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?

Hang on Sofia I thought there was quite a strong movement (esp amongst Republicans)in the USA to encourage immigrants to speak English? I'm thinking particularly about Spanish-speakers in California, wasn't there a move to stop funding bilingual programmes in schools etc?

Amma I too hate David Blunkett. For the reasons you mention and for others too numerous to go into here

angharad, yes there was, but it was an entirely different concept. The movement was to limit bilingual education in the schools, not the home. And the research seemed to indicate that in fact, bilingual education in the schools was hindering not helping bilingual children. And whether or not the research was correct the larger issue was whether it was the government's responsibility (at the tax payer's cost) to provide education in the native language of all new immigrants. This is very different than telling them what they should do in their own home.

But if you read the full report, the comments formed a very small part of it and as per usual, weren't as the media reported them. He simply suggested that it may be helpful if OCCASSIONALLY the older generation spoke English to the younger generation as many immmigrant families are suffering from such serious cross-generaional divides.

For work reasons I've found this debate interesting. One study I'm involved with at the moment is looking at 2nd and 3rd generation Asians fluency in Asian languages. Interestingly the trend seems to be that the languages are being watered down throught the generation. One family I interviewed thought that it was unlikely that their grandchildren would speak much Urdu as their own kids (aged 10 and 13) only spoke Urdu about 20% of the time, to their grandparents or if they wanted to make sure they wouldn't be understood by someone else.

Sofia-thanks for explaining. My knowledge of Californian politics is hazy!

Hi Clucks Have just come across this thread. Yopu may or may not still be 'here', but I wanted to recommend the Bilingual Family Newsletter as a way of getting lots of interesting advice and ideas about this.
I hope this is a link: www.multilingual-matters.com/multi/journals_bfn.asp

How is your DS getting on now, 6 months on from your post? We tried to bring our children up bilingually (I am Eng speaking, dh Chinese) and it has proved MUCH harder than we thought and we feel very sorry that really all they can do is say odd words, count etc, not have a conversation.Our eldest was using single words or short sentences in both until about the time he went to nursery (3). He then started spending less time with dh and the chinese fizzled out, tho we try to keep it up a bit. I would echo what the others said, check out hearing if you are still concerned but otherwise, keep on speaking your own language to him. Can you imagine speaking to him in English all the time? Your English sounds perfect so maybe you wouldnt mind, but I find it so frustrating that my kids and dh dont share fluency in either language, as his English is OK but he doesnt understand everything. I can envisage diffivculties when they are older; at the moment they explain things differently to him than to me (very considerate)but I know that sometimes the older two dont even try to talk about things that they think he wont understand (thats a culture thing too, not just language).

I am still around Soyabean. Thanks for the link.

He is saying much more, mostly in English though and I need to interpret his English for people as well. To be honest, English is my first language and easier for me to use, but I am still persisting and he understands everything but generally replies in English. I will still continue as it's a good habit for me to get into as well, I'm supposed to be bilingual too.

We are about to move back to the UK and I am really scared that ds1 is going to lose the language skills he ahs. He is 2.5 now and speaks english/scandi very weell. Dh speaks scandi with him but when we go back to the UK he's not going to hear it from any other scource.

Apart from buying lots of swedish videos is there anything else we can do?

Malmomum

Don't worry, as I've said I'm the only one to speak to DS in foreign and he understands everything. Although, I guess fathers probably contribute less to language learning - you may need to make lots of Swedish friends when you arrive back.

bilingual / trilingual is very common in many countries, UK surely has to catch up. the good news is i have seen several new bilingual primary schools being set up in London or near London, hopefully more others will emerge.

i speak and teach my children in mandarin, my wife speak to them in cantonese, and they learn English at school, they are very young and they can certainly understand these languages to certain extent but they are no way near being fluent, still miles behind my expectation though :D

i personally prefer them to attend a bilingual school like Spanish or French if there is a choice. To me language and music are something very useful even until your very old age, and these skills are much more valuable than getting academic 'A' grades at school.