Did your bilingual children speak late?

[WhatTheWaterGaveMe]

Hello,

For those who have spoke 2 (or more) languages since birth around their children, when did they start speaking coherently?

My DD is 14 months old, I speak English and she is exposed to it pretty much everywhere. OH speaks his language to her and she is exposed to it when he speaks to her, when we visit his family, music etc. But far more English.

She doesn't really say anything yet - she went through a phase of saying one word in OH's language but she doesn't really say it anymore!

She doesn't say mum, or baba (which would be dad for her).
She makes lots of noises, she's vocal, just nothing coherent!

I'm not worried as such, because I know all babies are different, and have heard that bilingual children sometimes speak late.

Intrigued of others experiences

Our situation is pretty much the same as yours - and now she goes to nursery she really is surrounded by English.

At 14 months DD1 had one or two words in each language and she never mixed them - once she had a word for something she stuck to it!

She started 'properly' talking at about 18 months - ie. More than just the od word or too. I don't know if this late or not to be honest? Once she started she hasn't stopped!

Now, at 2.3, she speaks mostly English, but she does speak Arabic too, and she responds equally to instructions in either language.

*odd
*two

My DS approached it differently kirrin's dd - he loves being able to say the same word in different languages, so will often say both of them! He also likes to mix up the languages to make rhymes. He's 21 months and English is his dominant language, as he's at home with me. He speaks pretty long sentences and uses appropriate grammar in English (e.g. one finger, two fingers) but has just started putting two words together in his second language.

I have read both things about bilingual children, that they speak later and that it makes no difference. 14 months is still really early. I can't actually remember how much DS was saying at that age, but I don't think it was much.

They spoke late but NOT because they are bilingual.

DD1 spoke very late, first word at 18 months and was very behind at age three. We were fobbed off with everyone saying that it was because she is bilingual. They were wrong. She had a hearing problem that was not picked up until age four, and fortunately cured by grommets. She began speaking more straight after the grommets were put in.

Ds was also very late in speaking. Again we were fobbed off by doctors and teachers who said it was because he is a boy and becuase he is bilingual etc. At age four and a half he is pretty much unintelligible and has been diagnosed with verbal dyspraxia, which is a serious speech disorder, and nothing to do with him being bilingual. In fact his vocabularly in both languages is good, it's just almost impossible to understand him because he cannot coordinate the muscles involved in speech.

Being bilingual should not delay the developmental imperative to start talking. Tests have shown that bilingual children have a higher total vocabulary then monolingual children, but in each language, their vocabulary may be less.

At age 14 months it is impossible to say if she is delayed or not. Just keep an eye on her, speak to your health visitor, and if you are worried, do not be fobbed off by people who tell you she is delayed because of being bilingual.

As you can tell, I feel quite strongly about this.

My LO is coming up 3 now and started I don't think he started speaking particularly late or early. He just used a mix of the two languages and only started recognising he had two ways to say the same thing maybe at around 2.

He still doesn't switch between the languages if asked too because he thinks it's all one language iyswim. But he will ask a question in English, then sometimes if you don't answer straight away switch to Welsh, just in case you didn't understand him the first time.

He's quite confident in his speech but I don't think he can speak as much English as his non bilingual friends his age, no.

He doesn't talk any less than them, just does so using a mixture of the two languages. Sometimes you have to translate for people or other children and then we teach him that word/phrase/whatever in English so he then has both.

Hope that makes sense to you!

Well, my first child started speaking at the age of 2.

My second started speaking at 1 year old

My third child is now 3.3 and we are still waiting.

All children are different. There doesn't seem to be any correlation between bilingualism and starting to speak later. Some monolinguals speak later, as do some bilinguals.

DD went to nursery from 11 months and the nursery nurses never gave us any concern that she was late. She had a breakthrough with 20 months where we actually made a list and came up to 50 words, in both languages together.

My mono-lingual friend's DD grunted her way through life until she was over 2. Billingualism is not an reason for later talker just a big prejustice.

My bilingual children spoke earlier than my monolingual nephews.

Though now I think about it ds' childminder did raise the issue of ds having some kind of language delay. Apparently, he hardly spoke to her. Many years later, ds revealed the reason: it seems he quite genuinely believed that she was a witch. Poor ds. Under those circumstances I suppose keeping your mouth shut would seem a reasonable precaution.

No, mine didn't, she spoke early and using both languages for respective parents. However, once she left the nursery she point blank refused to speak any language but English. Pushed ( ie non english speaking relatives around) she will speak the other language 10%, english 30% and hand gestures 60%. Or will give them a running commentary in english how, as their only granddaughter, are you watching me?, I am entitled to the chocolate you bought for me, yes? I am opening the packet now and you are not to tell mum or she'll hit the roof, I am having a bite( shouting), OK?

DD (now 4 1/2) said a few words up until 2 and a bit in both languages. By 2 1/2 she was speaking in complex sentences, mostly in German but her English was fine. DD loves books and is a good listener.

DS (now 8) started at 12 months and said quite a few words in both languages. By 2 1/2 DD was speaking better though. DS is not into books much and still needs to work in his listening and concentration skills at school. Still, he is average and very much bilingual.

It's interesting to read about such a lot of variation in speech acquisition. Quite reassuring for me!

My 26mo DS has english at home and second language at the CM/all socialising. AT the 24m meeting I made a list of 50 english words but most either poorly pronounced or made up words (e.g. dado for red, doesn't even ressemble english or minority lang). He doesn't link words (apart from mama no!) but communicates well with gestures. He says two or three words in the minority lang now. I'm just desperate to be able to communicate with him!

Kelda - what are the features of verbal dyspraxia? Are there any early warning signs?

My eldest and youngest were about average I think -first words around 1, sentences by 18 months. Middle one was very early, words at 6 months, sentences at 1, conversations in both languages before 18 months (we discovered later that she has a v high IQ and this is not "usual" behaviour!

I live abroad and know an awful lot of expat families with 2, 3 or more languages. I think most kids are early talkers, many are late, few are average! My theory is that they are listeners or chatterers and it's just personality that decides which.

From my personal experience with my son who until 2.2 years old was dominant in Vietnamese and at that age his dominant language switched to English. I would say that there was a slight language delay, maybe 3-6 months.

I believe research shows that as with monolingual kids, bilingual kids develop speaking skills at varying ages, but on average bilingual kids speaking develops only very slightly slower. Think the average delay is only about one month.

My son, now 5.5 years old, is a bright kid who I think has an above average English speaking ability and knowledge of vocab (compared to the average middle class kid of his age living in the UK. We live in Vietnam). His Vietnamese, I estimate, is that of the average native speaking Vietnamese 4 year old.

He has recently started Mandarin classes and loves them. Seems to be progressing very well, but Mandarin is not that too dissimilar to Vietnamese, so it shouldn't be too much of a stretch for him.

One of my bilingual children spoke earlier than most monolingual children whereas my other one spoke later - bilingualism has nothing to do with it. Some children are fast learners and/or more articulate and better at languages, others take a little longer. My early speaker still speaks both languages better than my later speaker, and they're 8 and 10 now!

DD is now 2y10m and bilingual Arabic/English with a tiny bit of French too. At 18 months she was uttering single words in Arabic and started sentences around 2. I noticed she spoke less than some of her peers but more than others so couldn't really say whether she was delayed by bilingualism or not.

Until four months ago we were based in Egypt and Arabic was her dominant language. Her English vocabulary was very limited and I struggled to get her to speak any to me, though she was a bit more forthcoming with my monolingual English best friend. I reached the point where I thought I'd failed to give her a basic grounding in English and given that we aren't planning an English medium education for her, all was lost.

When we went to the UK to visit family, I explained that none of them know Arabic and so we would have to speak english. Given that I didn't think she even understood English that well I was shocked to find that from the second day she did not utter a word in Arabic to anyone except me, and that this continued even at nursery. Turns out she just knew that she didn't really have to use it in Egypt and couldn't be bothered. She also seemed to have no trouble understanding people despite a wide range of regional accents in my family. English is now her preferred language even with DH but she does Arabic when pressed or angry.

Now we're in France but because I haven't been able to get her into nursery her French is not improving and even her comprehension is weak. She's going to school in September and I'm a bit concerned about how a third language will influence the others. She introduces French words into English sentences but never Arabic ones. Her new trick is loudly demanding me to address her in a specific language in public places and expecting all cartoons to be available in all three languages. She's especially upset that she can't watch Mary Poppins and brave in Arabic. Anyone else had this?

She sounds lovely alteredimages. It's so wonderful she has the three languages well separated in her head. There seem to be different mechanisms children adopt when they're bi/multilingual. I know lots of children refuse to speak a language when they know the person they are communicating with speaks it only as a second language. I also know of families which speak one tongue at home but when the children reach a certain age they refuse to communicate in the parental tongue unless forced to in the way you describe. Very common is if the parents only speak the second language poorly and siblings will converse in it when they want to keep the topic closed - a bit like having a secret language.

lebfg how is your DS speech now?

My DD is brought up biligual but full time in nursery. English is also the primary language at home. At her 24mo review the HV said she should have 50 words and I should be able to understand her 1/2 the time. She wasn't at that stage at the time. She had more than 50 words, only one sentence. It is my xxx (ie my shoe, my sock). But the HV says that their speech usually have a breakthrough between 2 and 2 1/2. So if she's still not at the half comprehensible stage at 2 1/2, she'll refer DD. At 26mo now, I can understand her now 1/2 the time, and she's got two sentences. The new one is xx do it, like mummy do it, daddy do it, me do it.

I hear boys are slightly slower than girls. So hopefully this give you another slower speaker to compare with.

Oh and DD barely speaks her second language. It's only the odd words used in an English sentence, and only if she doesn't know the english equivalent.

Ds started to talk (Italian) when he was about 24 months old.
We lived in the UK when he was little. We spoke Italian at home (both me and dh are Italian) but the rest was obviously in English and he started going to nursery 2 days a week when he was about 14 months.

The bizarre thing was that before starting to talk fluently he had some words, some were Italian others were English. And he said NO like an English child would

I think they all learn to say 'no' fluently in any second language. Weird that .

Thanks OneLittleToddler. It's interesting reading your experiences. DS is coming up to 27 months now and is learning new words and about a month ago started putting 2 words together. Nearly all his words are distinct to me but still very frequently incomprehensible to outsiders. He has some French words which he pronouces surprisingly well. Just yesterday he said 'bonjour' (doesn't even say hello in english!). He now has 'hot' in both languages and uses them interchangeably I think to show off . Same with cat. He's been doing two days a week with the CM from 17 months so similar to your DS Franca.

I'm still holding off any judgement. I have a friend who is in a similar situation to me in the UK and her son is at exactly the same stage as mine. Plus another friend here, monolingual, who's DS has much less language than mine.....so. Holding off for the moment.

. It was weird though, as the few words he had were Italian and with definite Italian sound (different vowels), but No was deffo English

Sadly we are back in Italy and my dc english accent is deteriorating.

How is your English accent? Perhaps now is the time to do English at home and Italian away. How old is he now? My old prof returned to natal country with 6yo daughter about 12 years ago. I met them recently and she had a perfect cut-glass english accent. Pretty remarkable actually.

Bilingual children are so different. I have 2 friends (one French, one German) who speak exclusively (including their dh's) to their children in their language. One friend's ds was a very late speaker. he also had an inner ear problem. Even now (age 5) he speaks English with a German accent despite living in this country and going to school here. He is much more comfortable in German. The other friend's ds was an early speaker, both languages but is more comfortable in English. He replies to his parents in English even though they speak French to him. He seems to have figured out that he's going to need English more frequently and just sticks to it.

No but had a clear preference for the majority language.....which was always english although its not Dh & mine's native language.
We speak 2 languages consistently and they are mow fluent aged 5 & 9.
We also speak our native language (arabic for which they now jave a god ear and make an effort when we are with grand parents).
They ate learning mandarin at school and naking goid progress academically.

My take on this is that they need an emotional component to develop proficiency.
They are really happy and confident giving it a go when in context (ie when visiting grand parents or with chinese friends at school), but unenthousiastic with us as practical communication is not relevant in those languages.
also, A telling example is that they can make jokes and say a few affectionate words in takaluk (philipino) because our nanny has been with us for years and is like a big sister and it matters that they share her heritage.

Hope it makes sense?

We live in France, DS is 2.8 and goes to french speaking creche but we speak English at home. He uses about 10 words although gabbles away in a made up language. He is currently being assessed by a child psychologist to understand why he won't talk, although he communicates very well (miming etc). She will then refer him to either a motor function or speech therapist.
His hearing has been checked and is fine, as is his comprehension.

DP is more relaxed about it than me and says he will speak when he feels ready. At the moment, we understand everything, so he has not real need to speak.

I am however looking forward to the psychologist's final assessment