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?

We're another OPOL family: English & German. My husband speaks exclusively to our DC in German, me in English and our family conversations can be in either language (which has forced me to relearn what I have forgotten since school some 30 years ago....).

Our DC is 7, nearly 8. He's fluent in spoken German and is now starting to read & write it, having built the foundations in English over the last few years. He was a bit late speaking but very soon caught up (and now won't stop talking in either language!).

It's certainly never held him back or confused him, and means he can converse freely with DH's family whose English is about as good as my German.

It's such a good thing you can do for your child, with plenty of research backing this up that other PPs have cited.

Friends of ours are German/English (M) and French/Italian (F); they use all 4 languages at home and their children speak all 4 fluently.

We also have friends who are German (M) and Italian (F); they brought their child to UK at 6 and she is now native fluent in English. German and Italian, at university in Germany.

The children won't be language delayed at all; but there will be slight delay in when their fluent multilingual chatter is totally comprehensible to adult monoglots. Because the infant is perfectly happy speaking several languages at once. But that stage passes, magically the child's brain separates the languages and they just speak one at a time.

You won't confuse him at all. Speak to him in French Arabic and English equally. What a gift! He will be tri-lingual. How could this be anything other than fantastic?

It's not an amazing idea, unless you have a super sensitive husband who is indifferent to your child being monolingual. Presumably you live in an English speaking country. If you want your child to speak another language, you need to balance out the world around them. So you need to input as much of the minority language as you can. You need to overcompensate for the fact that the world around them is in English. Just you speaking in the language will not be enough. I say this as a person who has a family member who did this. The children do not speak his language. My children are bilingual, but it took effort from me, a lot of books, TV, regular visits, and a supportive dad! We were both really keen that they spoke both languages. Having lovely grandparents on both sides who did not speak the other language helped too. But I cannot over stress how crucial for us it was to compensate for the fact that the world around them was not in my language. There are lots of good books out there, many of which put to rest some concerns, such as the on going myth that there is a delay if you bring up a child bilingually.
As for which language you speak, out of Arabic or French, I would say, pick one, and chose the one that you feel the most emotionally attached to. I think (from quite extensive reading) that three languages works if there is one per care giver, so say one per parent, and then the language of the country is another language.

@Wagapapa James Milner is a professional footballer and English. He decided to learn Spanish and only speaks to his kids in Spanish. His wife is English and their kids are now bilingual. It does no harm whatsoever.

www.sportbible.com/football/james-milner-only-speaks-to-his-children-in-spanish-20220528

Speak your mother tongue to your child! They will always learn English living in England so don't worry about that. Yes bilingual children may start a bit later but once they get going, their brains are HUGE!

Please please speak to him in your mother tongue! It will be nothing but a gift for him. And for you - I can't imagine not sharing my native language with my children.

We live in Spain, so speak English at home but our 3 small kids go to Spanish school/ pre-school. The twins came here as babies so their speed picking up English is noticeably slower than our eldest, who spent his first years in an English-speaking environment. But they understand both languages well and are speaking both now too. Eldest is also reading in both languages. Kids' brains are sponges at that age.

I have a Spanish friend here whose sister moved to the U.K. with her English husband. It proved very difficult to keep the kids' Spanish level high and my friend says her sister feels a deep sadness that they can't really communicate fully in her native language, or with their grandparents.

I would say 3 languages is going to be tough if you are the only person speaking two out of the three, and the other language is also the community language. So I'd agree with picking your strongest/ most natural language for you and focusing on that, at least to begin with. I'd also speak it to your child regardless of who else is around. If your DH is speaking English to your baby, he will understand it just as well.

Definitely speak to them in your native language. My 3yo had no issues picking it up. We do one parent for each language and about to introduce a third. I think if we had just done the third at the beginning he would have picked that up also.

I work in an international school where the children normally speak or learn 3 languages and often have a 4th. The "rule" we work by is that each adult speaks only their mother tongue. You might need to choose one to start with just so you don't get confused! But your child will amaze you with their ability to separate the languages. Don't worry about the English - they will pick that up at school eventually.

Speak to him in French and Arabic.
He is so fortunate to be able to get the opportunity to be bilingual or trilingual

The research is strongly against this approach. You should speak to your child in your mother tongue.

Why have you been speaking English to your baby for the last 10 months? Doesn't it feel strange to speak English when it's not your mother tongue and when no one else (ie partner who only speaks English) is around?

You need to start speaking French and/or Arabic to your child now. Babies understand so much from a young age. Studies have shown that babies can hear the difference between different languages. You want your baby to become familiar with the sounds of French and Arabic and to associate that with you.

If you have not yet done so, i advise you to do a baby signing class such as "Sing and Sign" or "Tiny Talk" (if you're in the UK?) They are good for multilingual families because both parents can use the same signs while they say the words in their own language(s). eg you would do the sign for milk and say "lait" and your partner would do the sign and say "milk". So baby learns both words.

This is really not an amazing idea. However good you are at English, it is impossible for you to be 100% fluent/grammatically accurate, as if you were a native speaker. There have been numerous studies done on the different approaches and by far the best outcome is for each parent to speak in their own mother tongue to the child.

Speak in your mother tongue.

Bilingual babies have a massive head start in life.

Actually most bilingual children never mix languages if their parents don't - not even as toddlers. If their parents do, then they do.

Agree. Children that grow up bilingual don't seem to be confused, they know which language to use when.

Speak in your mother tongue!

I speak French to my daughter, DH speaks English and my parents speak to her in Urdu.

She's 2 and knows when to use each one. Doesn't confuse her.

Do whatever feels natural.

I am one of 4. English is not our mothertongue.

2 live in English speaking countries, spoke to their dc in our mothertongue, one of them father spoke in his mt, which is not English either. Parents spoke to each other in English.

1 lives in our home country, spoke to dc in our mt, dc went to English speaking school.

I live in France, spoke to dc in English, taught them my mt fairly casually and they visited my home country relatively regularly.

All dc are now teens. All dc brought up abroad speak English fluently, our mt adequately but not fluently. Dc brought up in our home country speaks our mt fluently, English adequately (learnt in school).

Provided dc are exposed to a language regularly enough, they pick it up to a good standard, but they only take it further if they are using it in their everyday life. So you can choose what language you want to talk to your dc in, he will get his English from his everyday life, and from hearing your dh and you talking to each other. Or you can speak in English if that feels better (it did to me, as I spoke to dh in English and didn't like to switch all the time) and just teach them French and Arabic as you go along.

He's at the best age to absorb language it's typically advised one parent to speak a language consistently and the other a different language. Yes they are in general a bit slower talking but before school and the understanding is there.

My childhood friend grew up in an OPOL house. Mum spoke one language, dan another. Then she met me and I spoke yet another. She now lives in a fourth country and learned another language for fun. Once you've learned more than one, every new one is easier.

And everyone around them knows more. Because she was so adept at instantly interpreting for parents and friends, we all learned because I'd know from context what she was explaining to her mum and catch words.

And I will say that there are a lot of really sad adults who missed out on this and regret their parents' choices. Knowing you could have had access to fluent French or Arabic, spoken in so many places around the world, but your parents didn't do it, that's really sad. It's like giving them a free pas to an extra qualification, career and source of income. I know kids that interpreted for students in lectures at university and made money! While listening to the lecture as well. It's like free money.

OPOL has to be consistent to work though. Swapping to English when you're out or when dad is around will not result in truly fluent bilingual children.

On the confusion thing. I would say not only do children not get confused, but my children are really rigid in that they really identify people with a language, so if anybody who they recognised as a native speaker of their father's language (because they knew them for example as a speaker of the other language, or because their accent was bad in my language) tried to speak to them in mine, they would be super confused when they were younger. They would not be "nice" about it at all. They would just totally not answer or join in until the person was speaking the "right" language. Somebody who was introduced and spoke to them in one or the other, that was fine, but switching if you weren't perfect, well, that wasn't on at all. I'm talking preschool age here, these days they would be polite, but when they were little, they were just not having it, they identified people with a language, and there was no confusion.

It's amazing to watch how quickly they figure out which relative to speak which language to. It really doesn't seem to confuse them at all so I wouldn't worry about that.
Your child is so lucky to have the start in life of speaking 3 languages.

Our brains are hardwired to learn languages
Most of the worlds population speaks more than one language and it does not cause delays or problems - the advantages are huge

Tiny happy people website has some brilliant info on this

www.bbc.co.uk/tiny-happy-people/bilingual

Definitely speak in your language. It is a gift and a huge advantage and he won’t be confused if you do it all the time. Go for it!

if you want your kids to be properly bilingual or trilingual, do make an effort to hang out with other adults who speak French / Arabic. and watch TV / cartoons in the additional languages.

it is hard for kids to learn a language from one person (sometimes called Heritage learners). they learn much better as part of a community that speaks the language - overhearing adults, playing with other kids etc.

you'll find that baby will happily engage with the additional languages up to 2 years or so, and then around 2.5 years might suddenly refuse and only do English. At this point, you need to really push the second language (refuse to speak English yourself) and do French-club or Arabic-playschool or whatever to get over the hump and get the language really embedded.

but it is definitely worth doing this.