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Parenting

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Original poster

How late is too late to teach another language?

8 replies

MrsWood · 31/01/2006 15:41

My first language is Croatian - I'm fluent in English. Our dd (2.5) only ever heard me talk in Croatian when we visited my family over there, when they come over here, when I'm on the phone to relatives and for her first 9 months when I had her at home with me. Since she was 9 months, she was at nursery and I found that she was too tired after coming back home, for me to blab in Croatian to her, so I stopped. Now everyone in my family is up in arms as she speaks only English and will have trouble communicating with them.

Is it too late to start now, and how would I start? I feel I can't just start talking completely in Croatian all of the sudden as she knows I speak English and may get confused and frustrated that she doesn't understand...

Some advice please!

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Albert · 31/01/2006 15:55

My DS is bilingual English&Portuguese but he was born in Denmark and had a Philippino nanny so although I spoke English to him from day 1 DH didn't start talking to him in Portuguese until we moved to Italy when DS was 2.8. DH switched from English to Portugues over night and TBH we never looked back. You can do, you should do it. 2.5 is fine to start but you must switch language 100%. Pick a date and go for it!

expatinscotland · 31/01/2006 15:58

NEVER. Look at all the people who come here as immigrants well into adulthood and learn English.

2.5 is fine.

I grew up speaking both Spanish and English myself.

geekgrrl · 31/01/2006 16:01

I'm sure it's not too late, but do start now.
I talk German to all mine, always have done, unless dh is there and we are having a conversation as a family (dh doesn't know much German).
Get the book 'Growing up with two languages', it's got a lot of useful advice in it.

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Original poster

MrsWood · 31/01/2006 16:04

oh, thanks. will get the book today from amazon!

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Rianna · 31/01/2006 16:47

My father switched when I was three and I was fine

nanneh · 05/02/2006 09:19

mrswood - I have a friend who came to the UK at 9 years old with just a few words of English. She is now bilingual in her native lang. and Englsih and speaks Geramn as well.

In fact she is a lawyer here in London and speaks better English than most English people !! Her parents only spoke to her in her native lang. at home (never in English at home), but she was young enough to learn English at school with a beautiful completely English accent.

From what I have read the optimimum age for learning a language is below 10 years old. After that it becomes quite difficult to learn a lang. like a native. What I mean is the child is very likley to speak the new lang. with an accent after that age.

My other advice is there is no problem switching to speaking to her in Croatian all the time when you are at home. The best method would have been to ONLY speak to her in Croation from birth because she would have now associated Mummmy with Croatian and no other language. But at 2.5 I don't think it's too late.

I have friends whose children are 12, 13 and 2 years old and do not speak their parents native language and upset about it. I also have a niece (11) who has a Portuguese mother and constantly saying how upset she is that her mother didn't speak to her in Portuguese consistently when she was very young. She is now upset that it will be impossible for her to speak Portuguese as a native. Children to understand these things and they like to leran lots of languages from my experienec.

We are planning to teach my son (19 months) French before he starts school. My DH speaks French (not a native French speaker, but speaks it fluently) and we think it's best for our son to learn French very early on from his father rather than much later on at school

Best of luck !

harrisey · 07/02/2006 14:49

My daughter started school in August (in Scotland) age 5.5 and has gone into the Gaelic medium class which means that all her schooling for the first 2 years is done in Gaelic. After 6 months she only talks Gaelic all day at school and can read and write it. My husband and I have no Gaelic at all but she is picking it up really fast and at the end of 2 years (when she starts learning to read and write in English) she will be a Gaelic native speaker. And after a year of English she should be up to the standard of kids who have only done English for 3 years.
So I am sure at 2.5 there should be no problem!

serenity · 07/02/2006 15:05

Dh didn't learn any English until he started school at 5, there is no way you can tell that from talking to him now.

Vice versa, my DSs have only spoken English at home (Dh's Greek is very basic now, as he refused to speak it at home after picking up English at school, and his Mum let him get away with it!) They both only started learning Greek when they started Nursery, but speak it really well now (at school, they refuse to speak it at home - stubborness is obviously a family trait) DS1 is in Yr3 and is in the top Greek class, with children who have it as a first language and speak it at home. So, it's definitely not to late for your DD! Just be consistant.

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