Any bilingual families - need help encouraging DS to speak second language

[RecoveringChocaholic]

I've been trying to raise our DC bilingual. DS's first language is English, his second language is my mother tongue. We speak English when his dad is around as he doesn't speak my language, but when it is just the two of us I always speak in my native language. He understands me perfectly fine but always responds to me in English. There's the odd non English word thrown in and he is getting better, but never a full sentence.
We read in his second language, watch films, listen to audio stories. He also goes and visits my family 2-3 times a year and Skypes my mum (her speaking my native language, him responding on English).
Any advice on how to encourage him to speak to me in his non - native language? My mum says I should just make him but he point blank refuses.
He's 4 and also has a baby sister who doesn't talk yet.

Oh, also, as he's only 3 you could still try the "or" trick to get him to switch to your language: if you ask "Do you want a biscuit or orange juice", they often say "biscuit" rather than "Keks" (or whatever) as it takes less mental effort.

@Destroyer - you may not like it but emotions are an accepted major factor in how children learn languages. This is my academic area and there is extensive research on the role it plays in successful acquisition. I'm sure you know better than the entire linguistics community though.

I’d just keep going. I once read an article on bilingual children’s language development and I think this is quite a common stage for young children.

you may not like it but emotions are an accepted major factor in how children learn languages. This is my academic area and there is extensive research on the role it plays in successful acquisition. I'm sure you know better than the entire linguistics community though.

I’ve never dispute it , but you are making massive unsubstantiated leaps about the OPs child. At 4 years, those emotions are still developing. As long as the op avoids the bad practice mentioned here, I’m sure she’ll be ok.

Just keep being consistent in speaking your language, even in front of your OH, he is just going to have to get used to it. Unless you are talking together as a family (so OH is part of the conversation, in which case speak his language) you should be speaking your language only. You can always translate quietly to OH if he is desperate to know what you said.

My oldest refused to speak English (our minority language) for a long time (when she was a toddler she had periods when she was only exposed to Finnish, when she was at her dad's, which must have had an impact) but I kept on speaking it to her even when she answered in Finnish, and sometimes when she'd say something in Finnish I'd say I didn't understand, could she say it in English, and sometimes she would translate. Now she is 9 and speaks English to me except for some words and phrases that she finds easier in Finnish. We do OPOL and have English as the family language to increase exposure to the minority language.

I also somehow convinced her that the cat only understands English so she had to speak English to the cat which also helped I think! And since her little brother came along I asked her to help me teach him English so she speaks mostly English to him which gives her more practice and him more exposure (at 2 years old he is more bilingual than she was, switches between languages appropriately and has the same words in both languages)

That gave me an idea - how about getting him a new teddy/soft toy and telling him that this toy only understands your mother tongue and loves to hear stories. Tell some stories to the toy yourself with DS, and then encourage him to try telling some himself.

I remember reading about someone years ago who did that with a glove puppet. So if the child spoke in the other language, the glove puppet would say he didn't understand.

@Natsku our family is the same language mix but in reverse. I understand Finnish which helps a lot so its never been a problem if my wife is saying something to our son that I won't understand. Although he is 4 months so 90% of the sentences are 'tuleeks royhyt', 'onko nalka' or 'tuleeks kakka?' - hardly takes Chomsky to work those out!

Yeah not hard to work those out!

I know this is an old thread but I found it interesting.

I only ever speak in my native language to my children, no matter who is there or where we are. It's no one else's business.

Any DP that gets upset if another language is spoken in his presence needs to get a grip. Does he think that state secrets are being shared? Conversations with small children are not that exciting.

Does anyone have experience of learning a language alongside one's baby/child?

I've got a fully bilingual 5 year old, and honestly, you need to get a better balance between the two languages.

For us, we got very lucky that the balance of our family/environment just kind of worked in a pretty 50-50 way:
Overall/default family language = A
1 parent alone (+ family) language = A
1 parent alone (+ family) language = B
Country/school language = B
Extended (6+weeks) summer trips to other country = A

So at school and in general society, as well when alone with one parent, and their family, he speaks B.

But when together with both parents, on extended summer trips, and alone with one parent and their family he speaks A.

That splits the two big areas of their life (School/nursery/kindergarten) and Family, between the two languages, meaning both end up being essential, and both have developed to a fluent/normal level now.

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I have a lot of friends who are in your situation. which is the same as ours, except the family language is flipped to B, so that it matches the country/school's language, and honestly - most of them (at this age range) are struggling, because it unbalances the situation, and isolates the second language to one single parent/circumstance. The two dominant parts of their life, school nursery/kindergarten, and their family, are all the same language... of course that will become the dominant language.

Given that this isn't possible for you, I would suggest that you just keep forcing it through the following approaches, until they are old enough to value the language:

1 - As much extended time with grandparents, without an English speaker to translate. This will force them to communicate in their second language.
2 - Make sure that when you visit your home country, they socialize with other children in environments that don't contain any English.
3 - Make sure you have plenty of alone time without your husband, and discourage answering in English (playfully)
4 - Teach him to read (maybe not yet) in your language, because research has shown that reading cements 2nd languages. If they just speak but never read, the chances of them loosing a 2nd language later in life are much much higher.

And the biggest:

5 - Get your husband to learn your language.
He doesn't have to become fluent... but the act of him learning it, is inspirational for your child, and means that you can have some small times when that language is used as your family language.