any tips for bilingual baby?

[olatt]

Any secrets/ tips for bringing up a bilingual baby? DH is French and we speak French at home so have just been talking to DS (16 months) in French and letting him learn English outside the home with others. He has some words in each language and a couple of things where he's happy with the Eng and the French (dog/ chien, chat/ cat is about it). Is there anything else we should be doing? Or should I speak to him in English (my native language) and DH in French?

i have friends where mother speaks to children in french and father speaks to them in english, or vice versa and all children are bi-lingual. one family lives in england and the other in france!!

also know of family in holland where english is only spoken at home and both kids are also bi-lingual.

Basic rule is one person,one language.
Stick to it,especially through the times when the child (inevitably) has a rebellion against one of the languages.

Iti s up to you what you speak to him,but general consensus is that one's native tongue is best (however good an acquired tongue is)

I am from a family of bilingual people btw.
Emglish/Welsh Korean/Welsh French/Welsh

Also a salt.

I've stuck firmly to english with my dd, but even though she's been with me most of the time, she's picking up more dutch. I assume this is because she hears dutch from a variety of sources, and english only from me. I try and take her back to England as much as possible, and get her watching english TV, and she will pick up english, but at the moment she is more immersed in dutch especially as she has started dutch nursery school. I really have to make an effort to talk to her a lot, repeating everything and trying to articulate correctly so that her english improves.

olatt - I am no expert like moondog but I agree with what she says as I have read up quite a lot on bilingualism. If your French is extremely good (i.e not too many grammatical errors and a good accent) then it is probably ok to speak to your children in French at home as that is the language you speak with DH. This way French will become the language of the home and English the language that is only spoken outside the home. This is what DH and I do. We speak our native language to one another and to our son. No English at all is spoken in our home.

Your children will pick up the community language (in your case English) very very quickly once they attend playgroup/nursery.

If your French is weak, it would be best to speak to your children in your strongest language, normally your native one.

I wonder about this too, olatt. I'm English, but a fluent french-speaker, and dh (french) and I speak in French at home. I do, however, only speak in English with ds, and my dh in french. Which can be quite weird sometimes, cos I'll be talking with dh in french, then turn round and say something in English to ds. I find this works ok at the moment, but ds is still only 21 months. Seems to be picking up more English, but does understand some french.

Well DH and I are french native speakers, we always speak French to each other... and our kids are clearly english native speakers ... DS is now making efforts in French but he has a strong (cute) English accent. DD refuses to speak French.
I do know they both understand French though and I'm sure if left in a French speaking family for 3 weeks would make HUGE progress.

I speak to DD (18 months) in Romanian and DH in English. She is starting to understand both but her words are mainly English.

We speak only English at home, and I speak only English with my kids. Dh is German and speaks whichever language suits the circs, but mostly English. Outside the home, dd (4) attends German Kindergarten and generally is surrounded by German on a daily basis, including extended family. She is fluent in both languages (or as fluent as a 4 year old can be). Ds (2.5) understands that some folk speak to him in German and some speak English; he tells me off if I try to speak German with him .

Cariad moondog - could you perhaps comment then on my situation: I am (more or less) bilingual English / French (my mum is French, my dad is English), though English is my mother tongue and I've always lived in England. DW only speaks English; has no French... whilst I would like to give dd the opportunity of being immersed in a bilingual environment (1) dw wouldn't understand our convos (2) Speaking in French to dd doesn't feel particularly 'natural' or as 'playful' as speaking to her in English IYSWIM, I don't really have the 'baby' vocabulary in the same way....

Any advice ?

PS - Any North Londoners who know of conversation groups or activities in French, do post !

I am English and dh is Thai. We live in Thailand. He speaks to DD in Thai, I speak to her in English. We speak to each other in a mixture.

DD is 3 and speaks/understands both Thai and English fluently. I want to introduce her to a third language fairly soon - but the only other one I speak is French, which isn't a right lot of use out here!! DH could teach her the local dialect from his part of Thailand too - I don't understand that at all.

I'm French and hubby is English. We only speak our native languages to our dd. She's 2 now and understands/speaks both of them equally. Until 2 weeks ago her French was ahead as she spends more time with me, but her English has improved a lot in 2 weeks with her dad around much more. My advice is stick to the language you're the most comfortable with.

thanks everyone
my french is pretty fluent so it comes quite naturally to speak to him in french, in fact i think it was my first reflex when he was born, bizarrely enough. has been my home language for nearly 10 years or whatever. i know i make a few mistakes but i think it's ok - am sure one day he will be correcting me!
i do switch to english from time to time (he roars when i ask him what a lion does in french, but hasn't got it in english yet so we practice!) and when we're out it would be weird to speak french with other english people - do you think that's confusing?

Olatt, I feel the same about talking in French to my dd amongst english speaking people. But I've persisted, not confusing my child is more important to me. I do as if she didn't know I can speak english so that she doesn't use with language with me. Plus I read that it gives the child the impression that mum's language is not as important or as good as english socially speaking. HTH.

I would agree with Moondog here - it is very important that your child identifies one particular language with each parent - so the best thing to do is to choose one language and stick to it - if your child hears you talking to other people in a different language it won't confuse them as long as you and the child always speak in the same language.

This is one we've been thinking a lot about, I am english and dh is spanish (catalan). We live in Spain and speak Castellano to each other without exception.

I imagine I would always speak english with the baby except when with dh when we would both speak Castellano as I think it would just be too weird to speak one language to one of them and another to the other.. The twist is that dh's native language is a dialect of Catalan which is the official second language here. DH would speak Catalan to the baby as would his family. My parents also live near us and would speak English to it.
I think the poor thing is going to be terribly confused but I'm sure s/he'll work it out,eventually!

hub - I don't know if you are still reading this thread - but there are several French playgroups and I believe even a nursery in the North London area. I think one is in Hampstead, I don't know if that is near where you live ? I saw it advertised in a mag. in Hendon Library the other day. Next time I go there I will pick up another mag. and post the details for you on MN.

ps - sorry never came back to you re. your kind offer to do photos. We were in Italy last week and did the photos in a studio there.

maveta - babies don't get confused with different langauges. It's us adults who think they do ! I grew up with 3 languages and was never confused as a child

What you will experience is a bilingual child mixing up their words, one minute they will say "cat" or "food" or "water" in one language and the next minute in another. This is what my son (2.4 yo) is doing now who is just learning English from TV. We don't speak to him in English.

One minute he will count to 10 in my language and the next minute he will do it in English ! This is a very good sign. Sometimes he mixes them up, so he will say 1,2,3 in one language and then 4 in English and so on. The fact that he actually says the numbers in the right order (even in mixed languages) shows that he is getting a fantastic grasp of both languages.

Even now as an adult (I am bilingual and also understand 2 other languages well) I often "borrow" a word from one of my languages to slot into a sentence in another language. That is what all bilinguals do. It shows that the person has such a good grasp of languages that they can mix and match at will.

no worries yellow, I'm sure the shots turned out great !

Do you do rhyme time in Hendon library ? Dee or myself is often there with the curly-haired one Monday or Friday.

hub - I took DS once and all he did was walk up to the other children and adults and started babbling to them in gibberish while the lady was reading out stories ! He is now 2.4 yo and still does this, can't keep him still for one minute so rhyme time is a bit embarrassing !! He is much happier swinging around in playgrounds or soft toy places.

I do go there to get books and for DS to run around and play. It's a lovely place isn't it ? You may see me drinking coffee with a very beautiful boy, big brown eyes, long lashes and lots of thick brown hair, no idea who he gets his good looks from though

Oh dear, I'm not destined to go up to mothers of toddlers with brown hair asking if they're 'yellowrose' from an internet chat site, LOL ?

You've seen my / dd's / dw's pics on here, right ? Down to you to recognise us and say hi then !

Hi Hub
I never saw your original request at the time of writing.
General advice is to stick to the language you feel most comfortable in,and from what you say,that would have to be English.
A lot of people don't,because they want their children to 'get on' and they are often foreigners living in an English dominated society,which ultimately means they speak great English,but poor Spanish/French/Tagalog/Punjabi whatever.

I completely understand you being keen on French though.I choose to speak Welsh to my children for political and emotional resaons,even though my English is better (although Welsh excelllent.)
I never speak English to them.
Being slightly less able to banter with them effortlessly is a price I am willing to pay to have native Welsh speakers.

What did.do you decide to do since September then???

Hiya moon, yeah, English is definitely the most comfortable, but when I am with French relies (although not my mum LOL) or in France, I am happy to speak French and it would feel more natural to speak to dd in French, but over here, it just doesn't feel right somehow.

It's complicated occasionally because her name is French, and saying 'Cam-meee' instead of 'Cam-meal' sets a certain tone for a few French words IYSWIM (like that 'papa / Nicole' Renault ad ).

I can understand your desire to nurture native Welsh, but I haven't made any changes to how I approach conversation with dd since September. It's such a thrill to perceive recognition to 'where's your nose, where's your head, what noise do monkeys make' etc. that I am somewhat loathe to introduce French IYSWIM, but I have no doubt that she would pick it up easily.

Hmmm... still somewhat vague, eh. Maybe I should track down the local French-speaking playgroups / M&T sessions etc. that yellowrose mentions...

hub - it WILL look odd if you look for "yellowrose" lol !!!!! what will people say ?????

If you don't mind me butting in - moon has given excellent advice. It really would be a shame if you didn't introduce your children to French early on.

Just to tell you about DH's experience with French. FIL is Swiss educated, so DH has always heard French from his dad at an early age. I have asked DH how this helped him, he said that he always remembers his dad singing/reading stories in French to him when he was a kid.

DH is now an excellent French speaker, ok not beacuse of his dad, but beacuse he lived in Paris for a couple of years as an adult. But what DH says is that French was always "in his head" because he had heard it all his life and he feels this helped him learn French quicker beacuse his father had such a passion for it

We are planning to introduce DS to French say around the time he goes to school. We feel that just like DH it will help him to learn French quicker because his father speaks it and has a passion for the French language and culture. Plus he will be able to speak to his grandfather in 2 languages eventually !

oh hub - will look at photos so I can recognise your dd next time !

Hub,raises all sorts of conundrums doesn't it?
The other thing to consider (as you seem to be) is to facilitate her entry into Francophone situatios in terms of playgroups,conversation classes,DVDs and so on.

I work with a lot of people who are learning Welsh as adults and want their children to speak it,yet don't speak it with them (the right move).
However,they and their children become fluent in parallel.

I run Welsh medium baby sing and sign classes and it gladdens my heart to note that in our klast sesssion,over half the families were non Welsh speaking but very keen to be so.

I've known some people get into very weird situations when they speak one language to one child and a differeent one to another.
For example,a French/English couple I know. The mother (French) spoke English with the first child,then of course regretted it when he couldn't speak French with any of her family,so spoke French with the second one.

The older child has effectively been denied his birthright.Bloody tragedy.