1 year old - correct or encourage?

[SlightlyB0nkers]

Our dd is starting to say some words now. Some in my language (eng) and some in DH's language.

The problem we've noticed is that DD will say a word in english, the right word but DH automatically says the word in his language. It's almost like he's correcting her.
He says I do the same, vice versa.

My gut feeling is that if she says the right word but in the other language, I should say well done and not repeat it in the 'wrong' language or the right one. Maybe later on say it in english.
Even writing this is confusing me. I can't find anything on the net on this.

Should we just praise her when she says a word right and not worry about which language she uses. Or should we both repeat the word in our own languages?

It feels sometimes like we are in competition with each other.

Has anybody experienced anything like this? Any advice would be appreciated.

Children who learn two languages naturally take longer to talk.
Sometimes you both saying 2 different words may be confusing your DD, as if DP is correcting your word with his word.

It might be more clear to DD what is going on, if you speak to her in your language and he speaks to her in his.
I suggest you praise her whichever language she says the word in and repeat it in that language.
Otherwise its almost like saying a 'Cat' is a 'Dog' IYSWIM
If she is eventually going to school in the UK then it might be an idea to emphasize English. If she is going to go to school in another country (DHs') then his language should be emphasized.
You probably are subconsciously in competition with each other.
I suggest you have a serious chat with each other to decide what is best for little one.

Yes, you are right OP. You both need to talk naturally to your DD - it is not a competition between the languages.

Why not say something like "that's right, Daddy says xxx and mummy says yyy". Long winded, I know, but at least your dd knows that she has said it right, but that there are 2 ways of saying it in your house. Hope that makes sense.

Hi Slightlybonkers. DD is now 5, and is fluent in English (me) and German (DH). It is tricky, but you do both need to talk to her naturally as Bonsoir says. If you find yourself "correcting" her, you can always just add, "that's how you say X in English", but don't get stressed about it - it's a learning curve for you two too!

You will probably also notice that as she starts to string sentences together she will use a mixture of both languages. Don't get too stressed about this, and don't give her a hard time - she will gradually learn to separate the two languages as she becomes more fluent. DD still occasionally uses a mix of the languages - particulary when she doesn't know the word in the "correct" language, and sometimes she will make up a word using the other language a a base, ie she has used "jumpen" instead of "springen" to say Jump in German! (then we correct her, but gently)

It's all good exercise for her brain, getting used to the sounds that make up language, and it will all come good in the end.

DD's school has many children that speak more than one language and is very supportive of being brought up bilingually - for instance the phonics way of learning to read concentrates on the sounds that make up a word, so it can be really beneficial as the child's brain is used to differentiating mnay more sounds than just English, and deciphering the words involved.

hope that helps reassure you!

X-posted with Hexagon - agree that is a good approach!

Thank you so much for your replies. I had a proper talk with DH about it last night after thinking on your advice.

It's great to hear from people who are actively using two languages with children.

I agree, it is too early to be doing anything but praising her. Thanks Amiable for sharing your story about your 5 year old. That also helped me understand that it's a longer process so why am I rushing to correct?

DH and I have both agreed to not correct her but praise her for getting the right word, no matter the language.
We are in Finland and she won't start school until 7 so there's no rush I just panic sometimes that I'm doing the right thing.
Really appreciate all of your replies. It helped me so much.

Agree with consensus, just both of you talk to her, otherwise she'll start to reject one of the languages. (and in any case, the "I know how to say that in Daddy's language" boasting will come naturally- believe me,(dd aged 7 is such a show off now lol)

Whilst it sometimes happens that bilingual children talk later, it's not always the case btw.

She'll probably naturally be a little bit "behind" in Daddy's language, by virtue simply of Mum doing the main parenting (the rights and wrongs of which are for a different thread ) but if she will go to school in Dad's country, then she'll catch up and overtake the other language pdq.

When dd started school last year, her English was streets ahead of her Italian. Her spoken English and Italian are now on a par, whilst her written Italian has overtaken her English.

I agree with Skifit - it's not a matter of 'correcting' your DD, you simple need to model the correct word back in your own language to your DD. So, she points at a cat and says the FI word for cat when she's speaking to you, you say "That's right, it's a cat!" then use the EN word a few more times in quick succession e.g. "what sounds do cats make?" etc...
Now, when DD1 (7) mixes languages (and we have three - two at home and a third at school), I sometimes get her to repeat the EN word (I do this more with grammatical constructions though), because she learns faster that way, but at 1 year old that's not necessary or particularly useful.
Don't worry. It does all usually work out fine in the end, provided a child has enough input in all three languages

Bucharest - what do you do about your DD's reading/writing in English?

Agree with everyone else.

Our DC grew up speaking English/German in German environment till we moved to Geneva which is French speaking, but their friends are English speaking.

They were stronger in German before we moved, now English is strongest. Their language skills change and adapt to the situation.

DD went from absolutely no French 2.5 years ago to very fluent, reading and writing. She is almost 9yo and didn't go to school till she was 6yo.

Both she and DS still sometimes mix languages if they cannot think of the right word. I gently correct, eg. DD today asked today, "Mama, have you ever had that maladie?" and I answered, "No, I have never had that illness".

I think that answering it in a sentence is better.

Hi Bonsoir, tbh, I'm not doing very much at all about the writing- she has recently started sending emails to children of friends in the UK, so a bit of practice there....she is reading well in English, ploughing her little way through Enid B at the moment, but still calls me to decode the spelling/pronunciation anomalies.

She's in y2 primary here, and they get so much homework anyway,that I don't want to load her up with anything else. Her English teacher is a bit rubbish, and I think next year, instead of just having dd sit in the room "helping" when the kids do English I might ask her to give her some writing to do.

I would like her to do a foreign language as well, but finding one here that's not English is hard!

I think it sounds like a great idea to get the English teacher to get her to do some writing practice in lessons if she is otherwise wasting her time being a TA!

This is going back to the OP, and might or might not be relevant but I think it's interesting. Apparently the latest thought on how young children acquire any language is via 'child centred language' which basically means that young children exist in an environment where they are constantly gently corrected when they say something incorrectly, usually by the adult repeating back what they have said correctly. Adults do this naturally and unconsciously to small children, and apparently children as young as 4 do it to younger children! So correction - or feedback - is part of any child's linguistic environment, whether they are learning one language or three. Therefore I would say go with whatever comes naturally, and don't try to say anything which feels contrived as you won't keep it up anyway. My ds speaks mostly English and I talk mostly French to him (he's 2 years 9 months) and I constantly repeat back in French things he says in English - he doesn't seem to see it as correction and I can't see another way of continuing to include French in our interactions. Also though, as others have said, I would relax about it at this age, and congratulate every utterance if you want to! I guess the really harsh thing to do would not be to correct, but to pretend you didn't understand the other language - that might lead to a frustrated child very quickly at this stage in development.

I have to agree with you there Nights, that would be terribly frustrating for dd if we pretended not to understand. I'm still learning Finnish myself and can sympathise with that. It would make me not want to even try to speak it, so must be the same with children too.

That really does make sense and feels like the right approach. Thanks.

We did what Hexagon says at this age and it works a treat.

the "I don't understand" is great later but only if you think the child is not distressed and does know how to say it deep down.

One little thing on this question.. DH and I had spoken at length about this before the DC even appeared (I'm a bit of a language geek, I admit..) so there were no problems there but.. I would make sure you have GPs and other important adults on board.
We did have problems at the beginning with my ILs, who seemed to feel a bit threatened by the fact that their GD, living in Spain, spoke better English than Spanish. They tended to repeat in a way which made it seem like correction and we had to point it out to them (they weren't aware that theywere doing it) and explain why it wasn't good practice. 5 years later DD is perfectly bilingual but we do still have to keep on top of the GPs!!

So glad to see this thread as I was wondering this earlier on. I've been going for the "Yes, that's right. That's a bicycle" when he says (an approximation of) velo. or "That's what Papi says, Mummy says..." or "That's right, buy mummy calls it a x"

DS is nearly 2 and has only recently started talking. What does annoy me is MIL! He has an alphabet puzzle, MIL says the letter sound in German and then the word (usually mispronounced) in English grrrrr. How is that supposed to help him? He also loves me saying nursery rhymes to him, so rather than say German ones to him she says English ones - and gets the words wrong Drives me potty!

Thistle

She may well think she is doing the right thing by underlining for him that she knows how important his English is.

Have you told her how vital she is to your son's acquisition of German language, culture and awareness?

Lay it on thick ...

Yes, would just chat naturally in your language, stay in your language and chat a lot. I wouldn't take too much notice of 'wrong language', just acknowledge, enjoy talking and have fun with your little one. I would 'correct' and expand within conversation, e.g. if LO says cat! in English, I would say in German, oh yes, that's a lovely white cat, shall we try and stroke it? ...

I don't see why you should acknowledge and repeat the word in DH's language.

My DCs (6 and 3) are bi-lingual and enjoy both languages, they speak German to me and each other and English to DH. Also, with both of them the minority language (German) is still stronger.

Have you thought about using baby sign language as an addition to your two languages? Because it's visual it might help to bring both languages together as a sort of connector. A friend is French and husband German and they used signing as a link. Her boys are now all bilingual and very smart kids. It might be worth thinking about. I'm just starting to use it. My husband is Spanish and I'm English so we will give it a shot.