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?

"effective bilingual family" - sorry I was distracted!

I like how easy and naural Charles Timoney makes it sound.... what do you think of the article?

I read the article too. It was quite interesting. But I'd like to know just how bilingual the children are. I wonder if they read English as well as French novels, watch English as well as French films, and can eavesdrop as effectively on English and French conversations ... (That's my criterion for how good your command of a language is - if you could eavesdrop on and understand people sitting behind you then you are pretty good, since you would probably not have much context and clues like facial expression and gestures.)

"... while they speak English perfectly fluently, their accent is a bit characterless and neutral"

Neutral is fine. Characterless!? What does that mean? I do keep wondering what sort of accent my children has and will have. I sometimes wonder what accent I have ... I have been mistaken as all kinds nationalities myself ... But I really don't see that as a disadvantage.

"...never really had the chance to master the use of day-to-day swearwords or even the really good insults ? words that you need to "feel" in order to use properly."

Hmmm. I only started swearing in English late in my twenties, but I'm sure I do quite a good line in swearing and polite insults these days. All you need is watch a few films, read a few choice novels ... You can learn these things quicker than you can unlearn them ...

"none of their friends had apparently made much reference to it."

So far that is my experience too. What is also interesting is what my children make of other children speaking a different language to their parents. They notice it but don't seem to be bothered by it. DS2 notes that his French-English friend's mother is called "maman"...

That was a bit long ...

Hello all

So glad I happened upon this here! I am an English-speaking South African, married to a Spaniard living in Mallorca!
Just to complicate matters, they speak Catalan AND Spanish here and are completely over-the-top protective of the Catalan so ONLY speak it in schools, etc. Hubby only speaks Castilian Spanish, so it´s fun at times when we get school circulars brought home...ahem.
From word go I have been adamant that my littlies (3 and 1) must have perfect English and have been very strict, speaking only English when I address them and hubby only Spanish. It´s worked so well and at 2 years old my lil´boy could already translate....ie "Mummy says CAR and Papa says COCHE"
Mallorca is a melting pot of many cultures and there are heaps of "mixed" families. One thing I´ve noticed -and this is my working theory (!)- is that if parents mix up their languages and don´t stick strictly to one, the kids CHOOSE a language and refuse to speak the other(s). They understand all but respond in chosen one. My advice to anyone starting out is to be a bit pigheaded and even if they speak to you in the other language, always respond in your chosen one...don´t mix!
3 year old addresses dad in Spanish, schoolmates in Catalan and me in English...so easy for him!
Am really enjoying reading everone´s experiences, keep going!

Welcome aboard!

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Hello all,
How have I only just discovered this thread?? (disclaimer: haven't read it all yet, but will plough through gradually.)

We are a bilingual family: I am British but live in Poland with Polish DH and 2 DDs (4 and 5.5).
DH and I communicate in Polish because my Polish is fluent whereas English doesn't come naturally to him at all. I try to speak only English to the girls, though I am finding that as they get older and more involved with friends, preschool, etc., there are increasingly situations where I have to speak Polish (e.g. when we have their friends round), and so to my horror I occasionally find myself throwing in sentences in Polish when there is no need.
The girls are far more fluent in (and prefer) Polish but have no real problems in English, and as yet rarely refuse to say things in English (if they address me in Polish I suddenly come over all hard of hearing and that works wonders ). We have loads of books in English, some DVDs and CDs, but they find English on films (e.g. Shrek or other feature films) hard to understand.
They began to talk relatively early for bilingual kids - both had a few words at 10 mths, DD1 in simple sentences (though complete mishmash Polglish!!) at 18 mths.
I am very interested in people's experiences teaching kids to read. As yet DD1 can't read in either language. She starts formally learning the letters in Polish in preschool this year, though she knows about half already I would say. She loves being read to but protests at attempts to teach the letters in either language so am going easy on this, but I wondered if anyone has experience of teaching the letters concurrently (preschool in Polish, me in English). The prevailing opinion seems to be that there should be at least a year in between starting one and starting the other, but can it work concurrently?
Sorry for such a long post...

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Pitch,

I am at the other end - Wieliczka near Krakow, in the south.
You reassure me: I was thinking that perhaps if I try to go it alongside preschool I will do her irreparable damage and she will never learn to read in English!! She is a bit of a perfectionist so if she can't read something first time then the book gets flung on the floor and is "stupid"...

jessia,
I taught my dds to read when they were 4.5 and still had one year to do in maternelle in France, before starting to read in French at 6. It was very successful I think. (I'm currently doing same with my DS who's nearly 5).

We used the 100 easy lessons book mentioned here already. It sounds like a pushy-parent book, and looks like one, but I found it perfect. We started in July after a few days holidays and will stop when he goes back to school next week. He'll have completed about 75 lessons by then.

It really doesn't confuse them.

Just found the time to read that Guardian article too. Good to hear from somebody who´s been there and done it all to know how they might turn out!
I really like the idea that my kids (hopefully) won´t know how to insult me badly in English....it really doesn´t hurt so much if they shout at me in Spanish! (Just have to remember to watch my own use of naughty words when under duress!)

Love that my DS speaks English to me while living in France, especially when he shouts out loud 'look Mammy, that lady's going to have a baby' while pointing to a very overweight 80ish year old!

Ah, children and their international charm ...

Try these (thankfully in English): "Mummy, why is that lady OLD?" (pointing to an old Mallorcan crone of about 90 in the shade!) and in the supermarket, a tall man of West African heritage and VERY dark skin walks past and he shouts and points, "BLACK, Mummy!" (Eek, this is when you run down the tinned tuna aisle, dragging toddler and hoping that nobody English-speaking picks up on the fading South African accent!)

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Oh Pichounette I know exactly what you mean!

I was once in a restaurant with my bilingual dd, DH and SIL because of me being there with only L plate French we mainly spoke in English.

A group of women behind us started speaking still in French but with really strong silly English accents and basically really taking the mic out of our Englishness...ha ha ha so DH and SIL switched to their strongest language - French and spoke very loudly indeed just long enough to create a stunned silence behind us!!! [bite lip and snigger slightly emotion]

Funnily enough with a severely language impaired child, I find it much easier to be in France than in England. Over here people just hear DD speak English with the odd French word and assume she doesn't speak much French. It's among English speakers that her inability to communicate correctly really stands out. Here, we just appear "foreign". In England, we get odd looks because people notice straight away that DD is "different" (you know, she's a 5-year-old that speaks like a 2-year-old) but then they can't work out how on earth this "odd" child speaks this weird baby mix of English and French. Over here they all accept her because they know she's not French.
OTOH, so much easier with DS, who already switches quite happily and he's only just two! (Nice to see how this bilingual thing is SUPPOSED to work )

Hi, I've just happened upon this thread and wondered if I could join you all.
Our family's background: I am bilingual FR/EN and DH is English. We live in the UK (although I'm currently posting from France ) DD is 10 months old and I speak exclusively French to her and DH English. My French-speaking mum and sister live near to us in the UK so there are other French speakers around DD but we also do a lot of activities where English is the only language spoken. At the moment I think French is dominant for her as she hears me speaking it to her all day long but I know from my own situation that this will balance out in time. And hopefully she'll quickly realise as I did that not all women speak French and men English
It's great to have a thread to share our common experiences and it's interesting to read of issues which will crop up in the future for my DD. My main concern at the moment is to find other French-speaking children for her to mix with but there don't seem to be that many where we live (Essex). We come to France twice a year and have friends here but I'd also like her to meet other French speakers in the UK. Fortunately we know several other bilingual families so she'll realise that her situation is not unusual, which was not the case for me when I was little as I was considered something of a freak at school!
The Guardian article was really interesting btw and also the various links. Have any of you joined the Familingua group - it was mentioned on a MN thread a while ago and I joined but it's still quite a small group and the meet-ups seem to be mainly in West London.
Sorry about the essay

BriocheDoree - How is it finding a bilingual speech therapy in and around Paris? I once came in contact with a very passionate one and now feel perhaps I should have put her on my radar rather than loosing her phone number because I feel she maybe a rare bird... am I right or are they actually quite easily found?

Cricri - welcome, welcome, welcome!!! Where in Essex are you? - When I am in Blighty I am Mid Suffolk based so could be close if you are on that side of Essex and MIFLAW whose dd is closer in age to yours than mine is in London (I think) if you are more the London side of Essex... there might be someone here with a French/English family closer to you than either MIFLAW or I but my brain has just turned to cotton wool.

CriCri

I'm in SE London which probably isn't much use to you (depends on how desperate you are ...)

In the mean time, have you tried contacting the Institut Francais to see if they hold a list of groups? There's also a French in London site somewhere but I've forgotten what it's called - anyone else able to help?

Happy to help in any way I can.

S

Thanks for the welcome everyone!
MIFLAW SE London isn't too far for us and DH's mum lives in Swanley so we're regularly in that area. I'll contact the Institut Francais - didn't think of that! I did find a good website before DD arrived - Multilingual families in the UK - which aimed to put families in touch with one another but it doesn't seem to have been updated for ages. You also have to join and when I applied to join I never had a reply so I guess the site isn't working anymore unfortunately. I love your blog by the way - very interesting!
Teafor two We live in Colchester so probably not a million miles away from you!

Tfor2, bilingual speech therapists, esp. ones who are covered by SECU, are gold-dust! DD has been seeing an English one up until now (NOT covered by SECU) and finally this September, having been on a waiting list and only accepted because DD has a "real" problem not just a bit of a delay, she's finally going to start seeing a bilingual one.
CriCri, DD is fortunate in that she's not the only bilingual child in her class at school (altho' the only English/French bilingual one). Really does help them understand the difficulties!
MIFLAW, I think the website you are thinking of is France in London

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Everyone in my dds school is bilingual or want to be or have parents that want them to be bilingual because it is a bilingual school! Is anyone else sending their children to a bilingual school? - If yes - I am really interested in how it is all going?

BD - congrats on getting your gold dust speech therapist! It is the first time I have ever ever heard of a year waiting list for anything in France - s/he really must be absolute 100percent solid gold!!!

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