Bilingual 2 year old, speaks neither properly, how late will he be?

[clucks]

I was advised by everyone, including HV to speak my native language to DS (DH is english speaking and we speak english to each other). He is now two and speaks gobbledeegook, still. He does speak in single words, not always easy to make out and certainly not in sentences like his cousin (only 3 months older). He does go to nursery and interact (in English), and says no and don't a lot (in English again). I wonder if I have made a mistake and confused my son, his frustration in not being able to communicate well makes him bad-tempered and we fall out when unnecessary. Does anyone have similar experiences and advice. How much longer than normal might his speech development take?

Clucks, how old is your son - 2 and how many months?

Hi Clucks, my ds is sort of bilingual as his father is British Indian. ds therefore understands Gujarati (although has always refused to speak it, oddly) and English. He chooses to use English mostly though since I speak it and we live here, I guess.

I was talking to some friends about this last night as she is French and he is English and they moved to France from England 2 years ago. Their ds1, now 6, speaks both, although uses French mostly during the day at school. Once home apparently he easily slips into English since this is the language this couple use the most (the husband is not a fluent French speaker). Their younger ds, 3yo is not talking much yet and uses a smattering of both. I don't think, based on my admittedly limited knowledge, that your ds will end up confused. Children are very adaptable and apparently can easily learn and use 2 languages at a young age. Good luck.

DS2 was only saying 'DooDoo' when he was 2 so I shouldn't worry too much about your DSs development. The mixed language children that I know do sometimes mix their languages in speech but seem to adapt very quickly and can switch between languages without any problems. I think all 2 year olds become frustrated because they can't communicate well enough, my HV told me that this is often why the terrible 2s occur so this is quite normal behaviour.

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Hi clucks. We had a talk on this (among other things) from the speech therapist who does outreach work at my boys' nursery recently. Basically she reckoned that the advantages are huge in the long run but that it can take bilingual kids a little longer to become really fluent speakers. Her advice was that each parent choose the language they are most comfortable with and stick to it when talking to the child. She said that the child might sometimes reply in a different language or speak a mixture of the two for a while but eventually they will sort it out.

I think Bloss and PamT are right to remind you that lots of 2 y.o. don't speak much but if you're worried it'd be worth seeking a referral to a speech therapist now, if only because the waiting lists are so long in many areas that by the time your appointment comes through you'll probably have a clearer idea of whether there is a problem or not. We've just got the nursery to refer one of our sons for an occasional stammer that none of us - even me the arch-worrier!- are particularly worried about, purely because we don't expect him to be seen for at least 6 months and will by that time know if it's an ongoing problem/ something he finds upsetting.

I've cut and pasted this for you from another website as it may give you a clearer idea about when kids say what and when you need to seek advice:

"This checklist is a rough guide to children's speech development that will help you to decide if a professional assessment of your children's speech should be sought.

Language
a) Not engaging in vocal play by one year
b) No words by 18 months
c) No two word phrases by 2 years e.g. "dog gone"
d) No sentences after 3 years
e) Baby talk persits after 4 years e.g. "Me drawed a picture"

Articulation
a) Uses mostly vowel sounds or is unintelligable after 30 months
b) Sounds are more than a year late in appearing on this developmental sequence
18 months p b m h w
30 months t d n k g gn
3 years y f s
4 years sh z v
5 years ch j l
7 years th r "

hth

Hi clucks. I was born in England but both my parents didn't speak english. At nursery/school with family, friends & relatives or outside the home as a child I spoke english, but at home no english. I was told that language can develop more slowly in bilingual children but at some point later they do catch up. I was always led to believe that the benefits far outway the fact that the children may initally develop langauge a little more slowly. Apparently once I got started there was no stopping me! I speak more than one language, carried on in to higher education and have a career (not meant to sound boastful just trying to reassure you). I'm not sure I'll be that successful at getting my ds to be bilingual. I try to speak my native tongue at home but lapse in to english because it's easier with dh. Ds spends 5 days week at nursery so I don't think he gets enough expose to my language. I think all children go through phases (even in single language speaking homes) were they get frustrated at not being able to articulate what they mean or get you to understand what they mean. Not aure if what I've said helps but if you want to ask _ I'll do my best to answer from from personal experience

where I live most kids are brought up bi-lingual, and don't seem to have a problem. I second the advice given to ask for a referral to a speech therapist just in case, but from all the families I've seen, although often the kids initially mix up words/languages, the actual learning of 2 languages presents no huge problems for kids, unlike us poor adults, as long as the languages are used consistently, eg if dh always speaks in English and you always in eg German, you should stick to those languages.

Good luck

My son's girlfriend was brought in a French and Arabic speaking home. She is fluent in both and also in English and German, plus is learning Italian and Spanish! Being bilingual seems to have been of benefit to her.

Something else I've remembered I had a lot of Malaysian friends at Uni spoke at least 2 languages if not 3. This is quite normal in their society.

We are doing somewhere between bilingual and trilingual and ds is coming up 2 and seems to be coping well. How much do you reckon your son understands? Understanding comes a lot easier than speaking when learning a new language. Our family language is English and gets reinforced by tv and most friends we see regularly. Dh speaks norwegian to him when they are together and this gets reinforced by Swedish playgroup and nursery.

When I lived in Brussels (bilingual country to start with) anglophone friends were advised to make sure they didn'y mix up the language situations ie if the child went to french speaking nursery and the parents spoke engkish at home they should keep that up and not switch to french to accomodate the child.

Are there many opportunities for your child to meet other children that have the same mother tongue as you? If he's not used to witnessing conversations in your language that might be making him less confidrnt. Or are there any videos that you could watch together?

Dh was brought up in a bilingual household and would speak Norwegian to his mother who would speak english to him. He does not know when he decided upon his language of choice. His eldest brother famously didn't try to speak until he was over 3 and started with full sentences. FIL is a psychiatrist and kept a gentle eye on him but was not too worried.

Are many of the children at nursery talking much yet? Ds has only recently started at a nursery and has certainly picked up 'nej' but as most of the other children are not talking yet they don't need much else among themselves. (He's moving to another nursery with a bit more interaction soon).

It does take longer with 2 languages but programming the language centre of the brain is not such a different process whether there is one or more languages involved. It's the building up of vocab and other language builders that is going to take twice as long. Do hope you manage to perservere. Whereever we live in the world our son will always be exposed to English which he can perfect, it's only in these early years that he can build the basis to learn a minority language (not many english 13 year olds yearn to learn Norwegian, many Norwegian ones are getting fluent at this age, it's a different motivation).

Malmomum... this is interesting, my 2 are being raised as tri-lingual En/Fr/Dutch
My son (2 1/2)speaks English fluently and clearly understands French (uses some words in French but does not yet make sentences in F)... his Dutch is only at an understanding level.
The reason our son is so good in En vs Fr is because he goes to nursery 3 days a week and that we have taken the (bad) habit of speaking to him in English (both of us are fluent but it isn't our mother tongue).... We are now making an effort of speaking French at home most of the time and I can see him progressing.

The author of Babytalk said that children raised in several languages are not slower to speak - some children in general are but it's "nothing" to do with how many languages they are being taught... but a parent should stick to his mother tongue. The problem for us is that we both speak a lot of English (even among ourselves)....

BTW - DS spoke over 75 words at 18 months (I made a table at the time as I was trying to see which language was more predominant) and they were - then!-in all 3 languages.

Interesting to hear Pupuce. I do think that the predominance of English has increased over the last 10 years. I was partic open about coming to live in sweden as this would give ds more of a chance to be bilingual. He has a better chance with an english speaking mother in a scandi country than from a scandi father in england. However, coming to live in Malmö was a complete fluke for us.

I would comment that the parents' attitude to passing on a language does depend on whether they think think their language is first or second class in relation to the language of the home country. If there is not much instance of anyother language being spoken it's easy to feel out on a limb being the only person to be speaking funny.

Passing curious and remembering your other posts, are you using Dutch Dutch or Flemish, Pupuce? Do you have any plans for written French lessons when the time comes?

It's Dutch because DH is Dutch but I am French speaking Belgian.
DS is really making progress using his French vocabulary and we want him to speak French fluently.
I hadn't thought about written French yet.... you're way ahead of me

I'd be enclined to teach it myself.... maybe wrong idea.

There a few Chinese families where I live - the only bi-lingual people I know where the children have been brought up with both languages ie they haven't learnt it in school. Anyway, one child is 3 and she speaks both languages well, for someone of that age.

DS is only just two. He does speak both languages in single words, although a limited vocabulary, which I have to constantly interpret. His father and I can only communicate with each other in English, so he only hears the minority language from me (I'm poorly educated in this) and grandparents when he sees them. He has a monolingual english friend at nursery and when playing together they speak almost exactly the same gobbledeegook. I wonder if it actually means anything in English and because I'm listening to hear another language I can't understand him.

A complicating concern of mine, is that DH has a speech impediment which is very noticeable at times and I worry about this being inherited by DS.

I am very determined for DS to be fluent in both languages but not as ambitious as DS who wants him to attend a French school (neither of us are French). A touch of over-ambition there I think.

Our family is Welsh speaking but the kids go to an English language nursery/school and have italian speakers on my side of the family. I've found that although all were initially slow to start speaking they caught up quickly. They have all had a time of mixing the languages especially Welsh/Italian as I amd my family tend to switch between the two. We've just got back from Sicily and have noticed that DS" (21monthsish) has picked up a lot of new Italian words.

I was raised with english as very much my third language and most people would assume it was my mother tongue if they heard me. That said, I know that nursery rhymes, lullabies etc tend to be Welsh or Italian as these are the ones my parents taught me.

Clucks I wouldn't worry about this at all.Most bi-lingual children do speak slightly later than monolingual children but catch up very soon and of course have the advantage that they speak 2 languages.Mine are all bilingual and also find learning further languages easier than most children.
When I was pregnant with my first I read several books on bilingualism and the most important advice that I remember was that every person in contact with the child should stick to the same language every time they communicated with the child ie you always speak French to your son and dh always speaks english.It can get tiring as you and dh speak english together so you in particular will alwys be changing language when the 3 of you are together, but in my opinion it is well worth it.Mine are older now 13,12 and 8 and things are far more relaxed and we actually speak this terrible mixture of greek/engish to the extent that we change language mid sentance !!
The young children don't get muddled as such.Sometimes ds may be speaking to you in French and wants to express something but only as yet knows that particular word/phrase in english so he inserts the english then reverts to the french (or vice versa)As his vocab. increases this problem will disappear.Stick at it and you and him will really see the benefits as he gets older.

Could you please suggest some good books on raising kids bi-lingual or in our case, tri-lingual?

It is not easy as I find myself automatically lapsing into English as this is the language I speak w/ DH. DH is much more consistent than I am - he sticks to French with DS.

An interesting theory I heard from a linguist friend is something called the "tyranny of language" - basically they found that once you establish a single language with another person, it is near impossible to switch to another language later on. It seems true as DH & I cannot seriously bring ourselves to switch to French since we always spoke English (won't hold my breath that he'll learn Chinese).

Pena- try www.edu.bham.ac.uk/bilingualism/database/catfam.htm#item1023

If you're really lucky you might come across something written by me (!)

Dear Clucks

I have a friend with 2 children, dd who is 6 and ds who's 3. They were both brought up bilingual, and even though their parents do not stick each to his/her language (they speak a mixture between each other too and find it difficult to do otherwise), the girl did not have any speech problems and now is fluent in both languages. The son, at 3 is still speaking gobbledeegook, as you say. He's been seen by 2 speech therapists and the both said the same thing, the fact that he's a boy (often slower than girls), he's bilingual, and the fact that he has a very poor health (nothing serious, just generally prone to cacthing everything in the air), all contribute to slow down his progress. The only solution suggested to speed things up was to choose the language in which he'll be educated in and discard the other, but my friends did not want to do that.

I am also bringing my dd up bilingual, even though it is easier as dh and I speak the same language. I'm sure there's nothing to worry about your ds, but insist with your language, it's such a great gift to give to a child!!!!!

Who else hates David Blunkett? This is a narrow- minded bigoted question, not interested in starting a debate, or in hearing from anyone who might like him. I hope that Clucks and other bilingual mothers will stick his stupid advice XXXX. I really regret that my own parents (each fluent and literate in 4 eastern languages as well as English) were subjected to Blunkett-type crap when I was growing up, so we spoke English at home. I am not now in a position to teach ds any eastern language at all, apart from a few baby words and songs. Who else hates David Blunkett?

lol Amma i like your style!
ok i wont comment then!

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Amma, I can't say I hate him as I don't know him, but given his statements about languages in the home, I think that he is mighty stupid and bigotted. And hasn't done his research very carefully. The best time to learn languages is as children.
Although my mother is Italian, she didn't speak it to us when we were growing up as no one encouraged her to. We did however spend a lot of time in Italy and I managed to learn it anyway and am more or less fluent, but not bilingual. I also learned Spanish (peruvian nanny) and French in the same way, but again am more or less fluent, but not bilingual. I took lessons in Japanese and Chinese as an adult and found them enormously difficult to the point that I swore that my children would have the opportunity to learn them as children as it is so much easier. I haven't read the exact statements that Blunkett made so please excuse me if I've got it wrong, but it does seem to me a little naive to think that if the foreigners spoke English in their homes there would be no conflict between the new immigrants and the "english." Perhaps the "English" should be learning a few foreign languages.....I know that in general the Americans (i am one) aren't much better, but I can't imagine any serious politician suggesting what language people should speak to their children in the home. At most there have been some suggestions that one should be able to speak a basic level of English to become a citizen of the country, which I'm not sure is necessarily a bad idea.