Triligual: one language too much, or does it work out?

[Booboostoo]

OH and I are Greek so keen that DD (9 weeks old currently so a bit too young but thinking ahead!) speaks Greek as both our families are Greek. We live in France so she will go to a French nursery/school, but we also want her to learn English early on (we lived in the UK for 19 years and English is such a useful language). Will she be able to cope with three languages or is she likely to get confused?

Between us we speak Greenglish with a few French words thrown in. Do we have to stick to one parent uses one language to communicate with the child? I just don't think this would work for us in practical terms.

I'd use the one-parent, one-language approach with English and Greek and the French she'll learn from her environment & school.

I have a friend whose daughters are being raised in Swedish and German (mum Swedish, dad German) and they go to school in the UK. So yes, it is possible, but I think you need to be very consistent.

It is possible but I agree that it might be easiest for one parent to speak exclusively in greek and the other in english. in our family dh speaks catalan to the children, I speak english to them and dh and i speak castellano to each other. School is mainly catalan with some castellano.

So far ds1 (4) speaks as near perfect english and catalan as a 4 year old can. I never hear him speak castellano but he will pick it up naturally as they all do here.

imo you run the risk of teaching your child no language well and even if they become proficient in Greenglench they might find no one else speaks that

Congratulations to you and your dh on the birth of your baby daughter!

It sometimes depends on the child, but speaking generally, three languages no problem. Particularly if you start from birth as you are doing.

We are an English family living in Belgium. We speak English at home. DD is being taught French and Flemish at school. She has had no problem picking up the three languages (she started at 2.5 yrs and is now 8 yrs). She switches easily between the three.

I'm no expert but I'd be careful with the Greenglish as the school have emphasised how important it is to eliminate any confusion or muddle between languages. DD is only taught specific languages by specific teachers and that never changes. There is no mixing of languages, ever. The two languages are separated very carefully.

So one parent/one language - sounds like an excellent idea but you have to be rigorous about it. If you don't think it is going to be practical, then I wouldn't try.

It might be worth finding out whether your child is going to be taught English at her French school, and if so, at what age? If she is then you could just opt to support her at the time when that happens or (if you want to have an early start in English - there is lots of evidence to suggest the earlier the better) then you could start her off with English lessons once or twice a week (or you could choose one or two days a week when you all speak English - although I don't know if that would be classed as 'muddling').

Good luck with it!! Your dd will have a great start in life. There is lots of evidence available now to suggest that babies who learn more than one language are better at problem solving and think strategically (something to do with the way their neural pathways develop I think !!)

er, that should have read, thinking

Before the age of 5, children can pick up many languages. Don't worry about confusing them. This is a myth. The one-parent-one-language approach is the most popular, but this is not always possible especially when one parent does not speak one of the languages. In my English-Greek home, we speak English at home and Greek when we are in a Greek speaking environment (e.g. at Greek playgroup). My daughter, who is 17 months, is picking up both languages. She is also learning a valuable lesson: the speaking environment you're in changes the way you speak. Hope this is helpful - good luck with it!

I simply does depend on the child.

Some children will be fine; but I do know a child (very bright) who, at the age of six, still wasn't fluent in any language and two languages had to be dropped. I still don't understand why the school she had been attending for three years didn't do anything before then.

I also know two other children (mild SN) who couldn't cope with two languages and their parents had to concentrate on one.

On the other extreme, I know an 8 year old who speaks four languages.

I agree with Belgo, it depends on the child.

We have never been strict with the OPOL technique. I know many swear by it, but our languages have always flowed into one another. We do try not to mix languages in one sentence, but we both speak English and German with the DC.

We since moved to French speaking Switzerland and the DC are now trilingual.

Do you have friends who speak English? If you speak Greek at home, then I would be concerned that she would not be hearing much English. Or you try to speak English some of the time, and Greek the rest of the time.

DS is being brought up trilingually. I speak English, DH French, IL's and crèche Swiss German. He's a bit behind most of his peers speech wise, only odd words, no phrases or sentences. But he understands each of us when we talk to him/ask him to do things.

I have friends who speak in their native language to their children, speak English to one another (both lived in US for ages and want kids to learn it) and children learn German at school. Children speak to each other in German, parents in Romanian and understand a lot of English and can speak a fair bit.

There are many children at DD's school being brought up trilingually (or even quadrilingually... though parents usually abandon that idea quite soon!).

I think it is possible, but it depends on your expectations. Almost inevitably a child will have a "first" or dominant language for reading/writing purposes. Which one do you want that to be? You do have a great deal of power to manipulate your DC's choice of first language.

DD (2.9) is on her way to be trilingual. I speak Polish to her, DP English (we also speak English to each other), DS sometimes English, sometimes French. She just started creche where they speak French. So far she speaks English and Polish well and is quickly picking up French.

The only possible problem I see here is that one of you would have to be very consistent with only speaking English to your DD and that your pronounciation might not be correct (sorry, if that's not the case). I also found speaking to DS in English odd- I thought he wouldn't be able to cope with three languages and so his Polish is very limited. I found it just doesn't feel natural to be speaking a language that's not your mother tongue to my child.

Oh, and Bonsoir is right about a child usually having one 'first' language- for DD it's English as it's the language her dad speaks and the household language iyswim. Still, when we went to Poland for 5 weeks in the summer, she quickly assumed Polish as the main language. So I guess it can flunctuate for the first few years.

Three languages need not be a problem. A good friend of mine is German but grew up in the US and Switzerland. She speaks all three like a native and so does her daughter. At the school my children attend there are many children with three languages - English and Chinese at school and then Korean at home and one child whose mother is Japanese, father is German, attends an english speaking school and is also learning mandarin.

My cousin (she's only 10, just in case it sounded a bit random) has a Portuguese speaking mother, English father, Swedish step father, lives in Spain in an area that they learn Catalan in school, that looks complicated written down, lol.

Her parents common language is Spanish, neither of them speak the others first language, so they did speak Spanish to her and around her, but mostly they did one parent one language. She's strongest in Spanish, then Portuguese and English last - but her English is not weak, just weaker if you see what I mean. She only ever has any issue with my children because they're Scottish and obviously they say some scottish things, lol, other than that, she's perfectly fluent.

Her Catalan is not as strong at all, but perfectly fine for what they do at school and her Swedish is more at beginner level, but she manages when visiting there.

Three languages are perfectly fine. We live in a very multi-lingual area and many of DD's friends are trilingual.

I would recommend everyone speaking their mother tongue to your DD. That means you and your DH both speak Greek to her, she will get French from living and going to school in France, and if you wish for her to speak English, then an English tutor & some English playgroups, friends etc can be arranged. also, find for a native French nounou pretty soon so she gets at least some familiarity to French before maternelle.

The only downside is that multi-lingual children generally speak later and even then not that well for a long time. Don't let that deter you, though

i think it depends on how much exposure you have consistently to a language (i am not an expert jst from my experience) i can speak three languages fluently and so do all the people i knw. but try as i might i cant learn a fourth language now as i dnt have any1 to converse with in that particular language.

i also noticed a lot of my younger cousins picked up english from cartoons which isnt the best source bcz they spoke a lot of slang :) or spoke like
mojo jojo [hsmile] but then they moved on to english books so that sorted itself out. there are so many fun resources for children to learn english that i think its the one language u shdnt worry about