When does bilingual child start speaking 2nd language?

[IamPotty]

DS, almost 3, doesn?t speak his 2nd language but responds to his Father in English. Initially the 2 languages were very mixed, now he seems to have weeded out all of the 2nd language, though he understands it perfectly and enjoys reading and watching DVDs in that language. Is this common? When is he likely to actively start using his 2nd language?

But it is natural for a child to choose one language over another. If she is being brought up in Italy then obviously she is going to speak Italian! But your perseverance means that she will understand English and eventually she will speak that fluently too - just later than Italian.

Come on please! You are sounding like pushy parents! They are only children and it is incredibly difficult to speak 2 languages fluently! Yes children find it easier, but don't push them! They will learn but they will be slower than perhaps you would like.

Give them a break!

I'm another one, I'm afraid, with an ongoing struggle to get the children to use their 2nd language. We're in England and I'm the English speaker so they spend most of their time in an English-speaking environment and it really is hard to get them to use Spanish. We spend 6 weeks per year in dh's country and the relatives don't speak English so by about week 4 the children have made loads of progress. Then they don't have any contact with them all year so it all starts falling apart. Unfortunately dh has been here so long that it is now automatic for him to speak English at home so we really have to make an effort to speak Spanish at home(I speak it as well).

Ds1 is now 6.5 and fortunately has started to enjoy speaking another language and take pride in being able to do so. However, his spoken Spanish is nothing like as good as his English and he does have an accent. Ds2 is 4.5 and until our last trip over Christmas refused to say anything. He gets very upset that he can't say what he wants to say so doesn't risk it.

I had assumed the children would grow up bilingual just because ... but it's not that easy, is it?

Brangelina, I think the individual aptitude thing comes into play more for adult language learning.

We're all programmed to learn language -- a child who only hears one language will learn that language, and a child who has a genuine communicative need to use two languages will learn two languages. But children are pretty good at sussing out the difference between what they need and what you want them to do, and once the two diverge, which they will do once the child is old enough to have a life of its own outside the family home, then he or she is likely to be less willing to play along. I think adults brought up abroad who now speak good English are likely to be a special case, as English is a pretty universal communication medium (lots of dubbed films, rock music, blah blah) so even quite young children and definitely teenagers are likely to be motivated to acquire good English even if it's not their first language.

Lazycow's experience sounds pretty like my own I had more exposure to German as a child and made a conscious decision to maintain that contact as a teenager and adult and spent extended periods there. Whereas my younger siblings gradually lost interest as lazycow describes their knowledge is passive and though they can speak German they sound very foreign and are quite self-conscious about it.

I don't think passive knowledge is worthless -- knowledge is still knowledge, and if they later decide to use the language more actively they will have a good foundation from which to do that. But you can't force it (or at least not without causing major family disharmony and resentment), and I would suspect that unless you have exactly the right combination of language and family circumstances, a bilingual toddler is unlikely to turn seamlessly into a 15-yo who can speak both languages equally well.

Brangelina I didn't mean to scare you. Frogs is right that English as the second language is different as it is an incredibly useful language and used on a very wide basis. My niece and nephew may not be native English speakers but they willl really improve much more quickly than someone who knows no English if they chose to. In the end it really is about individual choice for them but they have been given a very good basis from which to make that choice. Also English is incredibly useful so the chances are that a teenager will chose to learn it if they can.

Other languages are different - particualrly say Italian which is nowhere near as useful or cool to speak as English or even say Spanish

I attended a seminar in Italy once for second generation Italians who had been brought up all over the world. The communication language was Italian obviously and the disparity in ability to speak fluently very broad.

It was an incredibly interesting couple of days where issues of cultural and national identity were really explored and discussed. What came out was really that some people make a choice that they want to really embrace the second language/culture and for others it is less important. I think forcing the issue may result in some children rebelling (it did with me and made me very anti Italian for a long time). For my sisters it didn't.

everyone knows their child best but as with most things we can't control all their choices. If you provide as much stimulation and opportunity to learn the language as you can your child will learn some. Ultimately though the extent to which they chose to use it is up to them. Rhubarb is right any more than that becomes about us pushing something on them they may not want and as she says it is actually incredibly hard to learn to speak two langauges asolutely fluently and can't actually be done without quite a lot of effort.

For me my Italian is adequate for my needs at the moment. I am very glad that I know as much as I do otherwise I would be excluded from much of my family's culture and humour etc. However I don't choose to take any more on board than that.

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so they'll be learning fech fench AND French! Way to go pitch.

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No no no, please don't do that! I never do

Lazycow and Frogs, I see your points and yes, I suppose I should worry less about it being English as the cool factor will kick in at some point. I wasn't intending to force the issue, hence my laissez-faire attitude as I don't want to stress my DD any more than she's going to be stressed out by school and peripheral activities when she's older. However, much of my desire for my DD to be totally bilingual stems from the fact that despite me having Italian family, I wasn't taught Italian when I was little as it was thought my English would suffer (a common line of thought in the 60s apparently) and so I didn't grow up perfectly bilingual with no English accent, which is what I presumed I would have been had I had the input from birth. It never occurred to me that this may not have been the case. I am now through my own efforts bilingual, albeit with an English accent - which is a bit of a bone of contention for me - and I suppose I was hoping to save my DD the effort.

Rhubarb - I don't think I'm being pushy, nor do I think anyone else here who is trying to teach their child their native language (and therefore their cultural heritage). Yes, in an ideal world I'd love if my DD turned out speaking perfect English as well as perfect Italian, in fact up until now, I didn't think there was actually any effort involved, so it wasn't as if I was transmitting my anxiety to her. However, should that not be the case I'm not going to angst about it, at least I will be certain that she has a good grounding and the mere mental flexibility involved in assimilating a second language at an early age will stand her in good stead for anything else she might choose to do. I certainly hadn't planned to send her to have extra lessons or whatever and the school holidays in the UK is more of a necessity issue as both I and my DP work full time. The comment about not speaking to DD unless she speaks English to me is not so much a Draconian measure as a possibly relatively painless way of geting her into the habit of using English actively from a very young age.

Pitchounette I know what you mean about forgetting your native tongue, up until last year I worked for a French company so basically spoke French all day at work and Italian at home and English to practically no one and had trouble forming phrases when my family phoned. In fact, I had to get some practice in before DD was born and spent my mat leave watching DVDs in English!

Sounds like all are struggling with the bilingual issue in one way or another.

I am wondering if I should attempt it at all. I speak Spanish fluently (although it is not my native language). I do so with not a horrible accent, but don't know if this is enough.

I will be primary caregiver to LO due next month, and want to speak only Spanish - and DH will speak English (he speaks Spanish as well).

Not sure if this is an effective plan? Any ideas are welcome!!

Sorry but some of the messages here contain the word "force", like the one whose dh is forcing the child to speak catalan.

Alarm bells ring when I come across that word in relation to children.

We lived in France for 2 years and dd was getting very fluent in French. When we came back we noticed she was losing it so now we speak French to each other every mealtime and she goes to French classes every week after school, by choice.

In France, she was speaking the 2 languages with proficiency, but her reading and writing were falling behind as she was being stretched too much by the strain of having to speak French at school and play and English at home. Now at home her reading and writing have really improved, but her French has fallen behind.

So be warned that if you push on one thing, another equally important thing might have to give way.

YF, if it's not your native language and you're not living in a Spanish environment or have an extensive spanish-speaking family, your chances of producing a truly bilingual child are vanishingly low.

You could probably produce a toddler who can sing a couple of spanish nursery rhymes and knows some basic vocabulary, but not much more than that, I'd say. Why would you speak Spanish to your child if it's not your natural or native language and you're not living in a spanish-speaking country?

YF,
I would have great difficulty talking to my children in any language other than my mother tongue (even having lived in England for over 10 years and speaking English very well). I would find it very 'unnatural' and difficult to express my emotions and feelings.

Interesting thread...

Rhubarb, it is absolutely normal that 2 languages will develop at a different rate in a bilingual child and is nothing to worry about as such. Research seems to show that by about age 10, the bilingual child´s language skills in BOTH languages are around the same as a monolingual child in his/her single language. Thereafter, the dominant language tends to become the one which is used in secondary school.

My child is a bilingual and we live in a 3rd language country, whose language together with a 4th he also understands. It is critical to us that he learns BOTH of his parental languages properly, not only to be able to communicate with both sides of our family but because we do not know which country we will live in next and which language will be used for schooling.
I do rather resent being called a "pushy parent". I think investing a lot of time and effort and making necessary sacrifices to facilitate learning 2 languages is not being pushy but doing all I can to make the situation easier for DS. It is not "incredibly difficult to speak 2 languages fluently" given favourable circumstances; in fact the majority of the world´s population do this although many people don´t seem to know this. I don´t see myself as "forcing" my child to learn to actively speak his "2nd" language but as allowing him to become who he is. And that is his mother AND father´s child. I think bilinguals appreciate this when they are grown up. As a toddler he can still be moulded and encouraged to actively speak his second language before it is too late.

I haven't read all of this, but I'm an expat and many of my friends have bi, tri and quadrilingual children, as do I. I can say for sure from seeing them grow up that there is no rule about this. I think some children are better at it than others in the same way that some adults are better at learning languages.

Iampotty, you know your child. If he's not using his German much then he probably just needs some more input. A few weeks with grandparents or a German babysitter who doesn't speak English sometimes might be enough. You might need more.

It's not being pushy. It's the language of his father, half his family, half his culture. It will be important to him to be able to participate in that, so you should definitely keep trying.

I do think it's unnecessary to try to make a child bilingual just for the sake of it when the languages aren't family languages though - it's must make family life really unnatural.

Thanks itsallabitmuch. DSs comprehension of German is pretty good for his age I think. That´s why I´m surprised he doesn´t actively use it!

Something´s just been drummed home tho. DS does also passively understand a further 2 languages (and I hadn´t really thought about this and how this might affect his development). Perhaps it´s understandable that he hasn´t started speaking another language yet, till he´s worked out which are the important ones! German is a very minority language where we live compared to the others. I will keep plugging away at his opportunities to build up contact with the language.

Just skimmed through this thread and was surprised at the number of people who reported that they or one of their dc's does not use the 2nd language actively at all.
My 2 are bilingual. My youngest is better at it and has hardly got an accent and speaks equally well (for a 3 yo) in both languages. The oldest though had a totally different development. His 1st words were Dutch and then from when he was about 13m he became a daddy's boy and ever since English has been the dominant language. This has only got worse since he started school. His English is 'pure' but when he speaks Dutch he mixes a lot of English in it. So much so that it's about 60% English and 40% Dutch in one sentence and he doesn't sound native either.
His Dutch does improve vastly after a holiday with his belgian grandparents where he's played with his cousin who doesn't speak any English at all, as he is then forced (not in a nasty way) to use pure Dutch.
So there you go despite a strict OPOL strategy in our household, our 2 have very different language skills. Maybe it would be usefull if you could somehow ensure that he meets children/relatives that do not know one of his other languages so he has no choice but to speak German.

SSS, thank you for the Ravensburger book tip - the series looks great. I will buy some when I next order from amazon.de. Many Thanks!

IamPotty, the other kinderhotel we stayed at was the Hotel Baer in Serfaus. This is particularly nice for a ski holiday as the childrens ski school is right on the doorstep of the hotel. Great childcare too!

annasmami, I agree, I am not sure that it will be totally "natural" for me to bring up baby in Spanish. i think we will have to see how it goes. I would love to make it happen!

Frog, I think it is very closed minded not to see value in why I might want to bring up my child bilingual. I have worked really hard at dedicating my life to living in various cultures and learning different languages, with great success. At the moment, we live away from "home". I want to pass on the lessons of multiculturalism to my children as much as possible. Why wouldn't I want to give my children a head start at language skills?

Admittingly, it may be a challenge for me to commit to it, but to devalue my encouragement of different language simply because I don't live in a certain country or have a certain native language is absurd.

So many of these posts are very aggressive and negative. I choose not to participate any longer. So long.

Maybe concentrate for the moment on what lies directly ahead, like the birth! Hope it all goes well for you and the baby. When your baby is there, you'll just have to see what does and doesn't come naturally to you. You may feel comfortable murmuring sweet nothings to your baby in Spanish. It may feel totally odd. In any case, it won't harm if you sing to him/her in English and Spanish and you have a bit of time after the baby is born before you have to have made up your mind completely.

I've only ever read studies that discourage speaking to your dc in a languae which is not (one of) your own mother tongue(s) or the language spoken where you are living. My impression is though that no one has as yet come up with definitive do's and don't. At least if dh is speaking English to your dc and s/she is in an English language environment, you don't risk the dc becoming totally adrift, if at some time, you change your mind and switch back to English after all.

What I think is that your dc will observe you reading and speaking various languages and they will just consider it a matter of course that one day they will learn many foreign languages too. That's another way into appreciating multiculturalism too after all.

Language issues are highly emotive issues because they are so intensely caught up with who are we are. No one here meant to offend you, I'm sure of it.

Hm, must admit I didn't think I was being agressive. My posts on this topic have been based on my own experience of being brought up bilingual, and on my knowledge of the scientific literature (I'm an academic linguist).

I think living a multicultural lifestyle and introducing children to different cultures and languages is a fantastic thing to do, and is worthwhile regardless of whether or not it results in a bilingual child. The main point I was trying to make is that people use languages in different ways that reflect the environments they live in. If children are not living in an environment that is split equally between two languages (which is pretty hard to achieve, tbh), they will acquire differing language skills in each of their languages. They may end up having complete native-like command of both languages, but they may not. They may be able to speak one language and understand the other; they may be able to discuss summer holidays in both languages but school-related matters only in the language they use at school. They may become go through stages of being reluctant to speak one language, or they may target their language use in order to pointedly exclude particular family members, or may deliberately answer second-language questions in the other language in order to wind up the parent who wants them to speak the second language.

Most of the posters on this thread seem to have toddlers, and I was simply explaining, along with the other poster who was brought up bilingual, that there are a great many complicated emotional, social and family issues governing language use and learning in bilingual families, which come into play as children get older, and which make it unrealistic to assume that the One Parent One Language approach will seamlessly produce a child with native-like mastery of both languages. I am glad that I am bilingual, and I value the links I have with both sides of my family. But there is a price to pay for it, and I have consciously decided against a bilingual upbringing for my own children (a) because I know that the chances of achieving success were pretty low in our family circumstances and (b) because I wanted them to feel confidently rooted in one culture rather than split between two and never quite at home in either.

What's the point of posting if you only want to hear opinions that are the same as your own?

Frogs, the fact that you are an academic linguist puts an interesting perspective on what you have to say..

Can you tell me the origins of the disharmony and resentment in relation to life in a bilingual family?

And could you recommend any literature on bringing up multilingual children? I am interested in academic studies and have read the best sellers on the market re bilingualism. I´d like to go a bit further into the subject now. Also, what studies look at the failure of the OPOL approach? Everything I have read to date is very positive about it.

Thanks for your post!

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frogs,

Thank you for sharing your experiences from having been raised bilingually. I too am very interested in your experiences of "a great many complicated emotional, social and family issues governing language use and learning in bilingual families, which come into play as children get older"

So far, all experiences I have encountered have been very positive, especially when efforts are made to provide sufficient exposure to the 'minority' language. And I know of quite a few adults (including dh) who were not raised bilingually (despite the opportunity) and now regret it.

Furthermore, research appears to supports a bilingual approach: "Preschoolers who speak one language can usually recite the alphabet and spell their names but cannot read without the help of pictures. But bilingual preschoolers can read sooner because they are able to recognize symbolic relations between letters/characters and sounds without having visual objects," said psychologist Ellen Bialystok, Ph.D., of York University and author of the new study."

I am therefore very interested in your (negative) experiences of having grown up bilingually. You also appear very qualified to comment on this subject, being an academic linguist. Thanks a lot again for sharing your experiences.

Blaah, I'm probably generalising from my own (mildly dysfunctional) family experiences, though Lazycow seemed to be suggesting similar things.

I think it's v. easy when children are tiny and unselfconscious. We took my dd1 to stay with my cousin whose ds was the same as dd1 (3 at the time). They spent most of the holiday sitting in the sandpit, each chattering away in their own language, blissfully aware that the other child couldn't understand them. Occasionally one of them would pick up a phrase in the other child's language and repeat it and they'd bat it back and forwards, laughing hysterically. Family legend has it that I, aged about 4 and having just learned to read, picked up an English book and read it (in German) to my German cousin (who was visiting us in England at the time). That's the upside of kiddy bilingualism.

The downside? I think my mother spoke her native language with me very naturally when I was little, and since I'd spent the first few years of my life with her parents, I also spoke it very easily and naturally. Once I started school (in the UK) I remember realising that our family experience was not normal, and somehow wanting to be more like everyone else in my class (ie. not speak a different language at home). It also became v. difficult to speak about school experiences at home in my mother's language, because I lacked the vocabulary for things I'd only experienced in English. Round about that time I started to become quite self-concious about speaking German. I think my younger siblings felt this awkwardness even more, since they'd never grown up with German as a first language. After a while we did start passively resisting (ie. answering in English) which invariably provoked an argument. Which in turn made us quite resentful -- as a child (or an adult, come to that) if you want to tell someone something, then you want to be able to get on with it without being told that actually you should be using a different language, and that actually your grammar in the other language wasn't quite right because you were mentally translating from your first language. Etc.

It also led to disharmony between my siblings and me because my German was much better than theirs, which I inevitably used to play up to win the 'Mum's favoured child' award. Cue much kicking under tables, blah blah. And marital disharmony because my dad thought my mum was being ridiculous, and didn't really support her. My sister and brother hated being forced to speak German and actively turned against any use of the language.

It's complicated. I do know people who grew up bilingually who were happy with it, and I know other people who were not brought up bilingually despite having one non-native parent who resent that their parent didn't share the language with them. And others who just aren't bothered either way. I did need to use both languages, and my German is pretty much native speaker standard (or would be if I could spend three months there using it). And it is an important part of my identity, but I do also feel I was affected by never feeling I belonged somewhere 100%.

I think the situation of people in eg. an English-speaking family brought up in another country is slightly different, as is that of people brought up within a strongly bilingual community. And I'm not saying it isn't worth doing, particularly if one of the languages is your own native language. Just that it isn't straightforward, and there is a potential for conflict that made me decide against it. But in any case English is now so much my main language that it would have been quite unnatural for me to speak German with my kids, despite being quite convinced during my first pregnancy that I would.

I'm not really qualified to advise on practical books - my cabbage patch is more the neurolinguistics and cognitive end of things. And I'm sure One Parent One Language is the most effective way of going about things just that you need to be aware bilingualism won't establish itself automatically just on that basis -- you will need more extensive input from other sources, and that the eventual outcome will be very variable depending on your family circumstances and your child's personality.