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?

Glad I found this thread!

DH and I were brought up bilingual french and arabic. Also learned english at an early age and settled in London where DS was born.
We spoke french and arabic at home and with friends but as soon as he started nursery he switched to english to belong.
We just carried on with a strange mix of the 3 languages according to the situation.
The focus is now on English (Year1 - British school overseas) as he is learning to read and write and it has been very difficult getting him to communicate in french and arabic.
Am really happy to say that now that he is a quasi fluent reader, his mind seems less absorbed with consolidating his english and he is happy to communicate in french again.
He understands basic conversational arabic but hardly ever utters a word except when on holiday with grand parents.

So basically, I second the fact that creating opportunities and relationships that will allow your child to speak the weak language is very important.
They need to identify to the person they speak to and be in an environment that naturally calls for it.
We do holidays in France and mix with french friends.

DD was born here in Asia and at 20 months speaks exclusively english. She is so capable and making very good little sentences, so we decided to stick to english so as not to stop her on her tracks.
She now playfully tries a few words in french and is just so eager to be centrestage that she will no doubt pick it up slowly so as not to miss any of the action!
Had she not been this extrovert, not sure how I would have approached it tbh!

It is not easy. Had almost given up until quite recently. But consistency is key. The seeds you sow WILL grow with a bit of help.

Waves to CV**

Glad you found us!

And hello slim - we seem to be bumping into each other a lot!

Am kind of stalking you
Got this link from other thread!

• Hello slim22 and CV!

Hello!!

I have just read the last page and decided the language of mothers is still a completely new language to me let alone French!! Especially when referring to TV programmes! I still live in the land of The Wire, Glee and Hustle.
The joys of a bilingual pregnancy is that I still have at least 3 months left of music and speaking to the pot belly - normally comments on how the other half is wrong about something.. we are quite a competitive couple! Oh no does that make me a bad mom before I have even started?

DH has started singing to the bump and picking out specific French songs. Any suggestions for a nice French lullaby album? I know DH would love it as a present.

There's one by Sylvie Vartan which has nice moments and the famous (and quite dear) album of children's songs is by Henri Des but (because it's dear) we haven't got that one so I can't tell you what it's like.

If you are in London or Edinburgh, an alternative gift (to husband or child) would be library membership at L'Institut Francais. London, I know, has a great children's section.

I need to buy myself a cd of nursery rhymes in English because I find that I half remember them so end up humming the rest.

Any suggestions?

I'm taking ds (2.5mo)back to UK on my own in a couple of weeks time so will be scouring book shops and charity shops for any children's stuff.

Cies -

LOL - I have the same problem!!!

On-top of that DD moaned at me for knowing the words of a French song "No Mummy it is in French so you really mustn't know about it - just go laaarrr laaarrr laaarrr!"

We love this:

www.amazon.co.uk/Playtime-Rhymes-All-Favourite-Book/dp/0752860887/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=126 4790469&sr=8-1

• it is simple and lovely!

Have the opposite problem. DD KNOWS I speak French so comes home from school with half remembered songs and expects me to sing along / teach her the words. Unfortunately my repertoire of French nursery rhymes is not that great!!

Hello all.

It appears the closer my due date becomes the more "in touch" with his "French roots" Franck gets!

In the last week he has downloaded an app onto my (new) iphone - French 24/7 - so I can start learning, introduced me to my first raclette grille with his French and Spanish friends. Wow it is fantastically nice cheese! They have bought us French bath baby books and he has started singing constantly in French!!

It really is sweet albeit on occasions rather confusing.. So many languages + baby brain = ga ga ga.

I am so aware, as I listen to a Spanish vet who has recently relocated to Sweden after 8 years in the UK talking in French about how he is learning Swedish, just how poor my language skills really are!

So it looks like my French app and me are going to have to get close up and personal!

Good news is I scored 84% on recognizing family/household words! So at least that is a start.

Hope you are all well and happy.
XXCV

Hi all... I speak my mother tongue (swedish) to DD 21 (mths) all the time and now it feels very weird talking in english to her, I never do except maybe things like "tell daddy let's go!". But in the beginning it felt strange talking to her in swedish because I'm so used to talking english all the time. We watched some old videos from when she was a baby and I was horrified at hearing myself talking in english to her, it sounded so wrong. I'm due another baby girl in March and I hope this time I will find it easy to talk swedish to her straight away. Anyone else had the same type of issues?

Just wanted to get this thread going again.

We are French/English living in most rural England where strangers stop in the street in shock at hearing dd speak a foreign language. Have just made contact with a similar family and she has been playing in French with another 3-year old who she is convinced must be her cousin. After all, she is French.

Am really hoping this will help keep French going.

I need help!

DH is French, I am English. We live in a French DOM and know another British/French couple. Mother speaks English to child, I speak English, Father speaks French, DH speaks.....English.

We were sitting around and talking about OPOL and how it was working to them and DH turns to me with a panicked look on his face and goes "I can't speak French to children!". It's true actually, I've seen him try - he's fine in English but our French neighbours have children and he's so awkward with them. He bloody well better be able to speak French to ours...what can I do before it's too late and he has it in his head that all children speak Enlgish?!

Quick post. At work.

The only thing to do is to just do it. It will be awkward to start with, but it will get better, and one day you won't remember the days when you spoke a different language to them. I felt really strange talking to DS1 when he was born in a language I didn't use everyday. Now I can't imagine talking to him in any other language. If you want certain results you've got to work for it!

If you read a lot with your children you soon "acquire" the vocab and structures for speaking to children. Magazines like Popi and DVDs also very useful in this respect.

Problem is that the children in question aren't ours. We don't have any yet and he's always spoken to my charges in English (that being the minority language where we were), he speaks to English speaking children in English and panics when confronted with a French speaking one. I just have no idea how to un-brainwash him from automatically speaking English to children!

I think it is true that one very quickly establishes a "language of preference" with any given individual and it's hard to change that. However, in this case it is probably not too late as the children are still not fully formed linguistic beings.

Might it help, at least initially, to do sometihng obviously "French" with these children? Reading a French book, for example - but also watching French football on TV, playing traditional French children's games, singing French songs (don't know the age of kids so guessing a bit here) ... In other words, if the activity's "in French", it might kickstart a conversation in French IYSWIM?

Hi Frakkin how's Island life going??? I think Paris is missing you are you missing Paris?!!?

Language is so so odd, hey???

My dh's Mother tongue is English and school tongue (for want of a better word) French. He excusively spoke with dd in English until she started school and without thinking in her first week or so he, seriously, 'just like that' switched to talking with her virtually exclusively in French. It was like someone had pressed a button. She converses with him in French quite naturally and all seems well... although I panic that now is the time we need to up English and it would be better if he spoke to her in English as she is living in France!

Heeey hoo...

My dh, interestingly, also cannot speak to dogs in French only English and after a few drinks ALWAYS starts speaking to our Russian neighbours in German which baffles us all.

!!!

Hello! Welsh first language here, English being picked up too.

Rhywun arall yn magu plant dwyieithog yma?

Tea I have a Paris shaped hole inside. The beach isn't valid compensation!!!

Update on the DH situation - he can sort of talk to the neighbours children now in a 'talking to children' way but no progress with the one who has an anglophone parent yet. I'm starting to think he equates Frencb with work (and his family) and English with socialising as we rarely seem to speak French at home.

Helo a croeso, bessie! Nid fy Cymraeg yn da iawn (I think...).

I don't know if we have other Welsh speakers here but everyone except me seems to be raising multilingual munchkins. You'll fit right in

yn codi llaw ar Bessie Boots

We also speak both Welsh and English. DH is first language Welsh, I am a bit of both (dad spoke Welsh but mam doesn't). We speak Welsh to our children (who are 4, 5 and 7), and they attend a Welsh medium primary school so are educated entirely through Welsh.

Hello - croeso

Just thought I'd stop by to say that we speak English and DS is learning Welsh at school. I am so amazed he knows lots of phrases already and can count to 10 in welsh and I didn't teach him! I am learning through him. He is 3.5. I am so chuffed that he will be bilingual.

Oooooh there's loads of Taffs here!
All happens quite naturally here- I was brought up in a Welsh-speaking household, DH has learned Welsh, and we speak Welsh exclusively at home. Welsh medium school, but that's where my kids pick up English ( that and cbeebies ) DS1 is four now and he's pretty much fluent in both (though obviously better with Cymraeg).

We have French family too, and I'm impressed at how DS1 can grab the concept of language. For example, if he asks what something is in French, I will say "Pommes de terre ydi tatws, neu potatos yn Saesneg".

We should totally start a Welsh thread here.