Bilingual child/children? When did yours start talking? How was your experience?

[lottytheladybird]

Hello! We're trying bring up our children bilingually. I speak Cantonese to DS1 and my husband speaks to DS1 in English and some Cantonese. DS1 will be two on Saturday and has only really just begun making some sounds which resemble Cantonese words (he understands more Cantonese than English, as I'm at home with him all day every day).

I'd be really interested to know how you've found the experience of bringing up your child/children bilingually and at what age they started talking. (I understand bilingual children normally start talking a little later than mono-lingual children.)

My brother is bringing up his son bilingual as his wife is Japanese. I spent a fortnight with them when my nephew was 26 months and he had lots of English and probably even more Japanese. My son is now 25 months and has the same amount of English as my nephew did then so I reckon my nephew was actually quite speedy with his language as if you were to count the number of words he had in both languages it would be way more!

Watching with interest. DS (16 months) will also be bilingual (English is not DH's or my first language and DS is with a CM 35 hours a week). He understands a lot (in English as well the CM says), and communicates very well but no words so far, except for "mama" and "dada".

Coming up to a 2 year check, DS1 had about 5 words. By the time the check came round at 26 months, he was talking in sentences.

He has good understanding in both languages, but tends to reply in English, tho if we are staying with PIL (minority language speakers), his second language replies increase.

DS2, 13 months, has no words yet except dadadadadadad and mamamamamaaaaa

I have worked with quite a few bilingual preschoolers and most of them have been stronger in the language spoken mostly during the day and have gradually begun to speak English during their preschool year.

One of the families i worked with used OPOL and their little boy didnt say many words in either language at 3 but was fluent in both by 4.

Your LO is still very little, good luck

We have three languages at home. DD1 (4) only speaks very little english (she has autism and severely delayed speech & language). DD2 is 18 months old and has 80-100 words and is linking words already (mainly english) but she has an excellent understanding of the other 2 languages she is exposed to.

i read a lot of research about bilingual upbringing when DD1 just did not start talking (think i was looking for some kind of bilingual-children-talk-late reassurance) but research pretty much says that growing up bilingually does not delay s&l development.

My dp is polish we want to raise our 10 month old bilingual (so polish pil can talk to him as they have no english whatsoever and i have no polish!).

My dp is looking after our lo while i am at work all day. I dont think he speaks in polish to him 100% of the time when i am not around (he forgets to more than anything else) and he speaks in english to him when i am there.

What is the best way for our lo to become fluent in both languages? We havent done a lot of research on this yet but we heard that each parent must speak exclusively in their language.... but what about when i am there and i dont understand the polish...?

Swedish/English here, with Swedish as the minority language. Dc are 12 and 15. Both spoke within the normal range but not particularly early, dd was very verbally advanced by age 2, ds more average. The strongest language has fluctuated over the years: ds went through a phase around ag 3/4 of not wanting to speak English at all (very awkward as all his friends spoke English), but it passed.

omri, there is no one way that all bilingual families have to function. Most of the literature is bilingual families telling what has worked for them; it doesn't mean there is no other way. The important thing is that your child gets enough exposure to each language, not the practicalities of how this is achieved.

If your dh is finding it difficult to remember to speak Polish, then he may well need rules (and you may want to think about learning Polish to be part of it). Otoh if there is plenty of other exposure (Polish play-group, holidays in Poland, contact with Polish relatives over skype), then you can probably afford to be more relaxed.

We have not stuck to very strict rules: dh will speak Swedish when in Sweden, I speak English whenever there are monolingual English speakers around- and sometimes anyway, just because I feel like it. But then we have plenty of back-up: close contact with Swedish cousins, summer holidays etc

DS is 14 months and has about 10 words but only 2/3 in French which is normal because we have an English nanny and I'm at home more than DH. He understand both languages perfectly well. He's also starting to link words (usually involving more or go(ne) to make more milk/corn go/mama go).

In comparison my monolingual sister said nothing until her 2nd birthday.

Italian/English here, DTD'S are 20 months old and have quite a lot of English words but do seem to understand Italian, the only word they use though is "qua qua" = aqua/ water but respond if you ask to point to their nose etc (in Italian)

I'm reassured by other comments that you don't need to exclusively OPOL, as DP really struggles as he's been in the UK 20 years now and thinks in English . I just think it's important that they can converse with Italian relatives, so am hoping that the holidays and Skype help.

One thing we always do is take turns to do bedtime stories, we have a few books in both languages, e.g The Gruffalo, so am hoping that helps.