have a question to all those bringing up bilingual children :-)

[ginseng]

Hi, My Husband is French speaking so our children will be bilingual, our 3 year old son is slow to speak and not clearly yet. but i was wondering when they speak the other language well to the parent who speaks it (sorry i can't word it very well!) Our Son speaks mainly english which is normal as we are in Uk and my Husband is the only one he hears french from.

what age did your child speak both languages properly?

thanks G x

They spoke both languages properly from the start. The only difference was in the level of vocabulary. In the beginning (before school) they spoke more Dutch and so that was the stronger language, as their dad works away from home. Now they speak better English, because they're both in full time education.
To eachother they seem to speak Dutch mostly funnily enough.
There's no logic in bilingualism and each child is different and uses languages differently. There are a few good books out there, one of them 'growing up with two languages' by Lisa Cunnigham-Anderson.

DD is 3 and it is only recently that she started making sentences in all three of her languages.

She still doesn't "speak properly", but at least knows which word goes with which language/parent.

Yes, that's good question!
I am in the same position as your dh - only difference is that I speak German -
and I do wonder if she will become fluent in German despite her mother and the rest of the world speaking English with her.

She is only 2 and a bit and understands some words but her English is miles better.

Well, what do you mean by speaking properly? From an adult point of view, a 3yo is not exactly speaking properly in any language.

Or do you mean, speak it naturally, every day, without an effort? I think this would have to depend on how much they are exposed to it.

I think bilingual parents sometimes tend to get a bit hung up on this and forget that all children find some sounds of their first language hard to pronounce at times, that all children make grammatical mistakes, and that language development goes in jerks, so it is possible to take a sudden leap forward in one language (not always the same one!) and then catch up in the other language. Also, that even monolinguals do not have full command of their languages- there are always areas they don't know much about; so it is perfectly possible to have slightly different areas of expertise in different languages. (e.g. I was a fully fluent academic in Swedish before I emigrated but I had never worked in archaeology until I came to the UK, so all my archaeology is in English. My children can sail a boat in Swedish but not in English- this used to worry me until I realised that their monolingual English friends can't sail a boat in any language).

Both my children live in England and go to school and have only English-speaking friends, but speak Swedish to me at home (most of the time) and spend the summer and Christmas holidays in Sweden. Dh is English.

In the early years their language development was fairly even- but not totally.

Dd (11) is the one who has found it easiest. I cannot remember any time when she was not speaking both languages regularly. But then, I was at home with her, so she got a lot of Swedish from me and English from toddler group etc. I used to spend A lot of time talking to her, singing to her, reading to her, playing with her in Swedish. In fact, her first sentence was a mixture of languages. Her accent is good and she reads both languages for pleasure and is now beginning to write in Swedish.

Ds also spoke a mixture of both at first, but then went through a phase (after a holiday in Sweden) where he refused to speak any English at all! He claimed that if you speak English trolls come and eat you up. Very awkward as he was attending English pre-schools, and his friends couldn't understand what had come over him. But he loosened up a bit when he started school. He still found it a little difficult to switch between cultures, though. I was worried about his accent for a while until I realised that he was having exactly the same phonetical problems as his cousins back in Sweden: some sounds just take longer. He is very happy to speak Swedish now and I am doing my best to make sure that we read more demanding books together etc so that his Swedish doesn't stop at the very basic 'put on your coat' level.

If your husband wants to encourage ds to speak more French I think it would be a good idea to set aside special time when he plays with him in French or reads him stories and tries to encourage him to answer in French.

Sorry, not making myself clear. What I meant was not that your dh should not speak French to your ds at all times, but that it is important that they spend enough time interacting.

sorry, i just re read my post and i wasnt clear, his speach is not clear/well formed in either language, i am hoping its a delay due to the 2 languages. His french understanding is brilliant, and he is coming along with saying words and knows quite a lot of french already, but he still talks back to his daddy in english not french, so I was wondering when it is that they start to talk the other language more.

Thanks so much for the info about that book, that is really interesting, will get it.

also thanks cory for your reply, it is really interesting, i appreciate you taking the time to answer and the idea of encouraging him to answer in french at story time is brilliant, he has lots of french books, dvd's etc so he will absorb it all in time .

thank you very much x

Ginseng, my DD used very little of my DHs language until she started school in that language. We live in another language area altogether where there are few people who speak his language. If she changes the language of her schooling I don´t even think she would keep it up - English is just too strong.

In your position I would do the utmost to get her to meet and interact with other French speaking children on a regular basis. This gives a reason to speak French. Also make it clear how much you value the French language.

Do you think your child needs a SLT? Maybe someone like Moondog will come along and let you know when a child should be reasonably articulate in their mother tongue. My DD was definitely slow to speak well though by 4 could suddenly speak very well both languages.

My daughter (3.11) speaks slightly better English than French and this has been consistent since she began to talk. She hears/speaks more English than French because we are putting the emphasis on English as we live in France. She doesn't mix the two languages much.

She goes to a bilingual school where she gets more French than English.

Hi,
my DDs 5yo and 2yo are bilingual in Spanish/English. We live in Spain but have always spoken English at home, DP too tho his 1st language is Spanish.
DD1 started full-time Spanish nursery at 2yo and her sister has just started at the same age.Both were speaking pretty well when they started but only in English. DD1 stil makes grammatical mistakes but nothing you wouldnt be surprised to hear from a natve speaker of her age. DD2 is repeating whole phrases in Spanish according to her teacher, after just 3 weeks of nursery.

Anyway, what I want to say is the important thing is that your DH keeps on speaking French to your Ds, if possible only French - (do you speak/understand it too?) even if your DS never responds in French he shouldnt give up or lose heart because eventually he will and it will have been worth it. Regular trips to French speaking countries is also very important or visits from relatives who 'only' speak French so he is forced to use it if he wants to communicate with them. Also make use of all the usual aids such as DVDs and books and seek out others in your situation - your DS may not speak French to the other bilingual kids but just being around other French speakers even if they are adults in the background will be beneficial.

Thank you everyone for your replies, they are all really interesting and have given me lots to go on, I am going to see if i can find some other french speaking families in the area and meet up. From what i read from you all, My children are not hearing enough french, we are planning to go over to france at least twice a year, but i don't think that will be enough.

Thank you all so much!

Ginseng, what area are you in?

My neice and nephew lived in Spain until they were 9 and 5. Technically, the family did 1P1L - but my brother is bilingual and his partner is not, so in reality they spoke mostly Spanish at home. They were both quite late talkers in either language, and when they came to England really had only basic English. 4 years later, their English is perfect BUT they still have strong Spanish accents. The problem now is that they are losing their Spanish a bit - they only speak it with their mother and school and school friends are becoming increasingly important. They have decided to speak Spanish at home now, but it only works if there aren't any friends round - and there usually are!

I am in herefordshire :-)

Ginseng, I thought for a long time that my daughter was a slow speaker because we are in France. She has English at home, French at nursery / school. However, it turns out that she has a language disorder. If you have ANY doubts at all, I would advise getting your son checked out by a speech therapist. If there isn't a problem then you go away reassured: if there is one, you find it now, when it matters. If your son is speaking English correctly (for a 3 year old) you probably have no need to worry and no doubt his French will come along in time. Obviously, there's prob. no issue but I'm just giving my exp. having left things a long time thinking it was just a bilingual issue. Wasn't until DD at 3.5 still wasn't using pronouns that we started to think something was up.

Thanks, i think you are right and we are on the waiting list for a speech therapist, his speech is still not great so best he gets seen soon. thanks BriocheDoree :-) how is your daughters speech now?

Well, we only got diagnosis 6 months ago so she's still v. behind but making progress thru speech therapy. Her new teacher this year is really supportive, which helps a lot. She's only 4 so we've hopefully caught it in time!

Ginseng,
Interesting to read your post as we are in a similar position - DD is nearly 3, we live in England, husband is french and has only ever spoken french to DD but speaks english to me. Therefore she is exposed to significantly more english than french (and also realises that DH can speak english!).

Whilst her french understanding is good (as is her accent when she does speak it), she wont respond to DH in french at all most of the time. He speaks French to her, she speaks English back.

As a result I am not sure her french is ever going to be 'bilingual' despite our best efforts. I know we need her to spend more time in France where she as no choice but to speak french as she gets older.

I don't know how normal or not it is that your DS is not clear in either language atm but I certainly wouldnt worry about the fact that the language developement is not the same for both.

Thanks, Moondog...I think you are confirming my suspicion that as much as DD and I love her therapist, we need to get her someone bilingual who can talk to her school as well.

Oops, meant to put this in another thread

Mine all spoke the 'right' languages to the 'right people from the beginning. Well, tbh English started a couple of months earlier. But their level of vocab is not the same in different languages, so daddy needs to spend lots of time playing and reading stories if you want that to be the same.

Well, my 3yo DD1 still doesn't speak any Hebrew, except for the odd word here and there, but DH only speaks to her in Hebrew and she understands every word he says. I'm sure she'll start to speak it one day, when she's ready.

What we noticed the other day is that she doesn't actually realise that 2 different languages are being spoken, and when she hears DH speaking Hebrew, she kind of internalises it as English. For example, we were talking about what letters words start with, she was saying D for Daddy. DH said, "and A for Aba (Dad in Hebrew)", to which DD said, "no, Daddy starts with D, not A". She just doesn't seem to realise that he was using a different word which started with a different letter!

Interesting thread - sorry that I'm coming to this a little late.

Jasper, what you're saying about your DD speaking mainly English since the only French she's exposed to is from your husband and he speaks English to you at home, I did exactly the same thing when I was a kid.

I'm German/English, raised in Germany with a Brit dad who was my main exposure to English and then only part the time as he spoke German to my mum. Like your DD, I'd understand just fine, but to his eternal frustration would always answer in German. What helped a lot is that we'd regularly spend holidays in the UK - especially as I often spend a fortnight by myself staying with friends of the family, when I'd be forced to speak English 24/7. Would definitely recommend doing something similar if you can arrange as it improved my English no end.

German always stayed my main language though I found my English lessons in school laughably easy (no surprise there then!).

Where the headstart in English really paid off was when I decided to move to the UK to go to Uni. It didn't take me long at all to really switch to English. Today English is my stronger language and few people I meet realise my first language is technically German (though many wonder at the accent, hehe!)

So basically, even if one language turns out to be markedly stronger than the other, the early grounding they get makes it a million times easier for them later to properly switch to the other language!

Hi

We live in London and our two DCs are being raised bilingually - I speak English along with everyone else here and DH does German.

-definitely make time for DH to speak exclusively to the child in his language. Storytime before bed is brilliant for this.

-definitely take holiday in DH's country so exposure to the natural conversational type of language is there

-try to meet up with other bilingual families. It's a support network and your children will realise it's normal to have more than one language floating around too (nods to DaddyJ)

My db and sil did "one parent one language" with theirs - but their mother's language is stil really their first language. They are now 12 and 9, and still dream in their mother's language! They didn't move to this country until they were 8 and 5 - if that makes a difference, though.

I was well into my teens before I could manage both languages properly. I spoke the one of the country I lived in best.