To “force” DD to only speak to me in French

[Wantobeareader]

I am French and DH is British, we live in the UK and my DD was born here.
I only ever speak to her in French and have done so since she was born but I mainly speak Emglush with DH as he isn’t very fluent.
She only ever replies to me in English but she has recently started to say quite a few French words in English sentences, which is great.
I have never pushed her to reply to me in French as I was concerned this would make her refuse the language and associate with a duty iuswim. Should I start doing that instead?
DD is 3.5 yo.

Honestly be firm about it. My friends who grew up in bilingual families are very upset with their family now because they didn't insist on them speaking it and although they understand fluently, they feel weird to try to speak now as an adult. It's also such a gift to be able to read/write the language too.

I spoke English to my ds and dh spoke Greek to him. We lived in Greece. In Greek company I spoke Greek too so ds heard me in both languages and by the time he was about 4 he would switch languages in the same way.
We moved to the UK when he was ten so at that time English became the dominant language as Dad wasn't around. We then switched to speaking in Greek at home together as I didn't want him to lose it. He is an adult now and fluent in both.

Mumsnet can be very militant about things. In this case OPOL.i know a single mother in this country who brought her son up bi lingual in German. Obviously at baby groups , school playground etc she spoke to him and he replied in English seems thwt you are doing great, shes a step ahead of moat of her peers in the lamguage department. .

@Mamoun how did you set netflix in french if you are living in a non french speaking country? Mine is neflix UK and for some shows ai can choose the language but for the majority I can’t

She clearly understands French I would just encourage her to speak to you in French, not force her. Make it fun. Also do you have French family you may visit sometime soon? You could talk to her about how happy they will be that she can talk to them when you go to visit.

I'd advise to keep speaking to her in French, she's learning the language the way we all learn our native language - through input. Accept her English responses, she'll speak when
she is ready.

This would interest me as well. I think you have to create a new account from the VPN so it thinks you are in France.

We do OPOL with both of our children. You do have to insist that the child speaks the correct language to each parent but it's worth it!

Do people who say that oh it will happen and she will just one day start speaking in French, actually have multilingual children? If I did not insist that they speak my language, no my DC would not speak it, they would lose it entirely, because it's so much easier for them to speak the local language that they speak every day at school and with their friends.

You can't force her to reply in french. I am an English speaker and DH is French. He has only ever spoken French to DCs. At 3.5, your dd probably hasn't quite sorted out which language is which yet, plus she's also getting to the age where she may refuse to speak one language. If she goes to nursery, English will be her language of play so will be stronger. When she's a bit older, if she replies in English, say and do you know how you say it in french? DH made the mistake of trying to force our younger child and it has taken him longer to be comfortable speaking french. How much time do you spend in France? Our DCs came on in leaps and bounds, and we realised they could speak a lot more than we thought when they were with other children/grandparents who could only speak French. Does she watch TV in French? Both my DCs are teens now and DD is completely bilingual. DS is more or less fluent - he's improved so much now he's speaking for himself and not because he's being made to.

All the netflix shows, with the red N on, are available in french. If you change your language settings you can choose french.

I think you can change your general settings as well so if the show is available in french, it automatically plays in french. I think.

You are doing well.

Don't force her to use French, she will start naturally.

You can be a bit sneaky and start a hobby / activity that is just you and your DD so she only has the French vocab.

In the 1970s in Canada they started, "total immersion" of French for English speakers.

The teachers spoke to the children only in French, the children could reply in French or English.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_immersion_in_Canada#Australia

I'll check later and will let you know.

@Istheworldmadorisitme

We definitely don't have VPN. We change back to English regularly if we have friends over.
Every programme can be set in another language. We don't get access to the Netflix programme that are only on Netflix france but everything my girls watch (for example at the moment the lorax and spirit the series) is all set in French.

OPOL sadly doesn't guarantee success.

My DM tried it with me and around this age found it unbearable as unfortunately I was old enough to have spotted that she was the only person around me speaking that language.

I absolutely refused to join in, it made her so miserable plodding on with it she gave up and as an adult am not bilingual.

But you are able to express yourself clearly in at least one language, and there are children forced into bilingulity that don't have that in either language.

I had a similar situation with my DD, bilingual French/English living in a French speaking country, except I'm the English speaker and her dad speaks French. We did OPOL, but I always spoke French to her dad.

She was at an English-speaking school, and went on "French strike" for about a year between age 3 and 4. Her dad spoke to her in French but she'd only reply in English.

I'd read somewhere that this was completely normal and so we just ignored it and carried on with the one-parent-one-language approach. She came out the other side and started speaking French to her dad one day, and still does to this day - she's a teenager now.

I understand that language and identity are very closely linked. At that age in their development, children start understanding the concept of "self", and for some of them it is confusing to have a self that speaks two languages. So they "identify" more strongly with one language and may prefer it for a while. But it's natural and normal, and there's no need to force anything.

Yes! This is how my British, monolingual DH became virtually fluent in French within 6 years. We only speak to the kids in French. For complex thoughts I switch to English for him, but for anything procedural I now stick to French even when the DCs aren’t around. He recently went to a conference where he ended up speaking with a bunch of potential French clients in French. His boss was very impressed, and my DH was incredibly proud of himself. :-)

Force no, encourage yes

@UpToMyElbowsInDiapers
This happened with my husband. We spend a fair amount of time with my family which helps! He'd also known as the French speaker at work 😂!

I would say that there needs to be desire to learn. My DH was keen and interested and it made a huge difference!

Can you buy some French dvds? There are a lot of French cards for the Yoto player.

I had a similar situation with my DD, bilingual French/English living in a French speaking country - makes a massive difference if you actually live in a place where everybody speaks the language in question. Of course they will learn to speak it, whether the parents speak the language or not. If they only use the language with one parent then I would be very surprised if they just randomly decided to start speaking one day when they're 13.

@AnnaMagnani but OPOL didn’t work with you because your mum gave up. If she continue to speak to you in her languge only maybe in the end it would have worked

Ok so I managed to switch the profile language on Netflix but doesn’t make a difference, things are still playing in English

@Wantobeareader she did give up because doing something in every interaction with an unhappy child gets bleak.

It's not fair to her to imply she didn't have sticking power.