Non-native bilingualism

[ManIFeelLikeAWoman]

I am a native English speaker and so is my partner, but we are bringing our daughter (11 mth) up bilingual - I speak to her exclusively in French, her mum speaks to her exclusively in English, my partner and I speak English to each other. I know this is not a common set up but it is not without precedent and I know I am not alone on Mumsnet. So I wanted to see how many of us there are and how it's going, and to swap notes.

I'm NOT asking for anyone's opinion whether this is the "right" thing to do, especially from people who don't do this themselves; and I'm NOT talking about people who speak their own language with their children but take them to foreign-language classes. That's very interesting too, but it's another thread.

So - who's out there and how are you finding it?

Frannikin - I think that's also the feeling of responsibility the parent has, as the sole source of language, to be ultra-correct.

For related reasons, I try to avoid English loan-words in French when there is a more "French" equivalent - English already has so much the upper hand in my daughter's life that the last thing I want to do is dilute her French with it, otherwise she might think that it's the rule - forget the French word? Use English instead!

Man, that's interesting too.
Often as a truly natural speaker, one has more license to mix and match that someone acquiring it by other more engineered means.

Natural Welsh speakers will happily throw in English words while Welsh adult learners struggle manfully with the correct term.

Remember a Breton friend of mine (with a lisp) really having a good go at gwersyllu (camping) which he was using in first person perfect tense gwersyllais/ It;s a killer.After a bit I couldn't bear it and said 'For God's sake, use campio like most Welsh people. Only a learner would say 'gwersyllu^.'

That's what I do in French! I always use the French-French word...does that make me a total learner still?

And moondog - ouch on gwersyllais! I jut had to have a go despite not speaking any Welsh for 15 years.

Interesting thread.

We are a German/british family living in French-speaking Switzerland.

DH is German and speaks mainly German to the DC (4 and 6 yo)

I am Scottish and, having lived in Germany for 16 years am almost more comfortable speaking German than English, although I do try to speak English sometimes with the DC. The DC switch confidently between the languages and are most fluent in English after a holiday with their grandparents in Scotland. They are now learning French (which DH and I don't speak)

I think that children have an amazing capacity to learn languages and that any combination of languages, native speaker or not, is great fir their development.

My DC have been helped in their English language skills by stories at bedtime in English, sat tv with cbeebies and longer holidays in Scotland. They also now have some English speaking friends in our village.

Man
Do you have any French-speaking friends with young children or is there a playgroup near you? That would help with the learning of contemporary French.

When I'm in France or with French friends I'll happily use the loan words, "juste pour le fun" and because it's more current. But, with my daughter, I want her to make that decision for herself when the time comes.

Also, as I say, I only do it when there IS a normal, commonly used French word - so "je fais des courses", not "le shopping" - but I wouldn't dream of calling football anything other than "le foot".

We do go to a French playgroup on Saturdays but, as the kids are not very verbal (oldest are 3, and semi-strangers to each other) the usefulness of that is more to show daughter that this is a real functional language and not just a silly game plays. And, of course, MY French stays "fresh" from talking to other parents.

But "faire des courses" and "le shopping" are different, no? At least I use them differently amongst friends. The first one is functional stuff like food etc, a weekly shop, and the second is more for fun. I'd often say to friends "tu veux aller faire du shopping demain?" meaning let's go and get some new clothes but "tu veux aller faire des courses demain?" when I need boring things like bread and cheese and don't fancy trekking round Monop on my own!

Well, that's sort of the point, isn't it? "Le shopping" is a loan word to descrbe a particular type of shopping more closely linked with British and American cultures - shopping for fun, especially clothes. You're right, actually - I probably wouldn't use "faire des courses" for this - but I WOULD use "faire des achats", "acheter des vetements", "aller en ville", "faire le tour des grands magasins" ...

Whereas, if I was with French adults, I, like you, would probably just take the easy option and "faire du shopping".

It's obviously contextual, too - me and my 11-month-old daughter don't do a lot of clothes shopping for fun ...

I don't know...you could get her into good habits early! But I see your point about the loan word. There are alternatives even if we don't bother to use them. I guess it's an interesting point about raising a child using a language that isn't the majority language of wherever you live - you do have to really think about how you express things.

MissusLindt

When did you get them started on English then? And how do you and your husband decide when to switch from/into German?

We are a French/English family living in rural England. Dh speaks French to dd, I speak mostly French for everyday things (would you like a biscit? put your socks on); English for more complex concepts (if you get up off the floor we will finish shopping and do something more fun; if I have to drag you we will go straight home and stay there until you are 14). My French is pretty good but I am not a native speaker.

Recently at the swimming pool I got talking to a mum who, on finding that I was English and not French as she had supposed, claimed that I am doing considerable harm to dd's development and that I would be establishing 'disfunctional bilingualism' according to research she had studied.

A bit at that. After all, she had lived in France and thought I was French, so my French is not that bad, and dd seems to be speaking French as expected - words and phrases not sentences but she is only 2.

What do other people think? We wanted her to hear as much French as possible because the outside world is so very English.

Also I am half German and my German mother lives with us. We would love dd to speak German but find it very hard to fit in. Mother speaks English to dd (she has lived here for 50 years!)

Man
There is never a concious decision to speak any given language, just what comes out of our mouths at the time. I tend to swear in English but shout at other drivers in German, much to the amusement of my mother. "Bloody Hell, GEHTS NOCH, DU IDIOT!"

I cannot even tell when I started speaking German to DH, sometime in our second year. When I went to Germany I spoke no German at all and was pretty soon quite fluent.

After a few years I was often taken for a German speaker so my German is as close to a native speaker as I can get.

There are times that I use the wrong word, or the wrong case (I hate Genetiv) and now that my DD is 6yo, she corrects me.

I don't worry too much about them learning the language wrong. They hear so much other German speakers, even here in Switzerland as we have some German speaking friends, and good old KIKA on TV.

We are a bit in the minority though, I know lots of people subscribe to the OPOL theory. We switch happily between languages as we please. It works for us.

I'd be interested to learn about whether it is harmful to the acquisition of a language to speak to your dcs in a language that is not your native tongue. This is particularly if there are not many native speakers or media sources around dcs that can correct any peculiarities or mistakes that the parent makes.

I want my dcs to learn Mandarin but with no more lofty ambitions than to pick it up as a second language, because it is very difficult to pick it up as an adult - writing, lilt. I need to support dd's 2 hours/week classes but find it exhausting to speak to her in Mandarin (as I am only conversant with a limited vocabulary).

On the bright side, whilst I was going through dd's numbers and simple greetings with her, my 2 year old ds, who todate has had zero contact with Mandarin, besides listening to me and dd doing homework in the last term, yesterday started counting to 10 in Mandarin with the correct accent. I was gobsmacked. Children really are sponges!

"I'd be interested to learn about whether it is harmful to the acquisition of a language to speak to your dcs in a language that is not your native tongue. This is particularly if there are not many native speakers or media sources around dcs that can correct any peculiarities or mistakes that the parent makes."

I worry about that, Blueshoes: but

1. I can't imagine a situation with any major language where you would lack at least media sources in this day and age - dvds, books and music from amazon, press on subscription or online, cassettes or CDs of people (friends? family?) sent by post - the real restraints are effort and, to a lesser extent, money, I guess.
2. Because I worry, I am very careful, especially about gender etc. - if I don't know I will check in a dictionary, ideally before use. If not, I check afterwards and then work the "right" term into converstaion asap. 3)When all's said and done, it's a no-lose gamble - if I waited for her to learn it at school she could make the same mistakes and be less fluent and confident to boot.

"Recently at the swimming pool I got talking to a mum who, on finding that I was English and not French as she had supposed, claimed that I am doing considerable harm to dd's development and that I would be establishing 'disfunctional bilingualism' according to research she had studied."

Snake - ALWAYS call these "saloon bar experts" on the research they have studied, because it could well be a conversation in the newsagent's.

It's true that the majority opinion is that One Person One language (OPOL) is the safest and most painless way of achieving bi-lingualism (and would also allow you to fit in the German)but to go form there to saying you are causing harm is a mighty big leap. The fact is that lots of people have followed your approach and that no "harm" whatsoever has come out of it, unless there are other factors involved. I'm no expert either, but I think I'm right on this one.

At the end of the day, some people are just fucking nosey.

We have five languages fluent in the family (I'm bi-lingual in two, two others I understand & read but can't speak correctly yet!!) I'd say speak what you want to your kids and they'll benefit. The school lang will be the one they'll need to be correct in.

man,

I once met an englishman, here in Portugal, who ONLY spoke Portuguese to his children. the kids' ma was Portuguese.

When I asked him why he didn't speak English to them, he told me that his son from his first marriage had had bad learning difficulties and that he thought that the fact that the kid had grown up with two languages in the home had contributed to that.

I thought, and still do, that he was nuts. The son obviously was going to have learning difficulties anyway.

Just making that point to show how people believe what is suggested to them...without really knowing.

If your dd is of average intelligence and development (and as long as you are consistent) she will not suffer.

mumonthenet,hmm...not sure it is quite the same, but well, I am german and dh is english living in the UK.With ES we tried the bi-lingual thing, and, as we lived in Cyprus from when he was about 2-3 1/2years old and went to a cypriot nursery where he was exposed to greek, he was exposed to all those languages.
He did not speak until we went with english only. I had the HV on my back about him not meeting targets and got worried about his communication skills, as he started school aged 4.
He did find it all difficult for many years and has only now properly caught up (he is 12)....
I have no idea if it was all down to language confusion or if he would have found things difficult anyway.
I am a bit sad that my Kids don't really speak any german, especially as I could do with speaking it more. I speak english almost like a native now, but speak german with an english intonation and flow, iykwim....

Saying that, I suppsoe if they do have teh interest to learn another language, they will.
FWIW my english was crap at school, but living here speaking with natives all the time, I have learned it a bit like a native child....I can't translate to save my life...I either speak/think/dream in german or in english...it's like my brain completely seperates the languages.

Anyway, not really relevant to OP, I suppose!

I think giving children the 'gift' of another language is lovely. Even if my gift is a little basic because I am not as conversant as I should be. I am learning at my dd's Mandarin classes through doing homework with her but really just polishing my skills because of my already solid grounding.

I suppose that is it. At the very least, even if our language skills are not perfect, we can give our children a foundation from which they could springboard should they decide to pursue the study/use of that language further.

It works when our children are young and pre-school to allow them to rapidly acquire the skills. But once they start school, there is always the danger that they get swamped by the dominant language or language of instruction and start losing interest in the secondary language.

My friend is French living in UK and has always spoken to her 2 children in French. But now that they have started school in UK, they have began to answer her in English even though she directed the question to them in French.

Fairlady
Both my bilingual children spoke later than their peers, and both were advised to have speech therapy at the age of 4yo.

I did it with DD but did not really see any improvement. Going against my very forthright paediatrician was not easy but I resisted his efforts to send DS to a SALT as well.

DD is now 6yo and pretty fluent in both languages, is now learning French as we live in CH.

DS is 4.6yo and his German has just come on so much in the last few months, even though he is hearing French all day at school. His English is getting better too, although he often uses German word order. "I want that not"

My opinion is that there are children who speak earlier and children who speak later and learning a 2nd or even 3rd language does not affect that.

I read somewhere that over 85% (iirr, correct me if I am wrong) the worlds population is brought up multi-lingual. It is the Western nations, particularly the English speaking nations who find it "abnormal" to teach children several languages.

True, MmeLindt, and I think that, in the last 150 years, even there we've tended to overlook the inconvenient truth that a lot of children in Britain start life "bilingual" in dialect and standard English. Of course, dialect isn't what is was now that we have TV in every home, but still - if a child of 4 freely interchanges "child" and "bairn" I shouldn't think parents worry in the slightest. Everyone knows that, when the time comes, if he or she has the appropriate intelligence and social skills, he or she will separate the two dialects by situation, depending on who the conversation is with and what it's about.

But if a bilingual child at the ripe old age of 2 interchanges "baby" and "bebe" (sorry, can't do accents yet) then call in the speech therapist, he's obviously deeply confused and will never cope with life!

Lindt...I suppose so.
My worries with es were that he had to start school , imo, far to early anyway. I was worried with him not speaking, etc....!
He possibly would have had problems anyway, I will never know that....but dh, uni-lingual, was a "late" developer in that respect and es followed his pattern.

However, my 2 younger children did both learn to speak earlier than es, and don't have any problems at school. Both find reading, etc...easy.....so...that makes me wonder if it was the bi-lingual thing with es, iykwim.

I am, by the way, not critizing anyones choices here....I was just saying that, to us at the time, it felt better and worked better once we given up on bi-linguism...!
I think, had we been living in Germany over the past few years, my Kids would be more likely to be bilingual....because, we could have spoken in english at home, but they would have had plenty of influence of german outside the home....and of course, I probably would be more likely to speak german more...!
Not sure if that makes sense at all.

Oh, and some people have brought up that it would be "un-natural" not to speak in your mother tongue to your children and that you may not be able to express your feelings as well, etc....for me, I don't think that is true at all...but then, I suppose I am more fluent in english now than I am in german

Fairlady
I am the same, it does not feel unnatural to me to speak in German with my DC. I am the opposite of you, now so comfortable in German that I find it hard to speak English.

Sorry to crash your thread with my own question but I am very interested in what you all are saying on this topic and think that you will have some helpful advice for me...
My DP is Spanish and speaks both Spanish and English fluently having been brought up in the UK since the age of 5.
We are expecting our first DC and I am busily learning Spanish so our child can be brought up bilingual...however reading this thread has made me wonder whether it is better for my DP to be the Spanish speaker and for me to stick with English.

My Spanish is certainly not fluent yet and having read various points about not using your mother tongue being counter-intuitive I am now worried that our approach will not work.

Again apologies for the crashing but I am intrigued to know your thoughts?

Alibean
I take it you are living in UK? Then one option that might be a good one for you would be you speak English, DH Spanish and you make your family language Spanish. That way your DC has more exposure to the minority language.

Your child will have enough exposure to English, it is the Spanish that you need to encourage.

This way you improve your Spanish skills, when you feel more confident then you can switch to completely Spanish.

Do you have any friends who speak Spanish fluently?

I think you not being a native is a bit of a red herring.

There is no wrong way of achieving bilingualism as such, but the consensus is that a very effective way is to follow the one person one language (OPOL) route.

As you already have a native Spanish speaker (DH) and a native English speaker (you) you are already perfectly equipped to follow this route. And as you both speak English fluently, it would seem obvious for you to speak English between yourselves.

If it ain't broke, don't mend it, as they say ...

The only thing is that then Spanish will definitely be the minority language (as one language inevitably is) so you will need to make sure it gets supplemented - trips to Spanish speaking countries, TV, DVDs, songs and nursery rhymes, books and stories, playgroups ... It's an effort, but it's very much achievable.