the Pixar films with the french soundtrack on for years!

Yes please continue! Being bilingual is such a big advantage in life and if you stop you're depriving your child of learning your language and having that part of their heritage

Yes, I know quite a few people who are second generation or came to UK when very young who were not encouraged to learn their parents language. Most really regret this and some even resent their parents for not encouraging it. A common feeling is they didn't feel they missed out on it whilst growing up and preferred to only know English, but now as adults they look back and really feel that a huge part of their identity/ culture is missing.

I know this convo is over, but thought I'd add that you don't need to buy books for the early stages - I'm using youtube:

Lots of fun action songs etc.

Also, an important part of language is mouth and tongue movement, which if taught in early years is retained, so even if the language is forgotten, a person can relearn it with correct pronunciation. I hope all goes well.

Yes keep going. My kids father regrets not speaking to him in his native language. It meant the grandparents had to speak to his children in English, and his dads English wasn’t great. His older brothers children all speak the native language, but both parents speak it and the siblings speak to each other in English so they understand English very well, and of course went to school in England. His younger brother and his wife have a different native language so haven’t taught their children any of them, they just speak English like my children. Ex-DP does regret not speaking to the children in his native language.

I'm a teacher. I also work in an international school and have trilingual children. The bilingual children I know who have made the best progress are those whose parents speak BOTH languages to them together. So you speak to baby in Mandarin and then repeat what you said in English or vice versa. Not literally every sentence, but enough so they're hearing both regularly, especially from mum. Otherwise - and this happened in my case and also with several expat families we know from school - the child tends to pick up far more of the mother's language! Some children are only confident speaking mum's language, even if the father speaks the native language of the country they live in! A nanny who speaks the language you speak slightly less is a great idea - that's what we do.

My daughter, now 16, is trilingual. She speaks my mother tongue, English (the language my DH and I speak to each other) and the language of the country where we live. We moved here when she was a toddler.

Don't worry about putting in all this effort and him only replying in English. Even if that were the case, he will still understand the other language and will find it easier to learn it properly if he chooses to. My DD stopped speaking my DH's mother tongue early on and replied in English. He gave up on it. I, on the other hand, kept going with my mother tongue, and while our family language is English, she can speak my language and communicate with her family from my country. No, it's not perfect, but could be if she wanted it to be. Her pronunciation is good, she grasps the structure of the language. What she lacks is more sophisticated vocabulary, but with exposure she could improve it.

How great it is that you even have a choice of two other language to speak to your son! Whichever you choose, it will enrich his life.

Even if that's the case, he will pick it up again later. I had that with my son. Up to age 6 it was easy. Then he refused my language for a couple of years and always responded in English. Then, he started speaking it again. But if you don't start speaking only the other language when he's very young, then he won't reach a native level.

If he's going to spend more time in Germany than in China, I would go for German. Mandarin is an interesting language but you need a lot of exposure to get the tones right and you have to do that when you are very young

This is a really difficult situation, OP. It would be really helpful if you could find someone to talk to who is raising their child trilingually and see how they do it.

I am raising my children bilingually and we do OPOL. I speak the minority language (English). It's hard. It's hard even though English is everywhere and there are other English speaking families where we live and we see my English speaking family regularly and there are English schooling options round here and we have read books in English together pretty much since they were born. Even with all of that, my older child is only just starting to speak some English now, aged 3.

Trying to teach two minority languages at once (and being essentially solely responsible for them both) is several degrees harder than what I have just described. That doesn't mean it's not worth doing, but you certainly need to be aware of the challenges inherent in what you are doing and have a plan to tackle them.

One thing that helps massively with developing children's bilingualism is reading to them. If you can't read in Mandarin, that's going to make your job more difficult. If you can read in German, I would do that.

Are there any bilingual schooling options or language classes for bilingual children near where you live?

I think I would be tempted to speak Mandarin 30-40% of the time and German the rest of the time, and read a lot with your child in German. Then maybe later you could find a Mandarin class for them where someone else can teach your child to read and write in Mandarin.

Being bilingual or trilingual is a huge advantage for any child and it is so worth persevering. But it is not easily, and just having a parent who speaks the other language or languages isn't enough. It takes a lot of effort, sustained throughout their entire childhood.

I try to encourage my children to speak English as much as possible and show them how happy and proud I am when they do it. My older child is still hesitant to speak it but really wants to, which is half the battle. We recently went on holiday to another country and spent time with some children who don't speak either of me children's languages. Within a couple of hours my child was starting to say words in their language. So if you can spend time in the other country, particularly with children who only speak that language, it will be a huge motivator for your child to start speaking. But only if you've given them the building blocks first by speaking to them in that language so they can understand it.

Just keep going and don't worry about them being perfect.

We don't live in the UK and my DC are educated (and also went to nursery) with the language of the country we live in/DH's language. I have always spoken and read to them in English (OPOL) and have been the only person on a daily basis who speaks English to them, and they are both fluent in terms of speaking and listening (9yo and 12yo). DC1 taught themselves to read in English after learning at school in their other language first and are now an avid reader who prefers to read in English. DC2 is in an bilingual primary school with the advantage that they have 2 days a week with the teacher only speaking in English and is learning English spelling rules/writes in English. They also prefer to read in English. They switch effortlessly between the two languages (DH and I usually speak English together but I also now speak his language after being here so long). They have always watched TV/films in both languages.

Persevere and just make sure they get exposure in both languages. At a certain point I was able tor relax OPOL (especially when they were older and had friends home who don't speak English).

@farfromidealin all honesty we probably would be more likely to visit taiwan rather then germany as it is my mother’s side and culture i feel closer to though i grew up in germany. going to an international school where most of my friends were english i never felt particularly german but identified more with my asian culture.

Yes!! We didn't and regretting it now as they can't speak dhs mother tongue

Oh gosh you must do it. My parent didn’t teach me their native language and it is honestly a resentment I hold against them to this day, though I try not to. I tried so hard to learn in adulthood but could never get beyond intermediate level and have finally given up at the age of nearly 40. I feel terrible about it, like there’s a whole part of my heritage I can’t really access.

What I would say though is pick the language you are most likely to succeed with. To me that sounds like German.

Learning Mandarin, or any language, later on will be much easier if you successfully teach your baby German.