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.

@AnnaMagnani I amnot criticising your DM. my comment was in reply to the fact that you said OPOL doesn’t work. It’s highly likely it didn’t work because she didn’t carry on with it (for her own valid reasons) long enough.
It’s not a straight path, there are lots of obstacles in between unfortunately.

You are doing well with DD but it would help if your DH learned to speak French too. If she saw him trying to learn it might encourage her more.

@Wantobeareader I did not say OPOL doesn't work, I don't know how you got that from my post and then went on to be offensive and personal about me.

I said, if you had read properly, that OPOL doesn't work in every situation. Which is pretty obvious as there isn't a single solution for every problem.

@AnnaMagnani I think you are taking my comments too personally, there is nothing offensive in what I wrote if you read them. I said I am sure your mum had valid reasons for her choice but it is a fact that she stopped early and didn’t continue, why do you take that as offensive?

Could I weigh in as someone who has been the kid in this scenario? Being forced to speak my mums European language made me hate it. I was in school in England and all my friends and my dad spoke English. When my mum made me speak her language ( I was fluent anyway) it made me angry with her. I now hardly speak it at all.

It absolutely is not necessary to force her to reply in French.
It will come. Only now with my son at 8 does he reply happily in German. You can’t control her speech nor should you. I studied this and it will come just do what you’re doing.

crack on with speaking french! my partner only spoke french to our children and they are now fluent teens. They almost always answered him in English even from a young age. I admire that he kept it up TBH - but very worth it in the long run.

Thanks all. I will continue to only ever speak French with her and to repeat her answers in French when she replies in English, without forcing her or pretending I don’t understand. I don’t think it’d work well with DD, I need to find more playful ways to make her speak spontaneously to me in Fr.

I now feel like a total failure, - that's a bit OTT! The vast majority of children grow up monolingual with no detriment to their well-being!

Just chat to her in French - she will absorb it by osmosis. No need to force her to do anything.

@Mischance It is important to me that she is bilingual because I am French and it is my language and the idea that my daughter cannot speak it hurts a lot. I appreciate some people will feel differently but for me it is key.

I understand that. I am sure it will happen without the need for any sort of force. She will absorb it. No need for angst. Just let it happen. Children are like sponges ... she will be soaking it up without you having to force anything at all.

@Wantobeareader I think you are doing really well. We do OPOL, I am a native English speaker but we live in my DH's country, and our DC were born here. So they go to school in his language and are fluent in both because I speak English to them at home. Plus all children here start learning English at age 6.

I often think how much easier it is to raise bi/multi lingual children here though - I think if we were in an English speaking country it would be much harder for them to pick up DH's language.

Saying that, FWIW, I do know an English woman who speaks fluent French and managed to raise her children bilingual by only speaking French to them, even though they live in England, simply because she was determined to do so.

I think it is the most amazing gift you can give a child - a 2nd language while they are still young enough to soak it in without any extra effort on their part.

@PeatandDieselfan thank you! When did they start replying to you in full English sentences only?

@Wantobeareader with mine, they started talking in both languages as soon as they started talking. It took a bit longer until they stopped mixing the two, and figured out which was which - I remember my eldest, when he was about 5, playing with his Slovene cousin and a Scottish friend, and when they asked him to translate so they could talk to each other, he was completely unable to comprehend why they couldn't understand each other, or how he could help.

I know many multilingual families and I have not seen a single case where kids suddenly start speaking the minority language on their own accord when they're teenagers. (Unless the language is English - that's a totally different situation, as English is everywhere). What I have seen is that if the language is used passively only, kids will understand, but not speak.
What helps is of course contact with grandparents and relatives, especially if they genuinely don't understand child's other languages. Spending time in the respective country. Summer camps in that country where they have to speak. It's possible to raise multilingual children and it's of course such a massive benefit, but it's not easy.

I agree with @KatharinaRosalie. That's why I said before that I think it's easier to raise multi - lingual children if you are not in a majority English speaking country. Like you said, English does get everywhere, and also sadly languages are often not taught well, or early enough, in majority English speaking countries.

More anecdotal evidence - I once worked with a woman in her 20s who had grown up in Australia and had Polish parents. Her mother always talked exclusively Polish to her, but she said as soon as she reached school age she would only answer in English and actively rejected Polish. However, in her late teens she decided to go travelling to Europe and when she spent time with her Polish cousins she was delighted to discover that, thanks to her mother, after a couple of days she was completely fluent in Polish. She duly apologised to her mother and thanked her.

I think this situation is probably also quite common - maybe don't despair if your daughter doesn't answer in French, @Wantobeareader just keep talking it to her and trust that it's going in anyway.

OP - I have several nieces and nephews in similar situation to you. What my siblings have found is that the non dominant language (in your case, French as you're living in the UK), the children understood completely as the relevant parent was speaking it to them, but they did tend to always speak back in their dominant language. This starts to change somewhere between 3-5 years (varied quite a bit per child which I think is probably partly due to the child and probably partly due to slightly different situations).

I also found it interesting on one occasion when my 3 year old niece visited us - she clearly understood everything we said all of the time, but spoke back to us in German... until the end of her holiday when suddenly there was a switch!

I think you are doing fine. The only small change you might make is to start encouraging French speaking maybe at set times... "DD, at breakfast, we are practising our French" or spending time with other French families and telling her we try to talk French. But in a low key way.

My older nieces and nephews are now fully fluent. My younger ones appear to be on track too. I think you're doing totally fine.

@Wantobeareader

Saying that, FWIW, I do know an English woman who speaks fluent French and managed to raise her children bilingual by only speaking French to them, even though they live in England, simply because she was determined to do so.

Op this is me too.
not a humble brag. This is to emphasize the point of determination and consistency.

I’m a Polyglot with English and Italian as first languages.
We live in a Dutch speaking country. I actively chose to speak to my dd in Italian from birth. She’s trilingual and I mean constructs grammatically correct complex sentences in all 3 languages. he preferred language is hands down Italian

What helped?

I was a her radio. Italian in our case is minority language so as soon as she was born I would just talk to her non stop. Tell her what I was doing e.g I’m closing the door, let’s put that in the bin etc.

Speaking to each other in Italian even in the midst of others.

Telling her how special it is that she can speak Italian as well English and Dutch

Reading in Italian equally to her.

Don’t be afraid to completely exhaust speaking French to her. Keep at it with joy and a relaxed attitude. She will feed off of your vibe.

C’est pas évident mais petit à petit l’oiseau fait son nid. X

Or ‘ma petite’ even….

For my dgs his dm didn’t speak to him constantly in Welsh as her Welsh was not fluent, my ds only speaks English.
However at 2 years he was put in a Welsh led nursery and his primary school was also Welsh led.
He's at an English led secondary by choice now but has Welsh lessons too and is pretty fluent in Welsh.

@Gioia1 what you describe is exactly what I have been doing with her since the day she was born.
But as she goes to nursery full time, she spends most of her day speaking in English and DH also mainly speaks English with her so I am just a minority in her life. I hope that over time the amount of words and sentences she says in French will increase. For not I'd say it's 80% English, 20% French when she speaks but I notice a daily improvement in her vocabulary when she tells me words in French so that gives me hope.

*for now

@Wantobeareader
then you are doing it right. It will come when. Am sure if it.

OP just a note to say please dont give up. Just returned from a trip to my partners home country, kids are fully fluent because he spoke to them in his language from day 1. And they complained about it a lot over the years and always replied in English.
My kids are now teens and are so grateful that their Dad didn't give up. They have rich relationships with their relatives and are able to make jokes and have relationships/connections that would never happen without fluency in the language.

Hi OP. Just carry on doing what you're doing. Talk to her in French without fail, when she replies in English repeat it back to her in French. Expose her to as much French media as you can (tv, radio, books), spend as much time in France as you can, and nurture relationships with local French-speaking friends.

We're also a FR-EN bilingual family living in the UK. We are both fluent in the other language which helps to some extent although DH (who is French) is probably a bit too good at English... he doesn't speak French to the children all the time which is a real shame I think.

On Netflix you just have to select the language for each programme. The vast majority of kids' shows have a French language option - certainly the shows that my kids watch (I have a 3.5yo and an older child). If you have an internet radio you can put French kids radio on - we like Radio Pomme d'Api. We also have Yoto players and listen to French content on those.

It's actually a lot of work to ensure children get enough exposure to the minority language. But just keep going! I'm sure your child will speak more and more French as she gets older. (My oldest is 7 and only really speaks full sentences in French when we are in France - he is understandably much more confident speaking English - but we are doing what we can and I'm sure he could communicate in French if he really had to!)