Bilingual children?

[Bookworm83]

Does anyone have experience raising bilingual (or multilingual) kids?
I'm expecting my 1st and am desperate for him to grow up bilingual; definitely want to start as early as possible!
I'm thinking about the One Parent - One Language method where me and my husband would communicate with the baby each in our own native language - but would welcome any tips from anyone who has done this! X

DS is 15 months and that's what I've been trying to do. It's pretty hard as our family conversations are in English, playgroups/classes are in English, NCT meet ups are in English, nursery uses English etc. I've had to make conscious effort to spend time using my first language with DS. Sing to him, read to him and chat as much as I can. So far so good and the handful of words that he's said so far have been in my language.

We are a bilingual household. Dh speaks with the dc in his native tongue and me mine. We converse in English as a group. I say we converse but my eldest is autistic with severe communication delay and is non verbal. But he understands both languages. And our youngest is not yet a year.

We both take time to read in native tongue, play colour, number and phonics games. We try to give the children equal amounts of TV, songs, movies and radio, rhymes and songs in each language.

@jojosm2 I know what you mean, I'm worried about being the only source of the minority language to my son (none of my family live in the UK and my friends don't have kids). When he's older I'll look into Saturday schools for him (there are a couple of them in my language in the area) so he can meet other kids speaking the same language, but until then it'll just be me!

It's great to hear your little one is showing a preference for your language, you must be doing a great job!

I don't have bilingual children but I used to work with children who are bilingual/multilingual.
In my experience (but I'm happy to be corrected) very early on children's vocab in both/all languages seems to be slightly more limited that their monolingual peers. I think this is the point when parents start to slightly worry but it seems to sort itself out definitely by the end of primary school if not sooner.
I've also found that the language of the country they live in tends to be their dominant language regardless of the language their parents speak. Mainly because that's the language they're speaking with their friends & watching tv in.

We are bilingual (well, me and the children are). We speak English with dh but our own language as much as possible otherwise. The kids are educated in our own language and speak to my family in it.

I think it's really hard if you aren't a native speaker of another language. Dh tries a bit with homework but mostly it's up to me.

I read somewhere that One Parent One Language results in kids with comprehension but they don't like to speak. We're trying immersion days--ok, most days we speak English because DH isn't 100% on board, but we all speak his language when I have the energy to insist on it. I'm bad at it but getting better. Would help if DH was more of a natural teacher. Sigh. But it is getting DD to see that sometimes we speak this language at home and sometimes other language. She's making slow progress.

We also read in both languages, and we don't do TV yet but when we do, my cunning plan is to give her videos in DH's language. This will probably work for approx 5 minutes but you never know.

I'm not bilingual but have taught abroad to kids who go to English schools. Bilingualism is a wonderful wonderful gift to give your child, please do x

On the @OutComeTheWolves ‘s point

Bilingual children have more vocab than monolingual peers but it’s spread across 2 languages so works out less per language. Comprehension skills are often behind but their memory seems to be better early on and bilingualism benefits their creativity and lateral thinking. So there are pros and cons.

OP, it’s probably not to difficult to get a child to speak the language early on. I think I’ll need to work harder when he goes to pre-school and beyond as he will be exposed to English a lot more and learning will take place in English too.

I think the main carer’s language will dominate. In theory ds had access to two other languages. His Df was not present much and kept speaking bad English with ds (to the point ds spoke bad english for a bit) but his language with me.

So ds can understand his df language but very unhappy to speak it.

I’m divorced so now more with my family and he’s picking up more of the other language with that but he won’t be fluent in either and prefers to speak English.

Get a plan and stick to it! I like one parent one method.

I grew up English speaking only. Changed a bit when my grandmother with no English came to UK. I was about 10 and I picked up her language on Saturdays.

We're raising our son bilingual. I've spoken to him in my native language from birth but I do tend to switch to English when husband is around - I find it hard not to.
DS just turned 2 and he understands both languages quite well but he speaks mostly English except for an odd word here and there. He was counting to 10 with me, then they also started at the nursery and now he only does it in English unless he's directly repeating after me.
It's easy to get overrun. I'm his only source of the other language and it feels pointless sometimes. But I think he does take it in and will start using it more sooner or later.

@Frezia - he’s 2 years old.

Just keep steady and when alone just speak in your language. It will happen.

In what situation would a child in their day to day life have access to multiple languages equally?

@howrudeforme You're right. Occasionally it feels like he's unlearned something that he learned from me but he's still only developing his language skills as it is and I'm not too bothered. I'm multilingual myself and IMO language skill is like muscle memory. If you don't practice it you forget it but you never really lose it, and with some effort you can recall it. So I'm just trying to get him exposed as much as I can, as I know he's taking it in and laying foundations for when he'll want to actively use it, whenever it may be.

I'm English, DH is French. We live in francophone environnement, its the dominant language.

I've spoken in English exclusively to DS since he was born. I NEVER switch to French and never explain an object by using the French word. You have to be persistent and stubborn. When DS was learning to talk he would speak in French, I'd reply in English but the conversation made perfect sense. By three he was seperating both languages and totally bilingual. He still needs correcting in things, but just as any other 5 year old would.

It's very impressive the way he switches languages - he doesn't miss a beat, it's not a problem for him switching to and from.

DH speaks only French to the kids, me and DH speak pretty much just in English together although I do try and and do try and speak in French as much as possible.

We are a bilingual family. I'm English and DH is French, and we are both fluent in each other's language. Our son is 2 so I can only share our experience so far.

I think the language of the country that you live in is inevitably the dominant one. Obviously it's dominant when socialising (with family and friends), at childcare, at school, etc. But it's also dominant at home, even though we would like to prioritise French, we both use English all the time, and even DH defaults to English a lot of the time.

So we are doing our best to give our DC as much exposure to French as possible. We take DS to a French baby and toddler group (for native speakers not people who want to learn) and we've been making friends, meeting up outside the group too, etc. There is a French staff member at DS's nursery which is a bonus, if we used a childminder I would see if I could find a French one. When DS starts school we'll send him to a French club/class for native speakers. (The ideal would be a bilingual/multilingual school but there are few of them in the UK, sadly.)

We also go to France several times a year, so that DS gets more exposure, and to see family and friends, of course. DH and I go into "French mode" while we're there so he gets more French from us as well as everyone else around him.

We have no concerns whatsoever about his communication and vocabulary so far. I was expecting that it might be more limited at first (as I've heard that's normal for bilingual children) but if anything he's been quick to talk and use a wide vocabulary, complex sentences etc. We think he's bright but of course we're biased

@Frezia - he’ll be fine. You are doing your best.

I’m in my 50’s and lots of people my age who were from multilingual families (.in UK) were only grounded in English - possibly due to expectations of ‘assimilation’ and also a presumption the child would be held back in English.

I basically picked up my community language from the age of 10 visiting dgm once a week. But I wasn’t grounded in it. I then lost that language as I was married to a man whose culture dominated and so I lost mine.

I did French at school and failed it. Managed to wing my way into a part one language at uni and struggled. Went to live another country for for work and was pretty fluent within 2 years.

Met my dh and picked up his language from spending 2 weeks per year in his country and being a tad involved in his community in the UK.

I’m not grounded in any of these languages but I just pick them up. The reason I do is because although my parents didn’t bother to ground me in anything, between them they speak 5 languages so I was comfortable in hearing words I didn’t understand (I do not differentiate between anything or blot anything out if I don’t immediately understand it).

My language mind is a sponge - fluid.My ds mind is that he needs to speak his df language as it was expected and ds now has mental block.

Keep things very cool and fun, immerse but with no pressure.

I’d love to be fluent in one thing but I’ve spread myself way too thinly, but I get by.

Each person had their own language way.

We spoke the other language at home as they had access to the other language at the childminders and at school etc. The other language is their first language really. Although nobody can tell when they speak.

Ime (2 bilingual children, aged 19 and 22), it is not actually about this method or that; it's about finding a way to ensure what I feel are the essentials to become fluent in any language:

frequent and regular exposure

pleasant associations with the language

circumstances that force you to use the language at least from time to time

For many people, this is what OPOL does, particularly when it comes to the last item on the list. For others, MLAH does the same thing.

Dh is English, I am Swedish. We did not stick to OPOL or any other fixed method, but I used Swedish a lot not only in conversation, also story telling/ songs/nursery rhymes/games etc. We were also able to visit family twice a year, which made a big difference.

The fact that I also used English didn't confuse them or bother them: by the time they were old enough to go to school they already knew I could speak to their friends and their friends' parents and that I was actually teaching English literature, so there was never a chance of pretending I couldn't do this. They also knew that dh could speak Swedish and heard him do so with my family.

What I think we did manage to establish this way was that being bilingual is a normal, everyday thing. They also heard me speak French and German when travelling and they knew the house was full of books in different languages.

I talk a lot, so the exposure thing was not a problem.

The pleasant associations bit was covered by story-telling and games, nursery rhymes, fine collection of books and DVDs (mostly gifted by family members). Dd soon became an avid reader, so that was further exposure.

And using minority language was enforced when we visited my family, some of whom were very young and clearly did not speak English.

Both children are likely to start by speaking Swedish when they phone me up, though we may then switch backwards and forwards several times during the course of a conversation.

Wow, that's a lot of great responses, thank you all!
Yes the sufficient exposure is what worries me the most; I plan on singing and reading to my son in my language but I am trying to think of other sources of the language for him. I'm thinking regular Skype calls with my side of the family (who don't speak English), starting Saturday school from age 4 (they teach a lot about our culture and history, but to me it's mostly about the contact with other kids speaking the language) and hopefully finding little friends for him in our minority community. 🤞

Hi Bookworm 83

We are English but live in France and have bilingual children (5 and 2). We speak English at home but both kids have been/are at French only speaking childcare. My husband is much better than me at French and reads both French and English books to the kids, I do this too and it's really helping my French language!

We watch favourite cartoons on youtube in both languages and this really helps with exposure.

We have friends who are Dutch and English raising a child in France plus a Czech /Slovak couple who speak English and French. The trilingual and quadlingual kiss seem to be a bit slower with the languages (hardly surprising! 😅) but they're all getting there in the end.

Kids not kiss

My son is bilingual, I only speak Urdu to my son, I virtually never speak to him in English. He speaks to me in Urdu with the odd English word thrown in, he’s four.

He has learned English from nursery and my friends, he went through a phase of translating what my friends were saying in English.

We are a trilingual household. Ex-H and I speak mainly English and Greek to the DCs and we also speak French (we live in France). DD 8yo found English to be easy, struggled a bit with speaking French but wwas fine by their first year in primary school, has some understanding of Greek but doesn’t speak it and has recently started German which she is picking up incredibly easily. DS 5yo seems to be following the same trajectory of fluent English, but some difficulties speaking French which he is just overcoming.

Not bilingual but I know quite a few children who are - and it seems to depend mainly on what is spoken at home. Both my parents were bilingual but they mainly spoke English at home and we lived in an English speaking area so none of us children are bilingual, though we understand well, exactly like described above, and also studied the second language in school. My DM has cousins that were brought up in an English speaking area but spoke Irish at home and they are bilingual. The children I know can't read their 'native' languages very well though, and read English books for pleasure.

I would speak exclusively in your own language to your children, never in English.

This appeared in my FB news feed tonight
www.nytimes.com/2017/07/10/well/family/raising-a-truly-bilingual-child.html