How long did it REALLY take your DC to learn the language?

[talktalktalkallthetime]

I always hear this "throw them in, and they'll be fluent in 6 months" and I know this sounds totally wrong. How long did it take for your kids to be at least conversational and how old are they, if you weren't speaking the language at home? And how miserable was this for you all?

(My DC are 6 and 8 but curious about a wide range of ages!)

I can’t comment on English children abroad but I’ve taught two children who came to England without a word of English. One has now been at our school since Oct 2020, by the end of the school year with us (so July 21) he was completely fluent - I’d say it took maybe 4 months to be conversational (he attended school in the spring lockdown).

My new boy this year has been with us since Nov 21 and is now very much conversational not quite fluent.

Kids really are amazing.

I lived abroad as a kid. Definitely completely conversational without mentally translating in 6 months. Dreaming in the language at a year.

'Fluent' is odd though. I knew words in English that I didn't know in the other languages I speak because I didn't need them. Guttering, ball-bearing, wheelbarrow. Practical words you learn over time. You very quickly learn what you need. But true fluency takes a lot longer.

Not my children, but I know someone who
Moved to France with 4 primary school aged children. They started the school year in sept were conversational by Christmas and fluent by June.

I was older than yours BTW.

Although I did know English people who weren't fluent after 3 years. Proper ex-pats who stuck to English speaking places and people. We were scathing about them

We only spoke English at home and ds started at Kindergarten when he was three and was fluent in German (with Bavarian accent ) within 6 months. At first he did not say very much at the Kindergarten, but when he did it was complete sentences. We did go to mums and toddlers group for about 18 months prior to ds starting kindergarten. That was all in German, but I spoke to him in English and he did not really say anything, but happily played with other kids and did know a few songs.
Both my children went to international schools in China and neither speaks fluent mandarin, although dd’s tones are vg and ds took gcse mandarin when he was 13.

Fluent doesn't mean that they are speaking it well, it just means they sound right! When you ask this question, how many of those responding speak the language too, are they really able to judge the level of their child. In my experience, I would say for a teenager, they are pretty good after a year if they have been in a school where only the foreign language is spoken.

I don't know anyone who was fluent in 6 months my own DC included. I know children who were born in their adopted country and still aren't considered properly fluent by secondary school. It's also much easier for a 3 year old to acquire language as they have a smaller vocabulary and much of it is copying and parallel play.

I think it's very common for parents of expat children to say their children are fluent because their own fluency is extremely debatable and children often pick up accents more easily and therefore sound better.

It's normal to be silent (listening) for 6-12 months.

OP, the first 6 months of my DC being immersed in new language/school was pretty miserable academically (mostly for me as I had to be so involved) but socially it was fine because 2 were still at primary and one was in first year of secondary and the other kids were so friendly and everyone just got on with it.

Didn't see Lesperance post before I wrote mine but basically agree with it!

It's normal to be silent (listening) for 6-12 months.

I do maintain this is why I learned so quickly. I couldn't bear to be silent for 6 minutes. Highly motivated learner, me.

It depends on how much social interaction restricted to the local language they get. For example, if you send them to a bilingual school it may take them years to grasp the local language as they will end up speaking English to other expat kids. If no one else speaks their language, it will be quick.

DS was fluent - conversational - after his first school year, so Sept- June 9/10 months. He was 10 when we moved.

Little ones were just 5, and 6.5 when we moved and are still not fluent after 4 years!- they pretty much understand everything but just not as confident speaking - think it's due to being embarrassed incase they get something wrong! But at school they are absolutely fine and speak to anyone, but definitely not fluent yet!

Youngest now 5, so only in 2nd year at school, understands loads, can follow all commands in Spanish, but still very Spanglish when talking!

My dd was 6 and as a pp says was 'silent' for her first year at school. It was almost like she wasn't ready to speak until she had enough of the language to express herself properly.

It wasn't miserable though, she was happy and made friends and the school were lovely her teacher used to draw pictures next to her spellings list to demonstrate the sense of the word . School weren't worried as although she wasn't speaking she was able to understand reasonably quickly and so wasn't falling behind as such (and she was in primary, I think it would have been very difficult if she was in secondary).

She is 16 now, I can't hear it but she tells me that she has a slight accent in her second language so people often ask where she is from. She is functionally fluent in both languages but does make errors sometimes in both languages and has gaps in both languages when it comes to words she doesn't need in each language. School vocabulary is not so great in English and she once had a problem in a language test ( 3rd language learned at school) when she had to translate the rooms in a house and discovered she didn't know the word for attic in her second language and had to write a whole sentence describing the space between bedroom ceiling and roof!

In answer to your question I think it depends on so many factors internal (shy, extrovert, natural affinity for languages) and external (need, friends, teachers, tutor), I know kids that seem to pick up the basics almost straight away and were chatting away in a matter of weeks and on the other hand I met another English mum once whose son wasn't fluent after 3 years but there were 3 other English kids in his class so he played with them and they all spoke English all day.

@Lesperance

Fluent doesn't mean that they are speaking it well, it just means they sound right! When you ask this question, how many of those responding speak the language too, are they really able to judge the level of their child. In my experience, I would say for a teenager, they are pretty good after a year if they have been in a school where only the foreign language is spoken.

Of course fluent means they speak the language well! I also speak fluent German.

Went to France the month after de was 9. Within 3 months she was dreaming in French and after a year was pretty much fluent. She jumped a school year on arriving yet went to college with the reste of her class even though she was 10 at the end of the school year.

I moved internationally three times in my childhood (aged 10, 12, 15) - as my home language isn't English, you couldn't just put me in some nice international school. "Throw in and they will be fluent in 6 months" actually worked for me. Fluent may stretch it a bit, but I was comfortably conversant with language after 6 months. Fully caught up academically in local language subject - maybe around 1.5-2 yrs.

I'm one of those kids with photographic memory, top in class.

When I arrived in UK aged 15, they let me start in Y10 instead of Y11 to allow me to catch up fully and be ready for GCSEs.

Thank you all for this it's very interesting! I am thinking of putting my children in a local school but it would just be for a year (maybe could stretch it out for 2) while my husband has an assignment abroad and I'm just not sure whether to do this. This is very helpful thank you again!

At 6 and 8, they will find it more difficult than a younger child would, but I would expect them to pick up conversational language in a few months. An added advantage would be that they will be streets ahead of other children when they get back to the UK.

How fluent are you in the language? I think that as an adult, if you don't already speak fairly fluently already, you would struggle.

We moved to Paris when my child was 6. Took a good while, and the immersion class that he was in (a sous-contrat bilingual school - Monceau) was quite reactive to his reluctance to speak. Referred him to an EP who was extremely helpful: she told me that 'fluency' in children after a few months is very rare indeed, that the teacher who had referred him was well-known for being panicky if a child wasn't on a trajectory that she expected right away, and that his reluctance to speak and irritation was perfectly normal.

The breakthrough came - well, it wasn't a single one, it was stages. First, he one day picked up a football and went outside to join the French neighbours' children in the courtyard. So he began to speak to children he wanted to be friends with, outside the classroom, self-motivated. Then he changed class and teacher, and that worked well for him. Then new children joined the class and he was now 'ahead' and could see how well he was doing. So all these things. But he was still reluctant to spend time in a group of French children he didn't know where they were talking fast to each other, and that was still the case 18 months in.

So it's probably a matter of personality, and how at ease a child is with being 'vulnerable' in a group, and how good they are at dealing with frustration. Those are quite mature traits really, aren't they?

That is hugely helpful @BigSkies22. I think my kids are the same. I speak the language on a basic level and will take classes but I'm OK with that and have been in that situation before. It's the kids and their social lives I'm a bit worried about!

We moved to Germany last August. Kids spoke nothing. DC4 has been in a fully German Kindergarten since September 2021 (he’s 4).
DC2 and DC3 have been in the local Grundschule (primary school-they’re 7 and 9) since January (we tried the international school but didn’t want the ex pat bubble it came with).

DC4 was very quiet until around Christmas but has blossomed in his language since then. He’s now ‘fluent’ in his kindergarten world: the language he needs for his time there. His accent is fab and he will more than often speak to me first in German rather than English. But outside of this linguistic ‘area’ he still reaches dead ends where he switches to English. So not fully fluent.

DC2 and DC3 have in the last month started to really chat in German. Lots of little grammar mistakes but they get their meaning across. They do almost all activities in German. I can tell they’re all progressing since they’re starting to argue in German…! We have a German nanny who speaks Denglish with them which also helps but I don’t buy that they’ll be “fluent” in 6 months. Confident in most (child) situations but still clearly foreign.

People’s perceptions of their own/their children’s abilities may be a little skewed and/or understandings of the word ‘fluent’ are very different: fluent does not necessarily mean they are mistaken for a local, and you can be ‘fluent’ in certain areas/situations and totally flounder in others.

The only answer though I think is to throw them in. It was intimidating for DC2 and DC3 to begin with but they actually enjoy it: it’s a great mental workout for them.

Sorry for the essay.

When we moved to another country, my 6-year-old daughter went from total beginner (basically zero prior knowledge) to chatty and comfortable in her new language in about 6 months. Within a year she was correcting my partner and in 16 months was fluent enough to perform in the school play with no trace of an accent (other than the local regional accent).

She went to school, went to the equivalent of Brownies with her friends from school, spent almost every day after school at one or other friends' house and was totally immersed in the language.

I now live in a different country (in Europe). One of my neighbours is from the UK, with a wife from another European country. Their oldest son was 4 when they moved here; the youngest was born here. The oldest boy went straight into kindergarten and could communicate in the local language within about 6 months. It is now the language he uses most - even when speaking to other Brits when he knows that we also speak the local language. Both children are completely tri-lingual - they speak English, mum's language and the local language, swapping easily between them.