How to introduce 2nd language at age 2.5?

[Pearsandpearls]

Hello NMers!

I'm originally Finnish and will want my children to speak my native language. Having that said DH wants SS2.5 to learn it as well.

My stepson is with us 50/50 and I'm pregnant with an 'ours baby'.

How do I get started??

He hears only English at home, at his mums and at nursery. Only time he'd hear Finnish is when im on my phone with my family. His English is rather well developed for his age and he often baffles us with his sentence building capabilites!

Do I just start speaking to him in Finnish at home? Get Finnish story books? Put on Finnish movies when he's with us?

I find it so awkward as he wouldn't understand me at all to start with and he'd just wonder what's happened to me!

Anyone with experience? Please help!

Exactly as you've said. He's still very young. I would advise only have Finnish cartoons/TV on and only speak in Finnish as far as possible. He may ask what things mean in which case you can either say the English word or show him what you're talking about. As he's only with you 50% there's not really any other way he'd become fluent. There is a lot of help out there for this sort of thing once you look online. There is a Saturday Finnish school too in London if you're from there.

I live in Wales and all my husbands family speak to my children, 3 and 4, in Welsh and I speak to them in English. Their school is a Welsh school too. They speak both languages fluently. I'd say speak to your child in a consistent way. You always in Finnish and your husband in English.

I would start to speak to him in finnish at home. toddlers are adaptable so he will be confused at first, but it will eventually start to make sense to him. put on finnish tv shows, read finnish books.

Thanks guys, seems like I'm thinking the right thing.

I have a friend who's daughter have been bilingual since she started learning g language. She speaks and understands english but also understands spanish. However she will always respond to Spanish with english.

I really don't have a problem with that and I think that's also quite normal.

You can def make it work. My colleague is divorced and lives in a french speaking country with her dd, and her ex lives in a german speaking country. Both adults speak english fluently, but mum doesn't speak german fluently (she gets by in it, but doesn't talk to her dd in it). DD goes to her dads in her holidays and only speaks german there, but speaks french at home and school, plus english lessons in school. At 13 (and after spending a year with her dad last year so she could consolidate her written german) she is trilingual and doing great.
I'm sure that if you do OPOL with your baby, your DSS will pick it up very quickly

See how he reacts. Some kids are positively fascinated, some just go along with it and learn. My children hated it at that age when I or my parents spoke to them in my native language or our nanny in hers. My dd got terribly confused, as she was just coming to terms with English and hearing me or someone else speak non-English was just gibberish to her and genuinely upset her. Floods of tears. My parents don't speak English at all and not being able to communicate with them in English made DD very upset and she pleaded that I should teach them English! Similar scenario happened with ds at that age, although while he was protesting he was less upset, but he seems more able to pick up language quickly. Dd now at primary age happy to learn a second (nanny's) and third language (mine) in a more formal way - with a weekly list of vocabulary etc. at school but still protests when asked to put it into practice with me or nanny, but no longer upset, just surely and not bothered. It's a battle but a battle I personally did not want to make a priority (I would make learning English a priority if living abroad, but imo any language other than English is a very nice-to-have but ultimately not worth losing sleep over).