going to be a mum - bi-lingual baby from birth?

[pixie100]

Hi there everyone,

I have just found out that we are expecting our first baby - due in November!

My partner is French (& speaks very good English). My French is holiday stuff level (not particularly great if I'm honest) but I am learning!

I am keen that our child is completely bi-lingual. Not just in language, but cultually also.

I was wondering if anyone had any tips?

Thanks for your time.

Pixie
x

ps - we live in North London, UK.

Yes, from birth... You need to look up OPOL.. One parent one language.. And think about lifestyle.. Having periods in France, for example.. Having French family to visit, meeting up with other French speakers.. It needs to be normal for the baby and you from day 1. I have to run now but will pop back later..

And congrats!

As others have said, OPOL. DH only speaks to the DDs in Hebrew. In fact, even though I'm very used to him speaking English to me and other adults, it sounds very strange to hear him speaking English to other children!

I keep trying to instigate a rule of Hebrew only in the evenings before the DDs go to bed, with DH and I speaking it to each other as well, but we keep forgetting!

My SIL and DB tried this, one speaking only english and the other the foreign language.
It wasn't a success, probaby because they didn't haev anyone else to speak to as well, and very few trips to Sweden, or family visiting.
The youngest DC used to shout at his mum to stop talking like that and refuse to converse with her.

They more or less gave up in the end.

Hi mamsnet & strawberriesAnd Scream -

THANK YOU for your advice/posts.

We have large family in France & beyond, whom we visit regularly - cousins/aunts/uncles/friends, so the child will have to be able to speak French to communicate with them properly.

I'm guessing that OPOL is the best way to go given that my French is not great ? ? ? ? although other members of my family speak French.

I'll look up les petits lapins - not heard of them before.

Thanks again

Pixie
x

Yes,just do it.

The important thing is that the relevant parent sticks more or less to that one language. (friends of mine where the husband speaks very good English have had bilingual issues as he likes to "show off" his English with his son, and then lo and behold, the child can't speak Italian as well as he can speak English. Well d'oh!)

oops - as i was posting there were more posts...

thanks also to tennisfan & AnnieLobeseder x

I guess we'll just have to try what we can & see what happens.

we're hoping to be in French speaking country for 1st couple of months of birth, so baby will at least hear French around it from beginning

Pixie
x

yes, Bucharest,
this seems to be the same issue with my partner not speaking to me in French - I'll need to be strick about speaking to baby.

x

TennisFan - did they use OPOL from birth? I think it's unusual for it not to work. In most bilingual families it has been mostly successful, though in a lot of cases, mine included, while the children understand the non-native language, they don't speak it. We're at a loss as to how to get the DDs to actually speak Hebrew. It doesn't help that all DH's relative understand English so there's no push for the DDs to answer them in Hebrew.

But it's funny you should say your DB and SIL's DCs should tell mum not to talk like that - mine give me grief and tell me to stop if I speak Hebrew to them!

I think a lot of it really does come down to the children having a perceived need to speak.. Annie, what you describe must be frustrating. Luckily my kids know that nobody in Ireland understands if they speak Spanish.. Is there any way of meeting other people??

We use OPOL and now that DD is 16 months and starting to speak, I notice it is catching on and she knows the words for things in both languages.

My language is the minority one so I try to compensate by reading to her very often, pointing at pictures, repeating words etc. When DP and I notice she has learned a word in one language, we try to make sure to say to her in the other language a few times as well. Now that she's getting older I also try to avoid reading books in English to her and stick more strictly to my language.

It's very cute to see her learn and work out that mummy's words for things are different from daddy's. DD doesn't know any better so it's all fun and games for her.

does anyone think it would be Detrimental for me read in French (especially baby books - they're okay for my level !)????

Detrimental, no! But I really would leave the French books as the special thing between Daddy and baby.. Remember that French is going to need an extra helping hand..

This is one of the things my friends did, which, like Mamsnet says, isn't detrimental but it's not helpful either as such. Your husband is going to have to do the reading in French. (I know a few bilingual couples where, for whatever reason, the father is a bit meh about the whole thing, sometimes they need a bit of a kick shove! I started buying dd books in Italian and then saying "oi, you'll have to read this, I cannnnnnnn't" )

thanks mamsnet/bucharest,
I'll leave the french books -
hoping to send him/her to french speaking nursery/playgroup too, but not for 1st few months.

perhaps a native French speaking baby-sitter / nanny / aupair would help too?

ciske - I hope ours is as cute trying to work things out - I guess, like you say, it's a game & if you make it fun - they don't mind or know any different.

I'm actaully quite excited & happy about the whole thing now - thanks everyone.

pixie
x

It can be hard work but it is great fun.. Enjoy!!

Hi Pixie, Congratulations!

OPOL generally works as long as both parents stick to the golden rule and are consistent about other situations - what language will you use when talking to each other (all of you together), what language will you use with school friends, what language with family member a, b, c, etc. There are all sort of models - for instance the person who initiates a conversation determines the language for that conversation, or each person answers in their own dominant language. I can recommend The Bilingual Family for all the different scenarios.

Basically, unless your child goes to a bilingual nursery or school, the 'school' language will probably be dominant, but the child will still be bilingual (might refuse to speak the language actively or use false friends from the other language though).

The only cases I know where things have gone badly wrong have been where one parent changes language completely at random in the middle of sentences. We have a case at school where a French mum uses French, English and German as she likes with her son, who is unsurprisingly very linguistically confused.

Congratulations on your pregnancy.

My tip would be to stick at it. Don't give up even if you face resistance from your DC at times.

MIL is Dutch. She started speaking Dutch at home with her children, but when her 3rd was born with a severe disability she (understandably) had too much on her plate to continue in the face of her other DCs resistance to speaking in Dutch.

Fast forward 30 years and DH feels very sad that he doesn't speak Dutch very well at all. He has learnt a little as an adult (and has an amazing accent for a non-speaker), but deeply regrets never being able to have a conversation with his Dutch grandparents before they died.

good luck!

We know a couple back in Israel, she's North American, he's South American so their native languages are English and Spanish. For their first DC they spoke all 3 languages, but by the third they couldn't be bothered and only spoke Hebrew. What a wasted opportunity to learn such globally important languages!

My biggest argument for teaching your DCs all the family languages you can is to make sure your DCs can converse with any member of their family. How tragic not to be able to speak to your own grandparents.

TennisFan gives an interesting (if sad) example of how a plan can break down; I think it's a useful reminder of what you can do to make things work. Imo it is very valuable to show the child (particularly as they grow older) that there are benefits to the other language which are not confined to keeping mummy or daddy happy (as they grow, that will be the last thing on their agenda). They need to see that there are children out there, entertainment to be had, a whole child/teen culture in that language^. It's got to be cool. We are vey fortunate in that we are able to visit my birth country twice a year and get visits from relatives, but we have also gone to a lot of effort to get films and books and song tapes and all the rest.

I think - FWIW - that the problem with the mum reading books not in her language is not so much an OPOL problem as the fact that it raises the question - WHY ISN'T THE DAD DOING IT? Fair enough if he's not home for bedtime - but, especially in the first year, babies are lying down and on the verge of sleeping practically all the time, so any time can be book time! I speak as (A) a father and (B) an OPOL practitioner. I read to my child loads (and will to my second soon; she's only 2 months at the mo!) We take books to restaurants and cafes; if she starts playing up, a story will often calm or distract her. And it's a nice way of spending time together. But then, I'm very bookish myself.

Annie - in terms of turning passive knowledge into active knowledge, after a while I just started telling my daughter I didn't understand when she spoke the "wrong" language (assuming, of course, she is not deeply distressed about something!) Nine times out of ten, she will attempt it in French; I can then "feed it back" to her, ironing out any faults she has made. The other time she will genuinely not know one or more words; I can then find this out and supply the missing words, again by feeding back.

Example - 9 times out of 10;

D: I don't want you to do that!
F: Je ne comprends pas; tu parles anglais.
D: Je veux pas que tu fais ca!
F: Ah, tu veux pas que je FASSES ca? Ah, d'accord, desole! etc etc

Example - 1 time out of 10;

D: I want to wear my fairy wings.
F: Je ne comprends pas; tu parles anglais.
D: Je veux porter mes wings.
F: Quoi, tu veux porter tes ailes ]ideally, showing wings at same time]? Ben, les voila, tu veux que je t'aide?

Obviously, this takes longer than just responding to the initial English utterance and takes patience and an "encouraging" face; but it produces real results.

MotherMountainGoat - you raised some points Id not thought about -

my French level is not great & we nearly always talk in English to each other... & will probably continue to - so At home the dominant language will be English. although dp regularly listens to french radio/tv/ & reads books etc...

We intend to send our child to bilingual playgroup/nursery & school & have large family in French speaking countries whom we see often both here & there.some of them also are bi & tri lingual!

to bring up a point CORY made about it being cool - there are plenty of cousins & extended family for our child to speak to & I hope that it will be 'cool' for them that they will be the one that is able to talk to everyone!

dp will be able to read bedtime stories & do bathtime etc... most of the time so this is great & intends to speak only in french to the child.

Its been great to be on here & get advice-ideas & read what others have gone through.

Thanks to everyone x

Pixie thanks for posting this thread. My LO is due in 2 weeks and she is going to be born into a bilingual family too. I speak no Spanish but my OH is very talented and speaks Spanish, Catalan and English although rarely bothers with Catalan these days. The posts from everyone is very encouraging as I know I am going to have to give my OH a kick to do OPOL as he is a terrible language mixer already!

Lovely encouraging words from everyone for me to keep on at OH about it as it is important that my LO learns Spanish as her Spanish relatives do not speak English.

We're in a similar situation but live in France. DH and I speak English together, I will speak English to DC, DH will be getting a massive kick up the backside to speak French to DC. I have a pretty good plan in place to support English with other English speakers so if he doesn't do something then baby's exposure to French will be limited to what's found in the community and most of that is Creole anyway.

I do speak French but it's grammatically terrible and my accent is still quite definitely British. It's fine for communicating with adults, who at least understand what I'm trying to say and aren't likely to pick up on and recycle my errors, but as far as children go I don't feel comfortable speaking French to them at all and do tend to stick very closely to what I know I can say correctly, which probably wouldn't be great for their linguistic development in the long-run.

A French speaking nanny/babysitter is an excellent way to reinforce your minority language and they're not massively hard to find in London. There are several agencies who place bilingual nannies or you can self-recruit through greataupair.com (don't be fooled by the name, they're not all au pairs and some are eminently capable of extended sole charge of a baby) or place an ad in ici londres.

Input, input, input is vital, yes, but children learn to communicate and to get in touch with a culture by producing language. They need to be speaking and interacting with people in the taget language, people whose linguistic competence is sufficient to feed and extend their vocabulary and range of expression, which is why even when it's hard it's important not to give up and revert to the 'easy' language and not to rely on just one person to provide that interaction.

Your French should improve when baby comes along! The simple, repetitive phrases we use with children are ideal for picking up a language at least receptively.

Very similar situation here too. I'm 16 weeks pregnant, my DH is English and I'm German and we're currently living in Germany (and very probably will be for the next couple of years). I've lived in England many years and am virtually fluent and DH is getting very good with his German.

We've read up on OPOL and are planning on going with that. We were just wondering whether, once baby starts going to nursery and have more exposure to German environment we should swap to both speaking English at home? It will have a lot of contact with my German side of the family and even though we're close to the English side I can't see visits for longer than 2 weeks at the beginning.

I'm just worried that baby might get very confused when I start speaking in English. Has anybody got any tipps?