Should I speak to my 10-month-old in English?

[Wagapapa]

Hi everyone!

I have a ten month old baby who I always talk to in English. However, I am a native French and Arabic speaker.
My DH's mother tongue, on the other hand, is English.
I would like to introduce him to French and Arabic but am unsure as to how I should go about it.
I don't want to confuse him or create any potential speech delays.
Plus, my husband doesn't understand either languages and, since I'm with DS most of the day, I'm afraid my baby won't pick up English as fast (or not fully until he starts going to nursery anyways) and won't be able to communicate with my husband properly.

Am I overthinking it? Should I just stick to English for now, should I solely speak to him in French?

I personally would go with Arabic too and as pp have said the research suggests that one parent sticking with one language causes less confusion. When they did research they found that any confusion was caused when the parents swapped between the languages.

The earlier you learn a language the better.

I would also go with Arabic. I think it's more of a beneficial language to be fluent in.

Speak to him in your mother tongue(s) and DH can speak to him in English.
It won't confuse him. Google 'one parent one language'.

Speak in your mother tongue. The language that you are most comfortable and proficient with. They will pick up English easily from not just your husband and school but anywhere they go.

The nuances expressions and tonal differences of your languages on you can teach.

www.lets-talk.scot.nhs.uk/tips-and-info/top-tips/growing-up-with-more-than-one-language/

This is really not the best way. This is what my brother and his wife did and once the kids started school, they rarely spoke the second language. They would answer the parent in the local language.

Now, as adults, they understand both languages but have quite poor oral skills in the second language.

You should only speak French or Arabic to them and your dh only speak English.

Definitely don't wait to introduce your native languages. The younger the better as far as language acquisition is concerned.

Those of you who have done OPOL, I'm curious as to how it works when you talk to your partner, with the children present or when you are talking as a family, especially if your partner doesn't understand your language.

I'm fluent but non native in a second language and I have taught my kids some but never really spoke to them consistently in the second language, mostly because my husband doesn't speak it all. So it would have been weird to have conversations with the children which he couldn't understand. So family conversation has always been in English. In some ways I regret not speaking more in the second language when they were small but I just can't envisage how t would have worked.

While it can be a bit of a pain, you can simply repeat what you said to your partner in their language. Bonus there is they will also probably pick up some of your language.

Opol is not about the dc never hearing you spreak the other parent's language, it's about you only using your language to speak to the dc.

Speak one of your languages to your child all the time.

Trilingual is tricky unless you live in a the country which uses one of the languages the bilingual parent speaks, but bilingual is easy.

My kids are fully bilingual but we had to move to my husband's country of origin to achieve it as he infuriatingly wouldn't speak his mother tongue to them in an English speaking country.

One parent, one language is the most common approach but we do minority language at home, which has worked brilliantly for us (but is only possible if both parents are native speaker fluent in the non community language and the children are fully integrated in the community, not part of an expat enclave).

There's a multilingual families board on here - I've forgotten exactly what it's called, but have a look. There are also a lot of books on raising bi/ multilingual children.

Start now though - it'll be a million times harder if you try to start once your child is talking extensively and has English firmly established as their sole language!

Our DD is fully bilingual. From the time she was born, DH and IL spoke to her in Welsh, my family and I used English. Conversations now are in a mix of both languages. I would use whichever language you prefer with the DC. Also, you
might be surprised at how much French and Arabic your DH picks up this way.

Use OPOL, op. It's so worth the effort. You speak French or Arabic and your husband speaks English. He'll have no issues with English as he's around it all the time it'll be his dominant language as that's what's spoken at school etc. What usually happens is the child will understand the second language but answer mainly in English until they are in the other country then the start speaking if more.

We have used OPOL with our child since birth. It's so worthwhile, it's a free gift to them. Apparently it's also good for their cognitive development so has even greater benefits. I'll outline some tips below. I'm afraid I only know about doing it so they become bilingual but hopefully someone will be able to advise on a trilingual approach.

• Be consistent with the second language don't mix English in. Your husband speaks the English plus he will hear it at school.
• ask friends/family who live in the other country to speak only in that language (if they speak English too) as they may want to slip into English to help the child out but it's actually counter productive.
• Join a Facebook group for multilingual families they provide lots of advice
• When they are 3/4 they can go to a Language Saturday school. There are lots across the U.K. in a variety of languages and they aren't that expensive. In my opinion they are excellent value. Weve noticed our child speaking more of her second language since starting,
• expose them to the language via music, books and TV. You can set their Netflix profile to another language so their cartoons are in French or Arabic. Its another small way to increase language exposure and make you feel less guilty about them watching TV haha

The children next door speak English (dad), Italian (mum, and Hebrew (grandma). Ever since they were tiny babies, the three people spoke to them in their own language. It's amazing what babies can learn.

It doesn't matter if your child doesn't pick up English as fast. When your child goes to nursery, he will pick up English anyway even if he went there with no English at all, and in the meantime, his father can take care of that, since he doesn't speak another language and is a native English speaker. You should stop speaking in English to your child.

My neighbours little boy is 3. She speaks to him in English. Her husband speaks to him in Romanian.

He can understand both. I wish I'd had that opportunity as a young child.

As others have said you can speak to him in French and/or Arabic and then have English as a household language, it'll be such a gift to raise your child bi/trilingual and they will thank you for it later! My friend is Bulgarian (her DH too) and her daughter didn't speak much English before going to nursery (though she understood everything) - within a few weeks of starting nursery aged 3 she was chatting away confidently in English! Kids pick up languages so much more quickly and easily than adults. We're also a bilingual family (Polish-English) and my son spoke much better English and very little Polish until he was about 3, at which point (with some effort on our part) he made much more progress and can now actively converse in Polish too rather than just having a passive understanding. Good luck!

I speak French to my children, English is the common language. They understand all french but do not reply in french, only English. One parent plus all of society around them is enough to make English the dominant language, even if you only speak French and Arabic to them.

I say this so you can get over the biggest hurdle which is likely to be your husband's support. In my experience, monolingual English people (and especially men) get extremely concerned that one parent speaking their native language will somehow mean the child never learns English. Obviously that's rubbish. But it was my experience with my husband and the husbands of many bilingual friends, and indeed teachers/nursery staff, and is why my second child speaks better french than my eldest, because by then my husband had seen how dominant English was and was more supportive of me speaking more french to them, rather than asking me to switch to English in his presence.

Also not to be negative but I studied languages and met a lot of people through uni whose parents were speakers of languages other than English (mainly slavic languages so tough for English-speakers to learn) but hadn't taught them. They then ended up learning the languages the hard way (i.e. language courses at uni) and all regretted that their parents hadn't taught them their native languages. My aunt is from Thailand, only spoke to my cousin in English and now he cannot communicate with any of his family over there, it's such a shame.

Always speak in your native languages. From the word go. My kids are dual culture. And it's not that easy to achieve.

We live in France. Dad is French. Our home language is English to make sure access to English is good. TV was only in English. Radio too. Books in both. Audiobooks in English. 90% is their minimum grade at school.

DSCs understand well. Speak ok. But the difference is huge. Their Dad only speaks to them in French. They're only with us 50/50. I'm the only immersion they get most of the time. It's still their best subject at school, but with 60% as their average.

Eldest has gone to uni in UK. So it's paid off.

When we raised ds we lived in a Spanish speaking country for first 2 years of his life.

I spoke English to ds and his dad Spanish. His dad and I spoke English to each other at home. Friends spoke their mother tongue to him despite most also being bi lingual. His nursery was Spanish speaking.

Although his dad was English he lived in Spain since he was 2.

His mum was English and spoke English to ds. His stepdad was Spanish (but fluent in English) and aunts/uncles 50/50 and also fluent in both.

Ds understood both languages well and didn't ever seem to react when the same people spoke to him in both languages dependent on who we were chatting to at the time.

I was gutted when ds and I returned to the uk when he was 2 that he would t ever speak both fluently.

It's an absolute gift for children to be raised bi/tri lingual. I would embrace that opportunity.

We also had an only English speaking child minder. If you can find an Arabic Nanny/ child minder that would be great.

We have a similar situation (two languages on top of English) and so we speak one at home, leave English to the nursery/when we're out with other people and I started to introduce the third one once or twice a week for a few hours. We'll see if it works but that's based on a bit of research.

In your case you could easily implement the "one parent one language" rule - I have friends who did this and it works great.

This is a great website to check out:
www.trilingualchildren.com/p/language-strategies.html?m=1

What a wondering gift to give to your child. I would go with whichever your extended family speak the most. I have a friend who's sister moved abroad and had kids and they have been brought up entirely in that language. It has been a real barrier for them developing a relationship with their grandparents when they don't speak the same language. You probably will find they take longer to learn language, especially as you haven't been speaking it to them before. But small children pick things up amazingly well and by school time you would have no idea what age they all started speaking at.

Definitely do - I’d personally choose Arabic as French more likely to learn at school. My friend has kids who speak English, French and Arabic and they spoke all 3 to them since birth

OPOL, - one parent one language, is a very well established and researched approach. You need to be very consistent, particularly you as your child is growing up in and English speaking environment. Luckily, thanks to the internet, as they grow up you can introduce TV, music and films in the target language as well as in English.

In your shoes I’d also prioritise Arabic at this point as it will more of an asset to them.

My DD1 has a number of bilingual friends from school. They were English + Arabic or an Indian subcontinental language. All also excelled at Modern Languages at school. I think it helps build the neural networks and will give your baby a huge advantage. I’d start right now, don’t delay. They are already learning language.

Others will advice on when and how to best introduce the third language.

Be warned, some people may scaremonger about this confusing them but it really won’t. Most people grow up bilingual to some degree, just not in Europe and anglophone countries.

And don’t worry about your husband not speaking Arabic or French. Your meaning will be obvious from context at this age, abs although he may never learn to speak it, he will pick up the vocabulary along with your child.

Don't worry about confusing him. Like PP said, there may be a slight delay with speaking but they catch up quick. My DC are multi-lingual (spoke different languages at home, but watched English TV and of course we live in England). My eldest took a bit of time to start speaking in English, but he soon picked it up in nursery. It was funny, they would talk to him in English and then he would reply in x and y languages strung together!! Initially, the staff thought he had problems with speech/hearing, until I explained that he wasn't talking gobbledegook to them. I just gave them a vocal list to help them twig what he was saying.