Just curous - OPOL, another language at school and siblings

[broguemum]

I am curious, if you are practising OPOL at home and if your children are taught in another language at school, what language do the siblings speak to one another in?

I'm curious because our home is OPOL EN/DE, our DD goes to a school where she is taught in another language, DS has just arrived and, when he is old enough, he will attend the same school as DS. I was wondering what language DD and DS will speak to one another in. I can always wait and find out but just wondered if there is anyone out there with any experience of this?

I speak English with my sisters (English/Welsh home)
My kids speak Welsh to each other (Welsh/Welsh home)
My sister's kids speak French to each other (French/English home)
My other sister's kids speak English to each other (Korean/English home)

It's mad when we all get togethert.

We live in Germany, dh German, I English, do OPOL. ds2 isn't old enough to talk, but certainly since ds1 started German kindergarten, and I think even before that 8despite playing mostly with English-speaking children before then), his default speaking-to-other-children language is German, even if that child speaks English.

We only have 2 languages, but my girls mostly speak to each other in French, the language they speak at school and with DH.

I do, however, insist that they talk to their little brother (19mo) in English, so I'm not the only one teaching him English.

It's possible your children will switch languages depending on what they are talking about - school language for recounting their day and playing games they have learnt there, a home language for domestic subjects - because the necessary vocabulary will be more accessible.

It'll be interesting to watch

Spanglish or a Galician variety of that. English at home, Spanish with their childminder and Galician at school. TV is a right mix. We, kind of, go with the flow.

Hi broguemum,
In my home I do speak catalan to my DDs, my DH speaks english, we live in the UK so when we are here, my DDs speak between them in english, but DD1, speaks to her sister in catalan when we are in Spain with my family.
I had friends who lived in London but were spanish/galecian. When they had a conversation it was very difficult to follow, as they would switch from Spanish, galician and English with no prblem. I don't speak galician (I speak spanish)and even though galician and catalan are similar as they are a lot of the latin langueage, I would missed part of the conversation, so I would always to remind them to try not to include galician in the conversation. ButI always found that really fascinating that they could change between the three languages with no problem what so ever.

Thanks for all the responses. Sounds as if things could get interesting in the brogue household and I look forward to much confusion in the future . Multi-lingual kids are so fascintating - just wish I'd been one!

we live in England, I speak German, dh speaks English, family language is English (as in, when we're all sitting round the table talking, for instance) as dh's German is crap.
The children all talk in English to each other and to me even although I recently put my foot down with dd1 who at 8 is old enough to keep that in check, so now she talks German to me (I just have to remind her occasionally).
Ds (4) actually has the bloody cheek to whinge at me for talking to him in German when he asks me what something is: 'noooo Mama, not in Deutsch, don't talk Deutsch, what is it in English??'. Little sod

We go with the flow, but they are more likely to speak English to each other when coming out of school and then switching to Swedish later, going back to English for their homework, then I read them a Swedish story...

Dd's are six and four and speak English to each other, unless we are in Germany when they sometimes speak German even when playing. They also might speak German to each other here in the UK when they are playing something that they have encountered in German, like Pippi Langstrumpf.

Oh, I'm German, dh English so the set-up is the same as geekgirl's (incl a dh who is crap at German )

Similar to the other posters. We live in Germany, I speak English, DH German, Family language should be English but we keep slipping back into German.

DS is 3.5yo, DD almost 6yo. DD spoke mainly English till she went to kindergarten, now she only speaks English with me if I remind her to. She speaks German with DS so he speaks mainly German too.

Both of them have really improved their English since we got British TV.

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We live in England, I speak German and dh English to dd (5) and ds (4) who both go to an English school.

Surprisingly, they often speak German amongst each other when they are at home, especially when daddy is at work. Possbibly helped by German tv, dvds and saturday school, but also holidays in German speaking countries.

Not sure how long it will last though...i.e. when the peer pressure not to be 'different' will start to dominate..., but then again there are several other bilingual children in their school, so maybe this won't be regarded as 'different' but as 'cool' [hopeful emoticon].