Bilingual family chat thread

[teafortwo]

I come from a very mono-linguistic background. All my family and extended family speak the same language and being able to speak another language was seen as something rather nice but not really necessary for life. A bit grammar "Ooooh aaaarrr - d'jya know 'e gows to Grammar school yeeeaah! 'e even tawks French, my God!" I suppose.

My family are lovely and deep thinking clever people who don't talk like that - but it is just to show you in a sentence what I mean!

So... it is intensely fascinating and a great challenge to find myself bringing up a bilingual daughter.

I am a bit very addicted to reading any articles or books on bilingualism and am keen to know people in real life who are also bringing up bilingual children. Actually most of my friends children speak two languages - Some Moldavian friends of mine gasped at the idea that I only speak English fluently... "Just English? But how do you live?!?" They asked - as if I had announced I never drink water.

I thought - it might be fun to have a kind of Mumsnet bilingual chat thread where we can talk about the day to day highs, the lows, the funny bits and the sad bits of having a bilingual family and swap advice, ideas, theories, reading material (I am after a good summer read) and anything-else it would be useful to pool.

So.... .... what do you think?

Ooooooooops - dd just knocked over her drink i.e like 90% of mn posts I created this while being distracted - the first 'grammar' needs to be ignored for the first paragraph to make any sense -

.... sorry!!!

TFT

Do you mean that your partner is a native of another language or that you and your partner are both native English speakers and you are raising your daughter bilingually with one of you "pretending" (for want of a better word) to be a native of the other language?

I haven't explained that very well, I know - but hopefully you see what I'm getting at.

I am doing the latter (I "pretend" to be French and never address my daughter (17 months) in English). I have started a thread on here about it (non-native bilingualism).

In any case, I recommend the Multilingual Family Newsletter, as much for not feeling alone or weird as anything else - and would love to discuss ideas/experiences/reading with you.

BTW which is the other language and where are you based?

Hi MIFLAW!

I am English and speak to dd in English and my dh is English with English parents but has lived in France all his life so actually his srongest language is French (although English is the language closest to his heart )!

Our triangle is

*me and dh speak English

*me and dd speak English

*dd and dh speak both never Franglaise but the language they speak in is fluid depending on where they are and who they are with (I know - this is seen as very bad by theoriests - but seems to be working for them)

We live in Paris so all speak (me with big L plates on) French outside the home unless we are meeting English Mother-tongue friends when of course we switch to English.

I am impressed by your determinaion to speak French wih your dd it must take real guts and determination. Do you have lots of support from your relatives and friends?

We communicate in this way out of necessity and make a fuss of it and try to get it as right as we can because we realise it is so good for dd.

How are you finding it all?

Here is some more information MIFLAW...

DD spent her whole first year with me talking to her in English in Paris. Once a week we went to a baby playtime in French which was very good for both of us.

When dd was one she started spending an afternoon a week with a French family as I wanted her to 'feel' French when she was still a baby. She was soothed when she tripped, sung to while falling asleep and offered food in French when she was hungry. Since she was two, two afternoons a week she has attended a little French nursery. Which has developed her French even further. She is still more fluid in English but her French is quickly catching up!

In France children start school at three. This September she will be starting a bilingual school in which she will be taught everything on he French curriculum but also have lessons in English treating it as her Mother-tongue rather than a foreign language. When she is older she will also learn humanity subjects in English.

I wish she were also learning art and sport using English too though. As I feel if she is expressing visually and moving while speaking in her Mother-tongue it will benefit her more than doing this in French a language she will have pleny of experience of expressing herself in and using to organise movement simply through playing with French children.... anyway...

Before school I was worried about pushing French because her whole world was with me and therefore English was srongest. Now I am gearing myself up to push and push and push with English!

This thread feels like a monologue so far.... ....

Support from relatives - ha!

That's a bit unfair, actually - my mother, i think, thinks that I am slightly mad but sees it as harmless and is, I think, impressed with the early results - maybe a bit like your parents?

No one else in my family gives a toss - we're not close ...

My partner is happy with the arrangement though she found it odd at first - and I think she would have been a good deal less happy if she had ever felt excluded (she doesn't speak a lot of French but she understands loads) or if our daughter's English had ever seemed jeopardised.

Most of our friends seem to find it a harmless eccentricity but I am sometimes bashful about revealing the situation for the first time. In large part, I am especially worried that people will think I have her enrolled in French classes, ie teaching her French as a foreign language (which I would see as hothousing) rather than attempting to raise her bilingually.

I have also made sure of support from French friends; I work hard at giving her exposure to "real French" (all the books we read together are in French, I get her French DVDs, we attend French-language playgroup on Saturday mornings, her lullabies and bedtime songs are in French, etc ...) And the plan (though this is still only the second year) is that I will get her to a French-speaking country for at least a week at least once a year.

I find it hard sometimes - I have to make a real effort to keep my own French alive (daily reading as a minimum) or else I get very stale; I get paranoid about making mistakes of gender or preposition, precisely because this is such an effective way of learning; I do a lot of checking in dictionaries in areas (like, of course, childhood) where I've never previously needed the vocab; and, because she's only just starting to speak proper words, I have spent a lot of time getting zero feedback and essentially speaking to myself. It's deifinitely not for everyone!

I'm hoping it will get easier - in terms of momentum, at least - as she speaks more and also if we have another baby so that we will be three Francophones in the house instead of two (though I currently speak to the cats in French so she hears me speaking to others!)

My children are bilingual but myself and my husband are not.

We opted (when we lived in a Gaelic speaking area of Scotland) for Gaelic -medium nursery and then school. Although we now live in Glasgow there is fabulous Gaelic-medium education available here and all 3 kids attend Sgoil Ghaidhlig Ghlaschu and are doing brilliantly.

Dd1 (in Primary 4 - age 9) is totally fluent, native speaker standard. Ds (in primary 2 - age 7) is pretty close to being fluent. Dd2 (in primary 1, age 5) is doing really well.

I have picked up quite a lot of it, and can read fluently even though I can't speak it (or often understand what I am reading!!)

We are delighted we have gone for bilingualism - the kids are thriving on it and while Gaelic is hardly a very useful language, the benefits of any form of bilingualism are so big to kids that we don't really mind what the language is.

They have also figured out now that it is a "secret" language they share, and they use it beween themselves at home!

Because of this- the Ghaidhlig education - they are a little behind peers of a similar intelligence when it comes to reading in English. They had 2.5 years of total immersion before English was introduced.

But dd1 is reading the 3rd Harry Potter and ds has read every "Beast Quest" every written as well as Horrid Henry etc ...

They are also very good at Maths and Music - apparantly this goes with Bilingualism.

Hello,

I am French married to an Irish man and after 10 years in London we moved back to France. We're bringing DD 2.5 and DS 11 month bilingual. We speak English at home, DH speaks exclusively in English with the kids and I alternate.
I have read quite a bit on the subject and I know it's not ideal, but I spoke with friends who grew up bilingual and whose parents switched between languages and it never did them any harm.

DD was an early talker and she is quite advanced but she does mix both languages.

LOL at speaking to the cats in French.

I am really in ore of your determinaion. What made you decide to do this? Is it your own love of languages, a particular love of French or because you are in the know about how great being bilingual is???

Hello Breizhete and weegie - we are just off to feed the ducks - I will be back later to ask you some questions... (friendly ones I promise!!!)

So glad I alighted on this thread .

My situation is as follows: I am originally from the UK but have lived in Russia for the past 15 years and am married to a Ukrainian (from the Russian-speaking part of Ukraine, hence his native language is Russian). We have one DS, 1.10.

DH and I speak Russian to one another. I speak English to DS, DH speaks mainly Russian to him. (When we are out and about, DH will insist on speaking to DS in his heavily-accented, grammatically incorrect English which drives me absolutely round the bend, but that is a matter for another thread!) I work part-time so we also have a Russian nanny who speaks only Russian to DS.

DS appears to understand most of the things said to him in both languages, but (with the exception of "bye") he hasn't uttered a single word in either language yet. I know all children develop at their own pace, and bilingual children start speaking later than those raised in a monolingual environment, but I am curious to know when your children first started speaking. We met up with friends this w/e with a little boy just a month older than DS who was already speaking very fluently and even declining his verbs in Russian . Made me feel a bit .

TFT - you say you're addicted to reading articles/books on bilingualism. Is there any particular book that you would really recommend? I'd really like to read more around the subject but don't know where to start.

I don't know a lot about family bilingualism but loads about education ......

A bit of all three ...

Although not quite in your husband's league I'd spent a lot of time in France, worked there for a couple of years, used to teach university French, and did statrt to feel, if not French myself, that i belonged over there and that they were better at some aspects of life than we are (notably compulsory education).

I was also aware of how much work I'd put in over the years to get to my high standard of French. Wouldn't it be great, I thought, if my child could have this for free, without ever really noticing she'd learnt it.

Then I read up a bit on the question and found out about all the benefits of bilingualism to general intelligence and development.

I also started to think about whether one day we might be able to move to France and get her into their wonderful, secular school system; or, if we stayed in Britain, she'd have the chance to learn a different language at school.

And, of course, I eventually cottoned on that it would be good for my own French.

I lost my nerve when she was born and spoke English to her for the first week of her life, then realised I didn't give a toss what other people thought and reverted to plan A.

weegiemum - which language did your children learn to read in first... why and do you think it was the best choice?

And... Breiz -

Do you have rules for when you and your children speak English and French? If yes - Are they explicitly or implicitly learnt?

kapusta - I will gather some links for you - I am at the start of my addiction .... so I haven't got lots and lots of titles but I do have a few yummy ones!

MIFLAW - It sounds like you are making a great job of bringing up a bilingual child. Congratulations! A friend of mine is in a similar situation to you. She is bringing up her son to speak English, Arabic and French. She speaks English well because her Nigerian Granny would speak to her in English when she was a little girl but it isn't her first language. Her husband speaks to her son in Arabic and French and speaks very little English while she speaks little Arabic I often wonder how much English he is learning and how much Arabic she is learning too....

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I just wanted to say hi although I don't belong on this thread. I just wanted to say that my sisters and I were brought up bilingually and we used to mix our languages all the time. We still do when we talk to each other but we all managed good Bac results in France and got degrees from good British universities.

My dear sister is bringing up her DD bilingually in Paris but I am too lazy to do it for my DCs.

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Pitchounette - I would push to keep up the French as much as possible. I find I am learning so much French through listening to DD and DH talk - surely this is a good opportunity for your dh to learn French too?

Do your children have a reason other than you want them to speak French and it is good for them to speak it?

Do they have good friends, cousins, Aunts, Uncles and/or Grandparents who only speak French to chat with on the phone?

Do you bring them over to France lots or make sure holidays are in French speaking countries? I feel this could make a big difference.

Do you read to them in French at night?

I am thinking of getting my dd sorted with an English pen-pal as soon as she starts to do something close to writing too... do your children write to friends in French (with your help)?

Do they watch French dvds? When dd starts school I am seriously considering a subtly and kindly imposed ban on any French TV for her.

Do they go to any French speaking club?

I think it is a matter of us having to keep the language not being lived in as 'alive' and 'meaningful' beyond ourselves as possible!

Sympathies re your dh. I have another friend who is English and living in France. Her children speak English as a foreign language because her dh didn't want them to speak English at home! I was like this when I first discovered this !

Our sentences are completely mixed up! our main language as sisters is French; we speak English with our parents.

When discussing children I will use more English expressions, eg "weaning" because I don't know the French equivalent. My sister does the same in french.

So I will say to her "J'ai wean mon fils avec du butternut squah" because my child related vocab is all English whilst dear sis would not be able to translate her "reeducation du perinee"!

Sorry, will exit the thread. I am ashamed that I do not speak to my children in French.

Pitchounette - I have the same "arrangement" as you except I speak Mandarin to the children. DH understands (mostly, I think) what we say - he did night classes for quite a few years, but I repeat myself in English to him. I still speak Mandarin to the kids when there are other English speakers around, but I translate. Conversations just seem to take twice as long ... but I'm so used to speaking to the kids in Mandarin now. And it's fantastic having a "secret" language....

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Malfoy - please stay around! I am sure you have lots to add and say.

Pitchounette - Sorry to have asked so many questions. It sounds to me like your desire for your children to speak French is very strong and I feel this is the most important thing...

For me the not understanding is the other way round. I tend to 'get' most of what is being said between dd and dh and generally, now, don't mind if I don't - it is part of my learning curve! I used to bug dh to translate for me but he finds it a drag and so unless very necessary I listen hard and squint to try and hope to find some meaning!!! I feel it is harder for the person who understands both languages fluently.