Which language should I teach my LO?

[Conchita]

He's only 9 weeks but I want to devote regular, substantial time to speaking to him in a foreign language before moving onto something more structured when he's older. My diliemma is whether he would benefit more from my best language or the most useful language globally. Unfortunately Italian is my best language (almost fluent) and probably the least useful and Spanish is my weakest (no qualifications but I'd guess I'm halfway between a GCSE and an A-Level) but IMO most useful. I also have rusty degree level German and v rusty A-Level French. My instinct is that I'd be better off introducing Italian because I'll know what I'm talking about and will put more enthusiasm into it being a bit of an Italophile, plus it's a great grounding for learning Spanish or French later on but is it a wasted opportunity when he could be learning Spanish? I've also been on the learning Mandarin thread and wondering about that but of course I would have to bring in an outsider to do that and I'm skint I'd rather start off by teaching him something myself

Definately the language you feel most comfortable with! So probably Italian in your case.

Raising a bilingual child requires A LOT of effort and A LOT of exposue to the minority language so it will be much easier if you speak to your child in your native language (or near native if you speak it well). You'll also pass on a much better accent to your child.

thanks otherside. Actually I'm as English as roast dinners so there's no language I'm near native in but I've lived in Italy and feel very confident in my fluency and accent (apart from those 'r's) Later on I would introduce him to a native speaker. I once taught a 5 y.o. English and was very impressed with her progress. Her Italian parents had spoken English to her as a baby then brought in native speakers to play with her in English a couple of hours a week as she grew, supplementing with speaking some English to her at home. She was a bright child but still her ability to absorb it was just incredible and that's why I am determined to teach my son a language at an early age.

Italian is a fine language and, if you want to teach your DS another language, your chances will be greatest in the language you master best.

But, to be honest, it is quite controversial to speak a language other than your MT to a child.

That's interesting, Bonsoir, why is it controversial?

There are several reasons. The first, most obvious reason, is that the language environment in which your baby will develop will only be as rich as the richness of the language skills of his/her primary carer(s). So, if you, as a native English speaker, have a very good command of English and an extensive vocabulary, you can pass those things on to your DC. I don't know how good your Italian is but I know how good my French is and although my French is very, very good (and most definitely a CEFR C2 level) it is still only about a 1/3 as good as my English. My joy and pleasure at reading books and sharing films with DD is very significantly greater in English than in French.

Another major reason is that you are unlikely to be sharing the culture of another country with your DC. An example: my DD has a very good friend at school who is German but whose mother spoke to her in English for the first few years of her life and who has always had Filipina nannies with good English skills who have spoken to her in English. She also gets 1/4 of her school day in English. Nevertheless, this child, who has never lived in England, has no grasp at all of English childhood culture and is unlikely to get any. This is quite an odd situation for children to grow up in and you might want to think about it.

The third reason is that it is a huge amount of effort to teach a child a language that is not quickly supported by school, and often the policy gets abandoned through lack of environmental support. Have you thought about that and how you would address it?

thank you for such a full explanation bonsoir. If I'm reading you correctly my efforts shouldn't harm him developmentally, just that they may prove ineffective. I don't know a way around that at this early stage as I only have one native language to expose him to, I don't know when would be a good age to bring in a native speaker.
In terms of schooling it's hard to know where we'll be at school age let alone which school. I grew up in an area with a large Italian community so Italian was offered at school but that is rare.

It depends on circs though. e.g. I live in Germany but only speak English to my children. They learn German outside the home.

But I know a family where the mum is German, the dad is Portuguese, the parent's common language is English, so the child is being brought up to speak all 3, out of necessity really - neither parent is MT english, but it is their language of communication.

I also know an Afghan woman living in Switzerland who only spoke english to her dd. Sure, the mother and therefore the daughter didn't speak perfect english, but she learnt a very valuable language when she was moving internationally, so it really gave her an advantage.

I also know a mother who loves Spain, has a flat out there, and often, not exclusively speaks spanish to her dd. WHen they go to spain the dd attends spanish school, and I think she understands and probably speaks quite fluently, but understandably prefers to speak ENglish.

OP, if it is just to give your child the chance of growing up with a second language I've really now seen so many examples where is can and does work, and like I say, it depends on the circa. I feel, for example that living in Germany and the kids are fluent and learning German just fine outside, I think it's important for me ti only speak English to give them a firm founding in this language, but if you want to let your child grow up with a 2nd language, I would be very encouraging. Why not, go for it. I think even A Level standard is not good enough though, so in your case it has to be Italian, esp as you actively enjoy it. Good luck. It will also be hard work though.

i know I couldn't do it. I hate speaking German to my dc. It just feels so wrong. But then if I were living in UK and wanted them to hold onto their German, maybe I would feel strongly that we should switch to only speaking German at home.

I think the gift of another language if priceless.

I can't see a problem with learning a language without being steeped in the culture. If that was an issue the whole world would be mono-lingual.

I can see that a rich mind is complemented by a rich language but sounds like the Italian skills are up to that.

I assume you will be using MT as well - in which case his cognition and thought processes can only be infinitely enriched.

I agree the language you are most fluent in would be best as you can't predict which language will be more useful depending where his life takes him, and you are only making it hard work for yourself using one where your skills aren't as high.

My friend's ds is currently learning 3 languages as parents are different nationalities and resident country another - two of the languages are not 'statistically' useful but can only imagine the whole thing will be of infinite benefit to him as he goes through life.

Think you are doing a great thing for your son and I only wish I had the talent to do similar. :)

Ernest, I agree that speaking in your mother tongue is the most natural way of speaking to your kids. I speak to them in German (we're in the UK) and find it very weird when I have to speak to them in English (say, when they have English friends over). I also think it is much easier to express your emotions in your mother tongue.

OP, no, you probably won't do much harm if you speak in non-perfect Italian (assuming you have a good accent), but I think you have to be realistic about the expectation for bilinguaglism - it requires A HUGE amount of exposure and practice of the minority language!

thanks for all the helpful points and the time you've taken to answer my question. I don't expect him to become bilingual but I think teaching him early when his brain is absorbing language and he is too young to try to translate everything is too good an opportunity to miss. Glad I have found this section to ask for advice and exchange ideas with other parents. I feel encouraged to try!

I also don't see that not being steeped in the culture is a problem - in fact, I see the language as a way for them to access the culture later on, whereas if they don't learn another language accessing the culture will be much harder. So many people from so many cultures speak English that I really don't think it's a problem if someone speaks English without having a clue what life is like in the UK (and anyway they may well think that English is just the language they speak in America and it's quite hard to know nothing about that culture).

We do non-native French and it is great, I love speaking French with my children even though it is hard, but I am pretty relaxed, if I really want to speak in English then I do. We do have French students who come to play though, and we only watch TV in French or Spanish, plus lots of books and CDs. I don't worry about particular exposure to French culture because I learnt my French in Africa and therefore see it as a global language.

Definitely go for it with the Italian but be prepared for it to be hard.

Sorry if I missed this in the thread, but do you have someone at home who will speak MT English to him?

I tried doing this with my two daughters, but it wasn't very successful. I speak French and German, and used to speak a lot of French to them when they were little. They also went to Le Club Français for quite a few years. Although they know some French, they don't know an awful lot.

I didn't speak any German with them when they were little, but we have been to Germany and Austria for holidays about once a year. They know lots of phrases just from travelling there and asking me how to say things.

Speaking your native language to your children where it's a minority language can be hard, speaking a non-native language is harder, because it needs more perseverance - if you're going to do it, make sure you do it consistently. If you can afford it, an Italian au pair or nanny would work wonders. But it's going to be a big commitment.

As for which language, use Italian if it's your most comfortable foreign language. Forget about trying to classify languages as useful or not useful, what captures us isn't always useful. The language I speak with my kids isn't 'useful' but its musical traditions have DD besotted, so it is in fact useful for her. She has even started writing poems in it. A friend of mine is a Mandarin speaker but basically hasn't spoken a word of it in 10 years - so arguably not 'useful' then. Every language has intrinsic value - categorising languages by degrees of usefulness is one of the reasons so many of the world's languages are dying needlessly.

The main problem I have when speaking English to my DD, I don't have the big vocabulary when it comes to children talk. This is not part of the English language lesson in German schools.

I had to learn a lot of expressions during playgroup visits, playdates with friends and English books.

I also agree with some other posters, your MT is the one you will feel the most comfortable when speaking to a child. Especially when it comes to emotions German is the language which comes out automatically despite living here for 12 years. I just can't say "I love you" in the same way as I can say "Ich habe Dich lieb".

I don't think the culture is that relevant.

A child growing up in Jamaica will have more in common with a child on another caribbean island wherer the language may be French or Dutch and less in common with an British child, even if the British child has Jamaican parents.

Hello,

There are different types of bilinguism for example simultaneous bilinguism and acquired bilinguism. All depend what you mean by bilinguism and by what level you are happy with. Personally I think that being bicultural is as important as being bilingual. I feel that learning a language mainly as a vehicle to communicate globally will 'kill' some lesser global languages.

I found that using English (not my mother tongue) at university level , during exams, with clock ticking, alongside English native speakers was very difficult indeed. This , for me, suggests that for some people an acquired second language might never be as fluent as a second mother tongue. One can try!

On a personal note, we are trying to bring up our DD both bicultural and bilingual and it is so0000000000000 hard! starting with rote learning tables!! different ways in different cultures...rows with DH etc..

Best of luck

Y.

sorry, meant bilingualism
Y.

I know a few families with mixed MT parents (English/French living in France and English/Swedish living in UK). They have all said the minority language is extremely difficult to instill. I guess the DCs will get there eventually but with plenty of reinforcement by going on holidays, visiting family etc.

DH and I now live in France and plenty of people ask if we speak French to our DS...we never do, unless french friends are present. I've read somewhere that mixing two languages isn't helpful in the early years - they mix the english and french words up in their heads. In one of the mixed English/French families locally, the mum speaks a mix of french and english, the dad only french - it's funny as the kids mix in french words when they speak english. Again, in the long run, I don't suppose there will be any problems.

There are good examples in the linguistic literature of parents who have managed to bring their children up bilingual in a language which is not their mother tongue, so it definitely can be done. It will depend on individual circumstances: some people may be deeply steeped in and have a close emotional connection to a language/culture which does not happen to be their first one.

I was not brought up bilingual, but I was taught English from the age of 6 or thereabouts by my mother who had a deep love of English culture, we had a houseful of English books, I later spent time in England and finally emigrated: tbh I sometimes have to remind myself that I haven't actually had that same English childhood that my colleagues had and that seems to familiar to me now; I almost feel as if, in a parallel universe, I had. I was about 10 when I first spoke to an English person (I remember it well, it was in Winchester Cathedral, I bought a postcard , but because I had a solid foundation I picked it up very quickly.

I would definitely not be making any decisions on the basis of global importance though. Apart from English, which is ubiquitous, it is a question of what you're going to come across in your own life rather than global numbers: I have found German far more useful than Spanish in my career, though I enjoy Spanish more and speak it better; the fact that there are millions of speakers of Spanish in Latin America is of little relevance to me as I have never been to Latin America, but the fact that much scientific literature is still written in German has been of vital importance.

We mixed languages in the early years: both dcs are fully bilingual. Dd could tell if a word was Swedish or English by the time she was 2. But that did of course presuppose parents who spent time talking about those things.

All the evidence (and I have read a lot) seems to me to suggest that what matters is not the method you choose, but the quantity and quality of input. My mum got further teaching me English than my Chinese SIL has got teaching her sons Chinese, but that is about determination.