Raising toddler bilingual (English and French)

[climbershell]

We have a 6 month old 21 month old. I'm English, partner French.

We're raising them bilingual. However, they're obviously exposed to an awful lot more English than French. Due to the fact I'm the main caregiver, nursery for toddler 2 days a week in English. Most tv & songs are English. And when partner is around he speaks to me in English and to them prob 50:50 at best. We do have French books. And even I sing French bedtime lullabies .

Toddler will point to ears and nose, when asked in French or English tho. If i ask her wheee here knee is she'll point to her nose, as the french for nose sounds very like 'knee'. She can almost say 'papillon' (pronounce pap-e-on), currently 'pap-on', which is butterfly (she doesn't know the English for it)

Basically, I'm wondering when her language is likely to develop. I know bilingual kids often speak later but then all of a sudden have 2 languages... but wondering any real life experience xx

I think if you carry on as you are she will likely understand French, but it will be very much her second language. If you want her to be truly bilingual, your DP needs to speak 100% French to her and ideally if you’re living in England it would help if French was the language you and DP speak to each other. Your DP should also make an effort with French books and visiting family as much as possible.

We are exactly in the same situation (except that I'm the French one). I really struggle to speak to them in French when our entire life is in English.

Honestly in my experience (based on my sisters who have older bilingual children and have looked at this a lot) they are likely to reject their second language very quickly if it's not the main language at home. None of my nieces and nephews spoke their second language until they were at an age where they could understand the importance of communicating with their family in their language (eg grandparents) - so around 9-10.

However, the fact that they were exposed to it all their life means they understood the language even if they didn't speak it, and they could pronounce it. That's really key if you want them to be fluent and without accent.

I would love to hear if others had different experiences though!

You might from an expat community. DS3 goes to French school on Saturdays. It's for French expat families and run by volunteers. It's a mid size southern city, not London.

But where do you live?!

If it's in France, keep talking to them in English, they'll go to school where they'll become proficient in French anyway.

My adult son is bilingual.

P.s. Different EU country to France.

But all the same experience really. I'm bilingual too growing up due to my dad's work living in different countries.

Don't stress! They'll get it right! Kids always accommodate the situation they're living in.

My husband is Dutch. He speaks to me in English. He was worried that our boys wouldn't pick the language up as they would only hear it from him and from other relatives when in the Netherlands. Regardless he spoke to them exclusively in Dutch and if they replied in English he would say it back in Dutch. We'd never even heard of OPOL at the time but were effectively doing it.

The kids are now 12 and 13. They are completely bilingual. Only speak to him in Dutch and vice versa. Despite living in England they feel Dutch, support Dutch teams in all sports and both say they want to live there when they are older. My oldest tells people he was born there - he wasn't.

Stick with it.

My friends are raising bilingual children. They are English but they moved to France for two years when the girls were around 4-5 they are now 8 and 10 and they have French lessons and are only allowed to watch TV in french. I think they mostly use netflix

My sister married a German. He speaks to their DD only in German and she speaks only in English. They live in New Zealand. Their DD speaks English very well and a little German but refuses to speak German to anyone other that her father and grandma. However, she can totally distinguish between the two languages. you may need to send your children to French summer schools and have the father speak only French to them.

Can you find children's programmes in French on YouTube?

We’re in the same situation OP. We have a 2 yr old and a 7 yr old. The 7 yr old is completely fluent and goes to france to stay with his grandparents every summer and Christmas break. It makes a massive difference to his French and then he comes home and loses it a bit. The 2 yr old speaks no French whatsoever….. I will say that he’s definitely behind with language development and I’m wondering if it’s to do with the 2 languages at home (he doesn’t attend daycare).

You can set Netflix to French. Loads of kids programs in French that way.

We have friends in a similar boat. He speaks Spanish, she’s British and they live in the uk with their primary aged children.

They started with OPOL but actually ended up speaking to some bilingual expert/consultant who said that OPOL probably wasn’t enough because the dad was out at work and their exposure to Spanish was too limited. So as my friend had a decent level of Spanish she encouraged her to speak it more at home so that it became the family language. Previously she’d been advised not to in case she passed on her less than perfect Spanish but I think that’s a secondary consideration tbh and the main objective was to increase the kids’ general exposure to the second language and make it less of a minority…

Thank you for the answers

We live in England, I speak very little French. Me and partner speak only English. At the start of our relationship I tried to get partner to speak to me in French whilst I learned, but he wasn't keen. He finds it hard to switch to French with non French and after being at work speaking English all day.

He makes more effort with toddler and baby to dome extent. We need more French books, a lot of the ones we have are armed at kids a few years older. I sometimes read the French books, kid picks a book, doesn't matter to her what language it is, she just likes certain books regardless.

We don't have Netflix atm unfortunately as we were using my SIL account and they finally cracked down on it. And it's pretty pricey now. I think when I return to work in march we should sign up, for the French dubbing cartoons. We sometimes watch YouTube with French nursery rhymes. We were exclusively watching nursery rhymes in French, so will go back to that. If there was a French version of In The Night Garden that'd be fab.

I don't ever plan to do language school for them on weekends tbh. But when older could do more intentional home practice, books, apps, games etc. Does anyone know of any?

We visit the grandparents twice a year (tho in their 70s and quite old for their age) & they do video chat every so often. When our kids are older we can make that weekly, with grandparents or auntie. Partners family don't speak English so they'll have that forced exposure

Speak to your children in your native language. If possible try to do some activities in French. My 3 children are bi-lingual FR/EN. We are both British but live in Belgium. It was amazing to watch my then 2 year old pick up French - thrown into a French speaking school. It took less than a year for him to be fluent. We speak English exclusively at home when just the family- but obviously speak French when friends are here. I had to be very strict in making them speak English amongst themselves at home as they always reverted to French when playing etc (school language) ! We were worried that their English would not be good enough. They speak both like natives now and it's fantastic! Best thing as a parent we did !

He needs to speak to them 100% in French.

A friend is married to a German and they live in a French speaking country and the mum is English. She always spoke English to her kids, he German and they learned French from TV/radio/school. They also had his relatives living near so the kids were probably more exposed to his language, though the couple spoke mostly English but sometimes French to each other.
They are trilingual, but speak English with quite strong accents, but they are still fluent. I don't think there was any delay, though they might have used one language's word for an object when speaking another if that was more familiar, but they managed to sort it out by say 5/6.
One thing is my friend does not speak German . She knows quite a bit now, but is no way fluent. I always thought it odd her kids knew a language she did not!

I think your partner needs to make more effort and speak 100% in French. As you say you don't have Netflix then perhaps you can use YouTube.

My son is trilingual, he's 2 years 5 months. We've done exclusively one parent one language (plus nanny's language). I only speak to him in French.

The key is consistency. Even in a context when my and my partner are conversing in English (he doesn't speak French) I will only address my son in French/respond directly in French. We don't have many books in French but I just narrate all the English books in French since he can't read yet. He doesn't watch TV but occasionally nursery rhymes on YouTube, always in French. My plan as he gets older/watches more TV is that it will all be in French as he spends less time with me than with his dad.

We also plan to send him to a bilingual school for the early years. Also his French always noticeably picks up when my french mum comes to stay.

It's more difficult when you have two kids as they might chose to make English their common language, but ensuring they get continued daily exposure to french is important.

I don't speak French, so I can't narrate the books but I can read simple French books like T'choupi.

I can't make my partner narrate the books and tbh he just won't. He's lazy with his language, he refused to speak French with me to help me learn, so I gave up 3yrs ago. But I feel its a disservice to not teach the kids, as if they can speak two languages it will open up many opportunities to then for travel and work when older.

I can't make my partner speak only in French to them, but I'll certainly encourage that as much as I can! I think more books in French will be good for partner and will revert back to French only nursery rhymes on YouTube

My now 34yr old brother could count to 10 in French before English as he was obsessed with Muzzi! However he spoke zero French when he got just a little older (English family & life). But I'm super aware languages are the easiest to learn at a ver young age

@climbershell sorry if I wasn't clear. Your partner should be the 100% French parent if you follow one parent one language. But you make it sound like he doesn't want to, which as you say, is a missed opportunity!

I would sell it to your partner less as ‘the benefits of bilingualism’ and more as the confusion DC will experience if he’s muddling languages. It makes it harder for them to understand which words are English and which French. In addition, if English is a second language for him, he won’t be teaching them good English. It’s better if he leaves it to you as the native speaker. Ultimately though, you can’t make him want to do it properly.

He's been living in England over half his life, came over when he was 22 for studies. Spends 90% of his life the last 23yrs speaking English. Does has an accent and doesn't pronounce 'h' but has pretty good, tho definitely not perfect English

It doesn't feel natural for him to speak French unless on the phone to his family once a month or so, or visiting 2ce a year tbh. But, I do get your sentiment, thank you

I second the “one parent/one language” advice.
I have been speaking English to my 3yo son from day zero - English only. We live in Italy and he’s been going to nursery since he was 6 months old, so he has always been super exposed to Italian. His father (and everyone alse) speaks to him in Italian. He only watches tv in English and we read loooots of books in both languages. I must say he’s super fluent and confident in English, whereas he’s now improving his Italian as well as he started kindergarten. He addesses me in English, while by default he switches to Italian with the rest of the world :)

The general academic thinking at the moment is that success depends on two things - level of exposure to the language, and positive associations with the language and the culture. This means OPOL isn't absolutely necessary but it's a good way of ensuring sufficient input

But there's no magic formula, all children are unique and so much of language use and identity depends on psychological and emotional factors. What 'works' for one family won't necessarily work for another. And in response to a couple of posters here there is no scientific support for the idea that mixing languages confuses children, they are able to separate languages and their associated words/sounds from a very early age.

That's great for your son but it's not necessarily applicable to the OPs situation - English is the ultimate 'prestige language' and even from early it is absolutely everywhere culturally in Europe - music, TV, Anglicisms in speech, etc. This means English speaking children raised abroad almost always learn English to a higher standard than, for example, an Italian-English child living in the UK would learn Italian. But again it really depends on the child