Are you or your children bilingual?

[Happy36]

Are you or your children bilingual? Is it important to you that your children speak your native language fluently? Do you encourage them to learn new languages? Do you like to learn them yourself?

I'm visiting England at the moment (we live in Spain) and I've been talking to various people about learning languages and I'm surprised at how low the appetite for it seems to be. I'd love to hear more opinions.

Our oldest (6) speaks French and English. He has been in local French schools since age 3, and we are all English at home. It was one of our main reasons for moving out of the UK.

I'd say that a desire to speak another language than English is not, for your average Brit, a big priority. Whereas an awful lot of Europeans want to learn to speak English as well as their own language. Unless they consciously value it, or they end up working in a non English speaking country (and not even then necessarily) there is not the same push to be able to speak fluently in any other language.

Yes, just wondering72, I agree. To me it seems strange in our age of communication not to want to know more languages. However, I appreciate everyone's different.

What do your other children speak?

Do you find it difficult to support your eldest with his French school studies?

My son is.

We live in Italy, but I'm English. It was vital to me that our son was able to communicate with both parents on a "both native speakers" basis.

It's not just about the language itself, but about neither of the parents being "foreign" to their own kid. Although since we live here and the chances of him not being a native speaker of Italian were nil, I confess the parent I was worried about being "the foregin one" ... was me.

My DDs are fluent in Chilean Spanish and English. I get by but can't always find the right words in Spanish.

Hi happy

My French is getting better, but DH is pretty fluent, and he can help DS with homework so far, I am already struggling and will be completely lost once he starts grammar etc. our youngest is in nursery, understands a lot of French but yet to speak it much beyond 'maman'!

I find that by moving in expat circles in France, we are surrounded by people who, for whatever reason, are ready and willing to learn the local language, even if just to communicate with their I laws. I think the general British public, living in Britain, have little reason to do so unless they really want to. You, and I, and others on this board are a bit self selecting. If you are feeling brave you could post your question on the AIBU board, and ask a wider, UK based, audience why they are not interested in learning other languages?!

I'm not overseas, but here in Wales, and dd is bilingual in Welsh & English. I speak English, Spanish (functionally but not native), understand Welsh but don't speak it, can still read French but not speak it these days due to lack of practice.

Of all the things I learnt at school, I'd say languages (and touch typing) have been the most useful in my day to day and professional life. I definitely encourage dd to work hard at languages at school (only French so far), and also to stay in Welsh medium classes rather than moving over to English medium.

My native language is English and I'm fluent in German. I've been living in Germany for 15 years and speak German to my DH whose first languages are Farsi and Pashto. Our Dd is 25 months and is basically learning all 4 languages. I speak English to her, DH German, MIL (who she sees every day) Farsi and FIL Pashto. DD goes to a German nursery so at the moment most if her words are German.

It's very important to me (well to both of us!) that she can communicate with her relatives eg none of my family speak German and lots of DHs family live in various countries so we decided to follow the one parent one language practice.

Languages was the only thing I was good at in school and my French used to be very good but I just don't use it enough now. I started to learn Farsi too which I loved but don't really have the time for that at the moment.

I am British and live in France. Studied French at uni and was a French teacher before moving here. DH is also a Brit but fluent in French. Our kids were born here and their first language is definitely English (spoken at home). The eldest goes to maternelle but is really just starting to speak French - having some little French friends has helped. My youngest, who goes to the creche a couple of times a week, speaks more French but is a more out-going, confident child than elder sibling.

I am always embarrassed at how 'lazy' (do I dare say that?) British people are at learning foreign languages. I find it depressing that we are the linguistic dunces of Europe. Whereas here everyone is so aware how important English (and other languages) are.

Hopefully my kids will be totally bilingual Fr/Eng and I will encourage them to learn other languages offered at school.

I agree with everyone! Not brave enough to post this in aibu, though, sorry!

My parents moved us from South Africa 25 years ago. At the time SA was not hugely popular and so they decided not to teach us Afrikaans, only English. As an adult, I am sad that I never learnt my home language and if I had the opportunity would undoubtedly bring my own children up as bilingual.

I am living in belgium and dd (4) is at the local school and doing quite well now with her nederlands. I have been trying to learn a little, by myself at home, but on top of the general difficulty of that ds has been a nightmare sleeper so never had the time and concentration together. Where we are neither me nor dh can get to language classes with 2 small children.

I really don't know how people can stay long term in places and not learn the languages - how, practically, do they cope? Belgium is very xenophobic right now and public services in flanders will only communicate with you in dutch. We've been here 2.5 years. I know of someone in Austria who's been there for nearly 10 years and still not learned German. He seems to find jobs through expat connections. We don't have those, and at the level we look at (not head-hunted, just ordinary low-level professionals) you don't find many job openings that don't require the native language.

I was always learning languages at school; I seemed to have a knack for it but without the budget or background for travel my French now is barely at 'can get by' stage, and the rest of it forgotten.

And there may be part of your answer. If you are not going to travel outside UK except on holiday (I know people who have never been able to afford that ) you don't need other languages, and I haven't noticed active curiosity about other places being a big part of British psyche. Or anywhere else's for that matter. As for holidays, well English is everybody's 2nd language, so you can get by with just that.

Expat life has proved the necessity for languages to us, as it's a pain not having the dutch here and I'd really rather have tried moving to Germany but neither of us speak german.

My DS is - English & Spanish - lived in Spain from age 10-18 attending Spanish state school so had to learn the language. Now at Uni in UK in final year of European languages degree. Now speaks pretty good French & German too .
DH speaks pretty fair Spanish, I get by

Forgot to say he wants to teach languages but has been disappointed with the lack of interest in languages in the UK schools compared with Spain, Germany or France so he may land up moving abroad

I am in Canada. We are officially bilingual but in reality not at all. In my area there is very little French to be found other than on food labels (bilingual by law). I would love to be bilingual, took French all through school and was good at it, but there is just no opportunity to practice so I've lost most of it. My children are in immersion programs through school (50% French and 50% English) so they will be bilingual, but they will also lose it unless they move away from our area.

We live in Luxembourg.
I am a Brit with a little French. My Partner is French but brought up here so Speaks fluently/Native English, French, German and Luxembourgish with a good command of Italian.
Before I retired I commuted from Luxembourg weekly to various other EU country's to work.
Our Daughter who is now 22 and starting a Masters in English in the UK speaks all the above with no accent and has a good command of Spanish.
This all sounds incredible to an English person but frankly if you live in a country with only 600,000 people you better speak a few languages.
England with 70 million people speaking a language used regularly international in business and Law have little incentive to learn another language and can concentrate on the Sciences with all the spare hours available in their schooling.
Here in Luxembourg there is much wringing of hands over the general competence in the Sciences but it has not done much harm from what I can see.
While our daughter grew up I being English spoke English to her, her mother French. She went to a Luxembourg play school one day a week when she was 2 and within a few months would converse with her mother in Luxembourgish. The official languages are French and German so as her schooling progressed German was naturally added.

However the MOST important thing is she has roots. She understands both the culture and humour of England, France and Luxembourg.

I want to repeat that.

However the MOST important thing is she has roots. She understands both the culture and humour of England, France and Luxembourg.

Without culture and humour of a country you live in no mans land.

That's a good point, gfplux.

Everyone's stories are so interesting, and diverse, yet all of us and our families seem to share common goals in terms of communication and education.

fussychica Languages are still thriving in the top public schools so your son may find a nice job there or, as you say, abroad. In Madrid every colegio is, or is en route to being shortly, bilingual.

^ every state colegio, I should have said.

ThanksHappy36 - the public school route is interesting and may suit him.
I think he'd be happy to return to Spain for a while but our Spanish friends tell us funding in state education is even more stretched than in the UK so I can't see him making a more permanent move there.

Germany appeals the most and he is thinking of another year as a teaching assistant via the British Council, further improving his German, before he goes for a PGCE.

fussychica He is likely to be better paid in Germany. Good luck to your son whatever he decides, it´s lovely to hear of young people with a desire to teach languages.

In Spain there is still money to be made (in my opinion) by starting up private language academies, if your son´s got a business streak alongside his languages.