Bilingual family- how did you get your baby to be bilingual?

[frogalou]

Hello!

I am French and my daddy's baby is English. He does not speak much French. We are having a baby girl in October and i was wondering if bilingual families out there have some tips to make sure their children become bilingual?

Many thanks

D

My nieces and nephew are trilingual. English dad, czech mum and they live in Norway so speak norwegian at nursery and school. Thay are aged 6,4 and 2. They older ones seem to have an amazing ability to swap between languages and also know who they should be speaking to in which language. Each parent has spoken their own langauge to them but have used a bit of the other languages at times. I haven't really ever seen them confused although langauge development was more delayed to start with, not surprising as their brains were trying to assimilate 3 languages. THey have a selection of books and dvds in all 3 languages and will talk predominantly in the language of the country they are living in or visiting.

eimmum, I don't remember mine ever being confused either though we did keep moving between languages quite freely

by the time dd was 25 months her party trick was to take a word in one language and tell us what it was in the other language

our take is that we do not have a mummy language or a daddy language; instead, we are a bilingual family where every member is bilingual and has a free choice of language; however they also know that this is just the family set-up- most people outside the family are monolingual so you then you have to adapt to whatever they can understand

it didn't take them long to accept that their dad didn't drop into English when he speaking to his ILs and I didn't drop into Swedish at the NCT coffee morning, even though we might do so at home

I think our approach works in a setting where people talk a a lot about what they are doing, so the children are always kept aware of what is going on -and where there is a supply of bona fide monolinguals of both kinds

but would probably be a disaster in a set-up like my db's where the parents don't tend to analyse things very much with their dc

Mine used to put English verb endings onto Italian verbs and vice versa, it was very cute.

my youngest children are 4 and 5. We do OPOL. My dp is french and i am british and we live in england. Their exposure to french is limited to seeing their dad in the evenings and at weekends and weekends/short holidays in france a couple of times a year. They also have DVDs in french, and my daughter has started going to french school on a saturday morning.

Neither of them are fluent in french, but they seem to understand it pretty well, particularly my daughter. My son struggles more as he has a bit of a language delay anyway as he has autism, but he still appears to understand fairly well.
Both of them respond to their dad in english, but im not particularly worried about that just yet.

I think if you speak to them in your language, then they will learn it whatever. If you do specific language learning activities, then they will learn it even quicker.

we started with OPOL and kept up with it until DS went to school. It soon became obvious that he couldn't do maths in his minority language, and therefore, when we do homework, I speak English to him. However, this has not made much difference to him. He's bilingual because he spends the summers in his minority country, we talk, watch DVDs and read at home and socialise with people of the same origin. The latter is very important IMO.

I have read a child needs to spend at least 20% of his/her time using the minority language to become really bilingual.

I think the key is perseverance. If your DD ends up answering back in English most of the time, don't dispair. Just answer back in French and rest assured that she's still learning.

I've been thinking about the 20% time thing and tbh I am actually not sure it is about percentages, more about total time.

To explain what I mean, supposing you grow up in a family (let's call it family A) where people don't really talk a lot and exchanges between parents and children are on a very basic level: Sit down, Don't do that, Come here, Have you done your homework? 20% of that wouldn't exactly amount to a rich treasury of language.

In family B, where there is constant discussion on a wide range of subjects, books are on all different subjects are read and discussed, where people sing and talk and play with language together, 10% of total input might actually be far more than 20% in family A.

Arnhem in her studies of bilingual families found that the ones that really struggled to establish bilingualism were (amongst others) the taciturn ones, the ones where not much time was spent using any language.

My language, English, is the minority language. I've spoken it to my girls exclusively from birth. Because they've gone to regular french nursery and nursery school, they've always spoken to me in French. Although they had no problem with my speaking to others in French, including their father, they are shocked if I ever slip up and speak to them in French.

Now the older two are in a fully bilingual primary school (and my first DD passed the entrance exam without having much speaking ability) and they finally speak English to me. I think it helped a lot that I always read them English books and showed them DVDs in English, and sang them songs in English. I really wouldn't worry if your child doesn't speak the minority language at first. Regular exposure from birth is the most important thing.

Btw, I also read in French, sing French songs, and help them with their French homework. You can be as flexible as you want or need to be.

I wanted to add that both my older girls where verbal very early. They both said their first word at 9 months and had a large vocabulary, both English and French, by 18 months. They have both skipped ahead a year in school, and both made it into a highly-sought-after bilingual school. I think bilingualism can be a great gift. They are also both very interested in learning other languages.

My 3rd child doesn't seem as gifted, but she has all the same exposure to language as the other two. She's only 2, so we shall see.

I have a friend whose mother is Spanish, but grew up here. She is very sad that her parents did not bring her up as bilingual, (she can speak Spanish, but not "as a native" ) to the extent that she is very proactive in ensuring that her DCs speak Spanish. She says they now speak it better than she does.

I am very rigid with OPOL and have always been as I know of a number of families where DC understand the minority language, often very well, but will not speak it, in turn the parent switches to English more and more. Also, it seems some people do not find it easy to switch languages and muddle them.

Both my DC (7 and 3) are bilingual and I do find it hard work to keep it up, especially as they get older and go to school, e.g. I am constantly trying to find books and DVDs they might like, finding stuff on YouTube in my language, starting some formal tuition with DS (7) to get him reading and writing correctly...

I think cultural identity is important. If the child identifies with the language and culture and thinks its cool and fun then they will be more motivated to want to use and learn it.

My DS (7) will speak German to anyone who is fluent and still considers it to be the language he 'understands better' - after 3 years in school in the UK and he is doing fine.

I have heard some kids feel embarrassed if a parent speaks the other language in front of their friends. My DS keeps showing off with it.

I read somewhere (might have been an erudite study, might have been on MN, either way, it chimes with me!) hat children need three criteria to be fulfilled to become bilingual / bicultural: quantity, consistency and need.
Quantity as per above can't be expressed as a percentage, but it needs to be a lot!
Consistency - well, Cory would disagree as she has had great success without using OPOL, but consistency does seem to pay off.
Need - a child must feel the need to speak the minority language, either through peer pressure (cousins, friends back in minority language country) or contact with minority monolinguals.