Is it possible to teach baby second language if we don't speak it?

[Writerz34]

Is it possible to teach a baby / child a second language if neither of the parents speak more than just enough for a holiday? If so, how do we do this? Bilingual nursery is out (didn't like the ones near us) so is it just a case of finding classes etc when they're a bit older?

All the children I know who speak additional languages do so because their family are native speakers of that language and that's what they speak at home. I would say the chances of them getting to any level of fluency otherwise are pretty much nil. Another option, though, would be to wait until they're older, then support whatever language they learn at school with lots of extra exposure through trips, videos, native speaking tutor etc.

Not really, no. You can support them to learn an additional language but it won’t be equivalent to having daily exposure to a native speaker. But that’s fine, still worth doing.

How old is the baby/child? It’s absolutely possible to learn another language without the parents speaking it as long as it’s being used often enough to maintain a standard I would say.

when I was 7 my parents moved me to a Welsh school. (My younger brother was starting nursery so was learning from the beginning)

the summer holidays before I started I had quite heavy tuition from one of the school teachers who was due to go on maternity so I think she came 2/3 times a week which was probably quite heavy but I was going into class where the other children had a few years of Welsh learning behind them, by the time I started I really wasn’t at much of a disadvantage.

kids are sponges, being immersed in it I picked it up quickly and having a sibling speak Welsh meant I could practice a little. I do think it needs to be used frequently though. I’m 32 now and moved away from wales and whilst I can follow a conversation it’s surprising how quickly I’ve forgotten and I’m definitely not fluent anymore.

Depends on where you live. Ds is growing up in fully English speaking household as dh and I only speak English at home. But we live in another country and so he go to nursery in local language and we communicate in it out and about with friends.
I think you would have to send to a fully second language speaking nursery and school for it to work

Out of interest, why do you want your DC to be fluent in a language which neither of its parents can be bothered to learn themselves?

Thanks all! @Bookish88 I said we have enough for a holiday so we do speak some, but I suspect the holiday vocab is a bit different to what a small child would be after. Research has shown you have the best chance of achieving near fluency if you start learning a language before age 10.

I agree you need regular exposure for it to work, thanks everyone else for the advice.

I know someone who consistently had au pairs from the country with their target language. I think it worked reasonably well.
You need quite a lot of language exposure for children to pick it up to any level of fluency. Like a PP I lived abroad when my children were young and we spoke English at home and local language when out and about and at school/nursery. They were fluent but we came back to the UK when they were 9, 7 and 4 and they've all lost it completely (now all teens).

We're planning on taking family Spanish lessons next year when our son is three as we very much want him to have a second language.

They won't reach fluency, but it doesn't have to be as binary as that. You can use songs and books to teach a few words and get the child interested in the language, and then hopefully they will continue this interest in later life

Do you have space and live somewhere that’d be attractive for a nanny/au pair? My brother was working long hours so didn’t see the kids enough for them to be proper bilingual, so they made sure they always had an au pair that spoke his language. The kids are grown up and are totally bilingual

Research has shown you have the best chance of achieving near fluency if you start learning a language before age 10.

I was near fluent after 6 months living in another country from 11yo. Children can be very good at picking things up, especially if they are sociable.

What language is it? I ask because I live somewhere with a significant Asian population and there are Chinese and Japanese schools people send their kids on the weekends. I imagine there are similar with other languages in other places.

You need someone who is a native speaker. If you only know enough for a holiday you will make mistakes and your pronunciation will be flawed (not to be nasty it is great that you know enough for a holiday) As your child learns from you, they will learn these mistakes as the way to speak this language and it is difficult to unlearn this when they grow older.
So an occasional song is fine, but don’t try to teach them something you can’t speak native like yourself.

OP I'm involved and around a lot of people who speak multiple languages.

I know people who studied a language at uni that they hadn't studied at school, or knew in any way before, and became fluent.

I know adults who learned a language due to living in the country it's spoken as kids and can barely string a sentence together as adults because they haven't spoken it in years.

We have diplomats who are taught new languages to fluency..and they're definitely not under 11.

The idea you have to learn before 11 in order to become fluent is nonsense.

What might be true is that if you learn fluency before age 11 (so you have the vocabulary a native speaker of 10 has when you're 10) that you'll have a native accent. That's also likely because you're learning from native speaker(s). The accent is something that can be hard to get when you're older, however, Im sure you've heard an Italian or French person speaking great English, but with their accent? You could still u defray and them? They can even be native level fluent, but have the accent still.

I would not stress about learning a language for a young child. Strengthen their English. The wider their vocabulary is in English, the easier it will be to learn another language when the time comes. And be open, as you are to other cultures. And if at all possible, try to visit the country on holiday (can be camping in a farmer's field, doesn't need to be fancy).

Then make sure kids choose a MFL at high school.

Don't stress about this. The 11 age simply isn't true in reality!!

The only people I know who have done this successfully had a full time nanny who was a native speaker and used the second language exclusively.

Another vote for an au pair or even a babysitter.

Someone, I'm not sure if it was on here, went to a restaurant and their child had a conversation with the waiter in the waiter's language and that was the first they knew their child was bilingual.

They didn't realise their babysitter had been talking to their child in her first language.

I know people who succeeded in this by having their kid watch youtube films in the language all day. Don’t really know if it’s an experiment you’d wish to repeat.

Yes it is possible but they will need to be spending a lot of time around people who do speak it. So going to a childcare setting where that language is spoken, for example. They can't learn it from you.

If it isn't used regularly then they will forget - so is this something that is going to be a part of their life/ their whole childhood? Why do you want them to learn it?

There is no point in putting a lot of effort into getting them to learn a language for the first three years of their life which they will then never use again apart from on holidays.

Loads of aspirational pushy monolingual parents do this with English where we live (European country) under the delusion that it'll give their children some kind of advantage. Their English is invariably much more flawed than they realise, so it doesn't work. And it can be difficult for the children socially, or when they just want to communicate their needs and (extreme case) their parent barks 'in English, pleassse'.

Bi- and multilingual children - being brought up with two or more languages from the start - don't 'learn' their languages, they acquire them. Even my own children, brought up with OPOL (one parent, one language) from birth, with each parent a native speaker of their language, are bilingual speakers but not 'native' speakers (edit: of the non-majority language, i.e. the language of the country we don't live in - they are definitely native speakers of the other) - you need full immersion in the sociocultural context to get that. So I don't see you having a hope, tbh, if it's anything approaching functional fluency you're aiming for. It also sounds a bit strange to have picked a language neither of you really speak and want your child to speak it. Absent any more natural sources of the language around you (social groups etc run in that language) I think I would just introduce the child to the idea of different languages in general and have fun bursts of learning a few phrases before holidays. They'll find one that appeals themselves, later on.

Agree with PP, btw - the idea of a narrow 'window' for 2nd language fluency has been largely debunked. I speak my second language to near-native level (even without that much of an accent) after starting to learn it in year 9 at school.

I've spoken fluent French since I was 4, because I went to a French school. We didn't really speak French at home - both my parents are English, only speaks a bit of French.

Did you end up giving it a try? I think it's a very labour-intensive process (involving around 2 hours a day of study in order to continually improve) and it would obv be nice to have a local community/bilingual education programme nearby to take some of the work off your hands, but not a wholly insurmountable challenge...