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?

Hi everybody.

I'm Swedish and my dh is English. We live in the UK and the dcs attend the local school, no Swedish speakers around, but we're lucky enough to be able to spend the summer and Xmas holidays in Sweden, where they have lots of cousins.

I speak English to a nearly native standard- I teach at the local university and have even worked as a proof reader; dh's Swedish is erratic, but he understands it well and can usually express more or less what he wants.

Have to admit we do mix and match- me in particular. Being the person who really knows things like nursery rhymes and children's literature in both languages, I felt it was my responsibility. Dh tends to stick to English when we are alone as a family, but sometimes gets carried away when the children speak to him in Swedish. We have no rules and have never felt the need of them.

Dd (12) reads a lot in both languages and spends a lot of time on a Swedish chat forum and keeps in touch with friends she has made on holiday.

Ds (9) is a little behind in reading in both languages, but I don't think that's anything to do with being bilingual; that's just him. I have noticed that he wants me to walk him to school so we can have a chat in the mornings- and he almost always initiates that in Swedish.

I read aloud to them in both languages, but mainly in Swedish. Have found books a great help in expanding vocabulary.

But like slng am a bit dubious about books on bilingualism. They tend to be either very anecdotal (I used this method and it worked, so you have to use this method) or linguistic research which can be interesting but is not usually very helpful for everyday life.

malfoy - when I was growing up we mix at least 5 or 6 languages and dialects. Even now when I have the opportunity to meet someone with the same background we lose no chance of doing it again! What a joy it was and still is.

pillowcase - my eldest started secondary school last year in a bilingual section, and it was amazing to see the difference in her language use when being bilingual suddenly became normal - she had been a bit reluctant to speak English previously and now speaks it far more.

• pillowcase I am really glad that your dd has found someone like her!

My dd is currently in the apartment downstairs watching a sort of Tom and Jerry style TV show in Russian with her little Moldavian friend!

I think she's just showing off now....

cory - There is not a huge amount of research in bilingualism compared to other areas of social, educational or linguistic areas of study - but I do find it interesting. I think because I am not bilingual myself reading gives me some sort of insight into how my dh, dd and my students (most are bilingual or striving to be so) use and perceive language.

Each bilingual person uses their languages differently and are exposed to languages differently too. So working out methods and set ideas that are good for every bilingual child is not something I search for - but I do find that the more I read the more I can see some patterns and the more I find myself making learned and confident decisions in my private and professional life...

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Pitchounette - my DD2 is a bit of a perfectionist, doesn't like getting things wrong, and so refused to speak any French at school when we first moved back (she was 5) until she had sorted it all out in her mind. After six months of silence she suddenly came out with full sentences overnight! Now she speaks French more readily than English and I have to remind her daily to speak to me in English.

As for the social aspect - my DDs are old enough to know the social differences between the UK and France now so aren't bothered either way, but there used to be awkward kiss-or-not-to-kiss moments.

Funny about you not hearing your DC's English accent. I didn't realise DD1 spoke English with a French accent (before we lived in the UK) until I watched some video we'd taken of her when she was 2 several years later. It was comically French

The accent thing is interesting.

My accent is Irish.
They kids have mostly my accent with a bit of a French twinge sometimes and sometimes a little English accent depending on who they've been playing with (and of course American twinge from watching too much HSM!)

DH has a French Parisian accent.
We live in the SW so the kids have the local dialect.

On top of that my 2 youngest are in a bilingual school French/Occitan so they now speak occitan/Gascon and sound like the old men in the bar!!!

How interesting Pillowcase. DD is in a breton school. The teachers only speak breton. I sometimes worry that she won't be exposed to a lot of French as we speak english at home.

dd has a stronger Gothenburg accent than I do, presumably acquired on holiday

she is very confident speaking Swedish but will only write it to her own friends, not to her grandparents for fear of making mistakes

ds has a good accent but makes grammatical mistakes in his spoken Swedish

My dd speaks French with an English accent and English with a slight East Anglian accent, like me, at the moment (I think - but everyone at 'home' thinks she has a French 'twang'), however, she does occasionally say a word that sounds a bit 'clunky'. She called her cardigan her 'sweet-ar' today when I was explaining that it is too hot to wear it. She also sometimes says 's' instead of 'th'. I think substituting 'th' is common for all three year olds speaking English but the French she hears encourages her to say 's' and not substitute with 'f' or 'd' like just English speaking children tend to do often unnoticed.

Cory - I find it interesting that your ds makes grammatical mistakes in Swedish. I have noticed in my teaching that children who learn English in France do tend to need more explicit grammar teaching than children growing up in the UK. The gut feeling that a sentence is right that purely English speakers have seems to be more reliable than the gut reaction of a child with more languages at his or her finger tips.

I have also noticed, with children I know who are learning English in France; that there is generally a noticeable difference between children who read in English for pleasure and those who do not. Their grammar and spelling are not effected but readers appear to have more flexibility with vocabulary. The readers seem to, perhaps unsurprisingly, have a considerably wider vocabulary. Also they seem to be less likely to stumble if an unknown word comes up in spoken English. I am guessing that the skills they have honed for attacking unknown vocabulary in texts are easily transferred to listening and speaking skills too. I am basing this on light observations of a few children and teenagers I know but it is a pattern I have felt quite strongly amongst these few children. Has anyone-else noticed the influence of reading for pleasure on vocabulary?

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teafortwo - yes, I definitely see the benefits of reading. DD2 is an avid reader in English, and although she was only 5 when we came back to France and now speaks French more readily than English, her vocab in English is really good. She writes a lot too, nearly always in English, and her spelling is pretty accurate too.

In fact it's odd, although my DDs speak to each other mostly in French, the little notes they often write to each other are nearly always in English.

teafortwo, I think definite connection between reading for pleasure and vocabulary

I think it cuts both ways: dd has a great talent for language, so has always picked up vocabulary really easily; this makes it easier for her to read, so she reads more, so gets a better vocabulary- it's a circle

as for ds, he does find learning much harder; not just a bilingual thing; it's the same in all school subjects

also, his Swedish hasn't been improved by the fact that both of the two little boys he plays with in the summer are a) late speakers b) much younger than him; dd otoh has had the advantage of a highly verbal and well educated cousin her own age

his main two mistakes are word order (forgetting to reverse the subject-verb order in a sentence that starts with a word other than the subject, which you have to do in Swedish) and gender (learning new words and not knowing the gender).

but he is getting better

one thing I have learnt is not to give up and assume a situation is written in stone- ds's Swedish has improved a lot this last year (as has his school work); also listening more carefully to small Swedish children has made me aware that some of the things I thought were "wrong" in my dcs speech are actually normal developmental stages; because there are no other Swedish children around on a day to day basis, I tend to measure dd and ds against an adult standard, which of course is not very relevant

I am the only Swede I hear on a day to day basis- so I was getting my knickers in a twist because a little boy was not speaking like a middle-aged academic

Breizhette,
I'm sure you won't have to worry about her picking up French, it'll be all around her/on the TV etc. Is the area you're in totally Breton-speaking? Do they frown on French a bit, or is it an easy-going mix of languages? Do you know any other kids there in the same situation (English at home, Breton at school)?

cory,
I agree about measuring their development against an adult. Sometimes I feel guilty about how little reading I do with the kids, they read well but are not big readers. But then I try to remember how much they are doing dealing with 2 (or 3) languages, school work, sports, music etc. They're bloody fantastic really!!

pitchounette,
I suppose picking up the correct structures comes with mixing with other kids/people. I think mine correct themselves very quickly when they hear another kid say it properly. At the moment I'm tormented with their use of reflexive verbs, or the mixing of 'ourselves' and 'each other'. But I know my correcting them won't improve it, but a quick correction from their cousin will.

castille,
funny about the little notes.

Mine play together in English mostly, but when they're playing a specific game it might be in French, but the instructions are still always in English. e.g. "je vais à la cantine, tu veux manger..... NO, Let's pretend we're already at the canteen, OK?......Bon, tu veux des tomates?"

teafortwo,
totally agree on the reading and the vocab. I know an Eng family here where both parents are Eng and they're all well-read etc. The vocab the son uses is amazing and he's only a year older than my DD.

slng,
I would have loved to have grown up with several languages like you. Hope all our kids enjoy their langs as you seem to.

Hi Ladies !! Hope you dont mind if I join !! I'm French and dh is english..I speak to dd in french (she is 2.2 years old)..she understand all I'm saying but doesn't speak..says mamam, tries to say Bateau as in the song Bateau sur l'eau but says BAPO..is it normal or should I be worried ?xx

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Had to respond to that, summerfruit - "bateau is one of daughter's (17mo) only wrods in French and she only knows it in connection with that song - don't think she actually knows what a "bateau" is! V cute.

She pronounces that v clearly but she calls Trotro (as in l'ane Trotro, trop, trop rigolo!) as "Go go!" Don't think it really matters at the moment as long as I know what she means ....

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My LOs speak Mandarin with a definite accent, but don't know what that is ... though occasionally they'd come up with a perfect sentence perfectly pronounced, usually some indignant protest. That brings tears to my eyes.. Is that normal? Someone once pointed out that DC's Chinese has an English accent, but stopped harping on about it when I pointed out to her that her and her LOs' English has a Chinese accent. (Claws out when necessary .)

pillowcase
No, we're not in a Breton-speaking area. DD speaks in French with her French granny (once a month) and I think children speaks in French between themselves at school.
DD (2.5) has a good vocabulary in both languages and makes 4/5 words sentences but she does mix both languages consistently.

Cory -

I think the average English speaking child when speaking just English does not pronounce all sounds correcly until they are aged five or six but use ommision or substitutes e.g lots of blends (st, pl, dr, str,tr,fl, fr... etc)and a few initial phoneme sounds like r come later and cerain blends come surprisingly late. Many very high ability five year olds say peas for please, fawor for flower, dwink for drink and stwarbewies for strawberries. I am sure it is the same in all languages.

I think one of the traits of bilingual children's parents is we over correct (I know I do) because we have such a mission for them to have good .............. (fill in your language that isn't spoken in he wider community) skills.

I made a very silly mistake with over correcting this week...

There were two mice on the TV. "Look Mummy mouses" dd screamed which is completely normal for her age. "Oh yes but they are not mouses though they are MICE." I hissed. (the shame)

Fast forward three or four days and dd and I are book shopping. She picks up a Maisy Mouse book. "Look Mummy it is Maisy. Maisy is a good little MICE!" Dd proudly announces then coninues "... "not mouse mice, ok?"

I was mortified - if I had left her to it she would have probably worked out the rule when she was ready and now I am afraid she will say 'mice' instead of 'mouse'for ages, like my friend whose son said "thingers" (because she told him off for saying fum for thumb) until he was really very grown up.

like my friend whose son said "thingers" (because she told him off for saying fum for thumb) until he was really very grown up

excellent!

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