what age do children become bilingual?

[Serenade]

My son is 4.5 and we are bringing him up in English & Arabic.
The only time he hears Arabic is from DH and although he understands(can translate if you tell him the arabic) he has not said a word so far.
I can speak a few words of arabic and hopefully starting classes soon
any thoughts?

My children live in Italy. We are both English and my children mostly speak English, however I know when they are in an Itaian environment they speak Italian only. Does your husband speak Arabic with him all the time or only occasionally.

I think in cases where they only here one of the languages in one place it's quite common for them to understand but not actually 'speak' that language.

DS1 is 5 now, and DH talks to him in Shona often, I think he does understand some of it, but never says anything.

And friends of ours who run the shop down the road are BOTH Shona speakers, but their son has lived here since he was 5. they speak Shona ALL the time at home, yet he only ever speaks in English - even when they visit Zimbabwe !

My children are billingual and although they spoke fairly late, they spoke both languages equally well all the time. DD is 7 and DS1 is 4.5 and fluent in English and Swedish. I speak Swedish at home and DH English. we have quite a few Swedish friends and mix with their children a lot which I think is important. Do you not have an arabic community? Do you let him watch films in arabic? Is he read to in arabic?

DH speaks to him everyday in both languages and he does understand as he will askhim to do things in arabic and he does it no problem.

we are thinking of having an arabic only speaking day(maybe get me into learning as well)

Be great when he can as he can speak to DH's family

Depends on day to day exposure tbh. I've known toddlers being bilingual especially when raised ina bilingual home. Those who are educated in a different language to their mother tongue can pick it up to a degree within 6 months and fluently probably a year or more between aged 5-10 for instance. Understanding comes way ahead of expressive language, as with the mother tongue. The later they start, and the less regular exposure they have, the harder it seems to become, especially if they become self conscious of practising and making mistakes.

DS has grown up bilingual because we have a bilingual household. I always speak English and DH speaks Portugues. Since he is so used to this he started speaking in the appropriate language at the appropriate level as soon as he could talk which admittedly may have been a little later than usual, about 2.5 years old. Since we lived in a 3rd country the only exposure he had to 'our' languages was at home. It seems to be very important that you stick to your relelvant language ie your DH must only speak Arabic to him and your DS should only speak Arabic to your DH, likewise with you and English. I assume that your DH responds to him if Ds speaks English, really he shouldn't if you want to make it work. It is tough to begin with but the benefits are huge. Our household is fully functional biliingual but I get told off by DS if I speak Portugues to him and DH gets told off if he speaks English

I speak German and my DH English with our kids, dd 4 and ds 17 months. I'm the only German influence besides the occassional visit from a German friend and my family (every 3-4 months not doesn't really count).
DD defo understands everything I say to her however she mostely speaks English with the odd German word interspersed. I think that's quite normal especially as she knows I understand English as that is what I speak with dh. She made me laught the other day though because when my father called she told him about her day in English... when he asked her to repeat that in German she just said 'bye' and gave the phone to me!

So the more people you can get to speak arabic to your ds the better

I think it's really interesting, maybe the problem has been DH communicating in both languages and that is the only arabic that DS gets to hear.

we will try the suggestion with me only speaking english and DH arabic

thanks for all your valuable input