When did your DC start speaking in the minority language?

[Marghe87]

DD is 2yo. We live in the UK and she is in full time daycare where they speak English all day so, naturally, she is starting to say a lot of words in English. I speak the minority language and do OPOL with her (my husband also speaks english but tries to use my language as much as he can - is not fluent but he knows a lot of words). DD doesn’t say anything in my language yet. I know it’s very early but it hurts… when did your kids start expressing themselves in the minority/second language?
On top of doing OPOL ee also ensure we read a lot of books and watch cartoons in my language and we try to visit family as often as possible.
I truly hope we can raise her bilingual.
Tips and success stories are welcome.
Thank you

She really is very young! Some children are not even speaking at that age.

It varies a lot. I know some dc in my family (all multilingual) who started speaking the minority language alongside the main (often starting speaking a little later than average), others who refused to speak it at all until they were much older.

In the end, if they have a decent motivation to speak it, they will get there.

Around 3/4 for us. I had to convince DP to only speak his language to DC and flat out pretend he didn't understand when they spoke English. We also put the telly in his language for their shows and he took over being the one to read to them as they were little and loved being read to, again in his language. I think if he'd started earlier and been consistent they would've picked it up quicker but he often got frustrated/discouraged and switched to English.

I'm afraid mine is not a positive sorry. DC are 12, 10 and 6 and DH has spoken to them in the minority language since they were born. We live in the UK and I understand but do not speak the minority language.

Mine speak back to him in English. I'm not sure how we could force them to talk to him in minority language. They know he is fluent in English! They don't often hear a natural conversation in the minority language - family can't afford to visit too often and phone calls are not the same.

My thought it that one day, if they choose, it will be there under the surface and maybe when they are older they travel and maybe even study in the other country. I live in hope!!

It can't be a bad thing though to "know" another language. I understand it makes learning a third language easier for example.

We are a trilingual household. English Dutch Italian. We live in the Netherlands. I have ever only spoken Italian with my dd20months although English is my mother tongue.her father speaks Dutch with her and between myself and him English is the language we use. She rarely mixes languages when speaking to us. Once she was about to say “thank you “ in Dutch to me but corrected herself and said “grazie mamma”

She starts peuterspeelzaal(preschool)a day after she’s turns 2 in November. That’s the way it works here. So I’m even more determined to stick to Italian with her.

She started speaking minority Language (Italian) in sentences at 14months. Op I must tell you that I was like a radio to her from birth. I talked not only her ears but also my ears off! Constantly commenting on what I was doing , talking non stop with her, everywhere, around people or not, even at dinner table with family it didn’t matter. Now we have normal back and forth conversations.

The key is talk talk talk to your child in whatever language you want them to learn. As well as what you’re already doing I.e reading singing etc. don’t hold back in using your minority language. Opol requires stubborn persistence but it pays off.

I write this as a polyglot who grew up in a multilingual family but didn’t speak until the age of 3(it’s a running joke in the family). So I was a late speaker but that didn’t prevent me from taking it all in. Don’t be discouraged. She’s absorbing everything. Give her the gift of being bi or trilingual. It’s worth every effort.

@Gioia1 thanks a lot for this. The issue is childcare and school as no matter what my effort is, it will always be a minority language. I too try to only stick with my language, even in front of other who do not understand and I read books to her too, every day. I truly hope one day she’ll start actively speaking it too.

You say you do ONOL (one parent one language) but then also say that your DH tries to use your language with her. DH should stick to English if you're doing OPOL as I think it will confuse her if he's switching languages (also, if he's not fluent, his use of the language with her won't be natural. He'll limit his dialogue due to not knowing the right words).

She's still very young - many monolingual kids aren't speaking at all at 2. Often bilingual kids spend longer processing before they start to speak either language. Naturally, your DD is being exposed to English way more than your language so it stands to reason that English is the language she speaks first. Does she show signs of understanding your language?

Do you live somewhere that has a Saturday school or informal meet up for children & parents in your language? She may be more keen if she hears other children speaking it. But I have to say, I grew up in Wales where many of my friends' families were Welsh-English bilingual, with one parent only able to speak English and the other fully bilingual. The bilingual parent would usually speak Welsh at home and many of the children went to Welsh medium schools, yet few would speak Welsh in the home through choice (would reply to Mum in English if she asked a question in Welsh etc). All the kids of these families could speak Welsh as they did so in school or when visiting older Welsh relatives that didn't speak English, they just didn't want to when they didn't have to.

English is the minority language for us, dd didn't really start speaking it until 3 years old, after a trip to the UK where she realised children didn't understand her. Ds has always spoken English more strongly so have the opposite problem with him and need to improve his majority language which has gone downhill again after spending the summer in the UK.

Do you have any friends with children who speak your language? Having some playmates who speak it can really help.

Mine was 3.5, English was the minority language in this case. DD went to local nursery and always replied in Italian when I spoke English to her, despite practically the whole catalogue of Peppa Pigs and CBeebies DVDs (it was a few years ago) and being read to extensively in English. I couldn’t get a word out of her that wasn’t Italian.

one day we had friends over from the U.K. and she suddenly came out with complete complex sentences in English. She’d probably been storing it up until she was perfect. Some kids do that apparently, others mix up words in 2 languages until they get it right. 2 is very small, DD wasn’t saying much of anything at 2 yo.

Just to say everyone is different but do persevere. Make everything at home in your minority language (TV, books, music, nursery rhymes, daft songs, games), keep randomly chatting away in your language when you’re with your DD. I’m guessing by your user name you’re Italian? I think you can probably get RAI online in the U.K., the channel for tinies is RAI Yo-yo although much of it appears to be CBeebies translated.

@mrsfoof yes opol generally speaking but dh says the odd word in my language, mostly when reading books or poiting at things with her (ie: naming objects). Surely the more she is exposed the better? He still speaks English with her 95% of the time.

I definitely need to look into playgroups in my language, they probably exist but I have never spent time searching.

@Melassa thank you. I actually play cartoons on youtube so can find it all there too :)
she loves my family so I am hoping she will start speaking one day when we visit them or they visit us (several times a year).

Around 5 when we went on holiday in our home country and she had to speak to play with other children,

At home she would sing songs or spoke when we played boardgames but day-to-day conversation was us German, DD English.

She is now a teen, can swap when she talks to her grandparents and as soon as we are back in Germany. She went twice on her own to a holiday camp with no problems.

She now does a community GCSE in German, writing and reading is still lower level than talking and listening but she is proper bilingual.