Opnions please - am English but speak to DS in French!

[WeeMadMeg]

Dear MNetters -

I would appreciate any thoughts, advice and opinions on the following....I'm English but have been speaking to my DS exclusively in French since he was a bump. I do speak the language very well (almost but not quite native level), have a First Class degree in it and am a qualified French teacher. Most French people usually think I am French for oooh...at least a whole 5 minutes before they twig! DS is 8 months and it seems totally natural to me to chat and sing to him in French all day. Although now doubts are starting to set in - I am getting lots of negative comments from DH's family (he is also English)who think I am crackers, that the whole thing is weird and I will screw up DS for life.

I decided to do this as I really believe this is the best time to start and any exposure I can give him as a young child to another language can do nothing but good. I'm under no illusions that he will grow up a bilingual as I'm am not a native speaker but I hope at the very least it'll give him a massive head start in language learning at school. Or am I mad / wasting my time??

Les Francaises, qu'en pensez-vous? Est-ce que ca vaut la peine essayer de faire apprendre le francais a mon p'tit ou suis-je irrealiste??!

Superbly put, Claricebean

and NSU, you may be interested to know that my children are bilingual before you start bandying about phrases like "narrow minded comments".

this has been such an interesting thread WMG. I hope my post didn't demoralise you - I didn't mean to ! And as I said, we often talk about the whole issue. It comes up alot in our family as DS will be the only one of his 3 cousins who is not bilingual - so my in-laws are constantly hassling about him going to an international school (miles away...no chance!) and so on. I think Claricebean's repkly is excellent and she makes a good point about it all depending on your relationship with your son and making sure you can communicate fully with him. But even if your decide to stop speaking to him always in french that doesn't mean you can't teach him loads.Don't forget there's stacks of French material out there for you to encourage him with. I'm just about to look for a Petit Ours Brun website now!

I hope he is ok now (and that you are too).

I think this is quite bizarre really. Yes it's good that he knows French but as SW said you have made this his mother language so it's really no diferent to bringing him up speaking English. Yes it's good if he grows up bilingual but I can't understand that if you are English and live in England wy not speak to him primarily in English and teach him French as well.

Just read your other post and think that maybe that's a good idea! Hope your ds is ok.

different and why don't know what happened to my typing then!

here lowww.petitoursbrun.com/ok - some Christmas presents there! Must dash DS woken up from nap.

I think your intentions are good, it's nice to be able to give our kids the opportunity to speak another language. however, linguists (a friend of mine is and she gives me plenty of advise, as we are italian, speaking italian at home but living in england) recommend to always use your own mother tongue when speaking to your children. I'm sure you will find a right balance, perhaps by showing him videos in french, singing him songs , reading books etc. hope you ds is well.

WeeMadMeg, I'm really sorry to hear about your DS and hope he's all better. Also hope that my message didn't come across as too harsh. I was trying to strike a balance, but it's such an emotional subject. Hope you find a solution that suits you and DS, and don't worry too much about your in-laws: mine also say I'm mad, but IMO a lot of that is down to jealousy because they feel excluded as they don't understand what I'm saying to their grandson. Good luck, whatever you decide...

Can you look at placing ds in a French nursery so he has English at home and French at nursery (supported by whatever you choose to do for his French language development). Play him French songs and sing with him in French. Why not? We live in Germany and dd speaks English and German yet her choir sing in French and Russian and even Swahili. I think it's great.

Could you organise a native French speaker as regular babysitter too? I don't think you need give up on your idea of him growing up bilingual and I think you can do a lot personally to facilitate it but I do agree that he needs English as mother tongue in your situation. I read recently that it is very important that a child access new information/develops in the (dominant or main) mother tongue before the subsidiary one, otherwise you end up in a half-way house with the child not really mastering either language.

Bon chance!

Wee mad meg: I think you're right to give this issue a great deal of thought. Being bilingual is such a useful skill that most of us wish that we and our children could have. I tused to think that if a child grows up learning two languages equally, then they will become bilingual without having to put the effort in. I was wrong , IME. My dd is nearly three and the input of two languages has made her language skills significantly less then her contemporaries. She is very bright, but she is having to learn twice as much as other children her age. She becomes very fustrated and cannot communicate in the way that she would like to. I hope that in a couple of years time, we will look back and say it was worth it in the end. But that end seems to be significantly delayed in coming.

belgo, my dd is also nearly three. She was born in France, spent her first year in England, and part of her second in Germany. Then back to France, then to Germany this year. With short trips to other countries.
Her main three languages are English, French and German.

Yes, her speaking skills are way behind. She mostly just babbles, but can say words when she wants to.
The point is, I am not in the least bit worried. She will catch up. Why compare her to a child that has grown up in a monolingual surrounding?

Similarly, my middle 2 children are "behind" with their English reading and writing, and shock horror! they sometimes make grammatical mistakes when speaking.
Its really not an issue. They will get there in the end.

Schoko: I try not to compare my dd to her contempories. My point is that she cannot communicate the way that she wants to, making her very frustrated, and making life harder for her and for us, because we cannot understand her. It's quite sad to see. But she has to be bilingual, we have no choice. If we did have a choice, I would let her concentrate on one language, and encourage her bilingual language abilities when she gets older.

I come from a mixed family. I'm American and my husband is Mexican, believe me I have seen it all.

My husband and I both speak English and Spanish to our 14 months old.

Our nieces and nephews who have all been born in Mexico have come here started school not knowing a word of English and are doing well in school.

My newphew has a 3 year old daughter who speaks english to him and spanish to her mom and she switches between both with no problem.

My sil is Brazilian so she speaks Portuguese to her ds, her dh speaks Spanish to him and he will learn English in school.

I know people who spend time in US and Puerto Rico. When they are in the US they speak English in the house and Spanish outside the house. When the are in Puerto Rico they speak English in the house and Spanish Outside.

The main thing WeeMad is to be consistent.

Oh yeah,

My nieces and nephews that learn English in School speak Spanish with their parents and English to each other.

MadMeg it is not pointless! I have a Bump I intend to speak French to as I was brounght up bilingually by a French mum and English Dad. My French is rusty but I'm hopefull about doing it and it made me so happy to see you say it felt natural to speak French to your DS as with English being my dominant language it has been my fear that it won't be. (but the nice people who hang around this section told me not to be daft and speak French!)

Please please carry on its a wonderful thing.

Hi, I am joining in late but have been rather busy. I would encourage you to continue speaking French to your ds. I am native German and speak to my dd in English only. She is 15 months now, knows about 20 - 30 recognizable words, some in German, some in English, some both and is babbling away all day long (not late talking at all, especially compared to all the kids in her playgroup) - and understands much more in either language. I pondered raising her bilingually for a very long time (was thinking I might be conceited to assume I could teach her a language that is not my native tongue), but I had and have great support from the people I lived with in the US (both teachers, said go for it) as well as my PIL who don't speak English at all and wish they would and I will definitely continue even though I do get odd looks now and then. Most people really think it is great though and I often hear "wish somebody could have done that for me". Keep it up, I think your son will be thankful - there will be rough times every once in a while though. If you feel comfortable with it - keep on going!!
Sorry, a bit long....

I don't see the problem with wanting to teach you DC another language from early on, after all they do it in schools and even in some pre-schools/nurseries now. I think it is a good idea to encourage this, as society is becoming more diverse.

However, I would be concerned that speaking exclusively in another language to a child living in a different country from the language they are learning would hinder them socially and academically. It's great that your DS can speak French, but think of the learning impairments he could suffer as a result. If he does not know how to speak the language of the country he is living in, how do you expect him to access the curriculum and learn in English schools? The other consideration is, how will he make and maintain friendships if other children are unable to understand him when he is speaking to them? He could become isolated from his peers leading to poor self-esteem etc.

I think if you are going to speak French to him all the time, this should be backed up by your DH speaking English to him, after all, this is his native language.

With regards to your ILs, I wouldn't take too much notice of them and their views. It's up to you how you raise DS, but I would consider the implications of speaking exclusively in a 'foreign' tongue to him.

By the way, children are more capable of learning languages in the first three years of life, so there is still time to instill both in your DS. Good luck!

Hi WMM, I would agree with the encouragers. Here in Wales it is a source of constant debate re the benefits etc of bilingualism and my understanding is there is a lot of research that it does not retard language skills and indeed develops the part of the brain that helps with learning other languages in later life. Also in Wales bilingual children tend to do better educationally (as measured by exam results). Have a look at the 'TWF' website www.twfcymru.co.uk which exists to give advice on bringing up children bilingually (tho in this case in Welsh and English) for more info. My feeling is, if you are a mum who likes eg swimming or cooking or painting or tennis you tend to do that with your child and encourage that in your child, and no-one would think you were nuts, so if you enjoy speaking other languages and this has given you pleasure in adult life then carry on. For my part I witter onto my 3 month old DD in my GCSE Welsh and the cat in my A level French and speak English to them both in between. Go for it hon x

I'm getting on my soapbox now! Direct quote from the TWF website:

'Research from many different countries of the world shows that bilinguals tend to be ahead on IQ tests compared with similar (same gender, social class and age) monolinguals. Far from making people mentally confused, bilingualism is now associated with a modest degree of intellectual superiority.'

To get the full info from the site WMM you have to register, it doesn't take long. Merci beaucoup, diolch yn fawr x

bilingualism is great

but having as your primary medium of communication a language which is not a language of the country you are living in or primary language of any member of your family is very odd

surely English should be the first language and French secondary?

english is like a cold though, impossible to avoid if you live in the UK.
A family I know are both not English, and dont speak English at home, although they live in UK. They wondered what would happen when their ds started at kindergarten. To their surprise, he was fine speaking English to the teachers from day 1!

I am not sure how relevant the first / second language idea is, actually, if you are truly bilingual. my ex speaks 3 languages equally well. I couldnt really say which was his first language.
Another thing, you may think in different languages according to which country you are in.

WeeMadMeg - just a few words of advice: IGNORE YOUR DH'S FAMILY !

I haven't read the whole thread, but you are doing excatly the right thing and one day your children will love you for it !

It is absolute rubbish that a bilingual/multilingual child is screwed up and confused ! In fact despite my language "confusion" childhood, I am one of the most intelligent and balanced women I know

Research says that bilingual children do very well if not better than their monolingual peers at all levels when they go to school.

I was brought up with 3 language and have the ability to learn others very quickly - I am sure it is all down to being very lucky when I was a kid and having exposure to different languages.

I absolutley refuse to bow to any kind of pressure from any one and DH and I speak to our little son (2.4 years old) only in our native language. He is already showing a remarkable ability at understanding English and says a few words in English although we don't ever speak to him in English. We do this although some people may think we are being anti-social, they never say it, but some clearly think it ! C'est la vie as they say in France

Don't foregt that English will one day dominate your child's world and if you don't expose him to French now, he will lose his French !

Good luck

tinsel - I wasn't just making it up then, there is reseach to support my assertions re. my intellectual superiority

WeeMadMeg, keep it up! You've started something good, forget about the outlaws!

Dad - the "outlaws" [grins] gosh that is exactly what I think of mine !