Will my son become bilingual

[Bri90]

I am English and husband is Polish, we have a 3 year old son who only speaks English. He understands everything in Polish but not speaking any at all apart from the odd word.

I really want him to be able to speak both languages fluently but I’m starting to lose hope that he isn’t going to pick it up.

Has anyone ever been in this situation than can give me any hope?

thanks

Keep on with it. My dad regrets my DM not teaching him her country’s language.

Yeah it doesn't quite work that way. Take it from another immigrant with a bunch of bilingual kids in the family. The dominant language takes over (English) and it really takes a lot of consistent effort from the one parent through the years. And even then, there needs to be an incentive (like going to the home country for a few weeks every year). As long as they know people understand them anyway, they just keep answering in English. It doesn't mean they don't understand the other language.

You also need to persist as they forget it after a few years.

I'd recommend some cartoons or films (depending on age) in the other language too, that will help.

And I know some of my nieces go to a local church where lots of people from our birth country go and organize a Sunday school. So having other kids speak the language while playing, it really helps. I'm unfortunately too atheist for that but even I considered it, it's a great little social.

Husband speaks Polish, never switches

Not sure why he's finding it so difficult, tbh?

Unnecessary. They just never switch to English.

If he's responding to the question correctly but in the 'wrong' language, at least you know he understands

I have Polish and German friends whose children really disliked speaking their languages when they were younger (up ton10 or so). Both parents are Polish and that didn’t seem to make any difference. Now they’re older one of the German children is studying German at university and they all love being able to communicate fluently with relatives. It should come if you keep up with it. One of my friends is livid that her parents did not bring her up speaking their native language as they’d given up when her older sister found it hard.

The families I know who’ve had most success in this are where both parents are fluent in both languages. I have Romanian friends who followed the OPOL model but with the benefit of if the children spoke the ‘wrong’ language to either parent, they understood and would just reply in the ‘right’ language for that parent.

DH is bilingual and does speak his native language to DS but the danger is that if DS then speaks that language to me when DH isn’t there I don’t understand everything, so he reverts to English. I’m learning DH’s language too but am very far from fluent. I can manage the toddler level books, but not a great deal more!

@angelcake20 One of my friends is livid that her parents did not bring her up speaking their native language as they’d given up when her older sister found it hard.

Teaching your child your native language is much, much harder than it might appear.

Also, lots of immigrant families are scared their children won't integrate and won't speak English well enough so they stick to English at home.

Lately it's become more acceptable to be of mixed heritage maybe but most of my family who landed here in the 90s and 00s were too scared for their children and didn't want them to be outcasts so were reluctant to teach them their native language. If it proved difficult anyway, i can see why they gave up.

@canuckup Why? Because his wife doesn't speak it fluently.

How would you feel coming home after a long day of work and instead of chatting as normal, you have to switch to Polish so you can't speak to your spouse. Your wife asks something about dinner, you have to answer her in English, then go back to Polish. Come the weekend and you spend the day as a family - when do you choose to speak Polish and when do you speak English (again, given your spouse isn't fluent in it)? And once your child is old enough to talk, they'll probably answer back in English which is frustrating.

And you're not JUST talking in Polish - your child has spent 99% of his day in English, so you have to be very intentional and descriptive of things, you are actively teaching them at all times.

Everything around you is in English. Everything baby related is in English. Their GP appointments are in English. It's really much harder than it looks to keep going back and forth.

Then add being Polish and risking getting mocked or worse, depending where you are in the UK, you don't always want to be speaking it out and about in a cafe or in the street, would you?

And back in the day if the child was delayed learning to speak the doctors would blame it on bilingualism and tell the parents they should only teach one language so their child will learn to talk whereas nowadays we know some delay is common but nothing to worry about.

Your son is really young and can easily learn to speak. Lots of people only understand a language til they immerse themselves in it. If you did a day of polish at home, once a month he would probably be able to speak the language.

We were on holiday once and got chatting to the waitress. She had gone to Spain with her parents as an older teenager and met a waiter who was Spanish. Their romance blossomed and she eventually moved to Spain full time where they married and had a family. They bought and ran a restaurant. She spoke only English to their son and her husband spoke only Spanish. When we met her, her son was just 3. She said they knew they’d cracked the bilingual thing when she asked her son In English to tell daddy dinner was ready and without giving it a second thought, her son gave daddy the message in Spanish. Daddy replied In Spanish and again without even thinking about it the little boy passed that message on again in English. What a fantastic opportunity that child has in life.