one baby 4 languages!

[Leogaela]

My friend is swedish and talks to the baby in swedish
her husband is french and talks to her in french
they communicate together in English and lots of friends talk to her in English
the baby goes to daycare in swiss-german

Anyone any experience of this. how will this child develop its language skills?

I used to know a German professor. Her husband was Spanish, they lived in England and the kids had a French au pair. They seemed to speak at least 3 languages without any problem.

I was really jealous as I was at university at the time struggleing to learn languages!

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My cousin who now has a PHD in architecture was brought up in Turkey by her English mum and Turkish dad who each spoke to the child in their own language. The parents spoke in German to each other. My cousin grew up speaking all three languages fluently. Lucky, lucky girl!!!

meggymoo's posting reminds me of my cousin aged 4. In a room full of people all speaking different languages she instinctively knew who spoke which language - and realised that they couldn't communicate with each other and would happily translate what was being said from one to another - eg .... mummy has just told the turkish maid blah blah .... daddy is saying to his mummy blah blah....Turkish granny wants to know if you are enjoying your hoiday here etc etc - extraordinary!

That's really positive! I am very happy that my ds will grow up with English & swiss german, a bit of french and then high german in school but 4 languages seemed a bit too much for a child to cope wiht! Can we expect the children to be a bit slow at the beginniniung with their language learning?

Wish I had had the opportunity to be so multilingual as these children!

Hi,

I just wanted to point out the importance of keeping the languages separate in the child's head - so one person speaking in one language only or a clear, separate situation (like school) for another language. I knew a Dutch/German family in America and while their oldest child spoke all three langauges fine the youngest one was struggling a bit and mixing things up as he often heard his brothers and the nanny speaking all 3 of the different languages.

but eshay, although not disagreeing about keeping languages separate, it would mean younger siblings would always struggle more. That is certainly not my (personal) experience and what I have seen at other friends' houses (bi or trilingual).
O, how I wish my dh would speak in his own language to dd and ds.

My children speak 3 languages but do bear in mind that this doesn't mean ' 3 mothertongues'.
They are fluent in all three but the older they become, the more their home-languages stay at child-level and their Eglsih develops more.Also, don't think the problem is how many languages, but speaking another language at school can be a disadvantage initially.
How big the disadvantage is depends on how much opportunity the child had had to learn the language before starting school, the class-size (the difference between my eldest who started at stateschools and the youngest who started at private school are amazing) , the support the chld gets etc.
Also, the 3 languages are not at all confusing for my children, but sometimes the 3 cultures are and my children seem to be more insecure at times because they don't know what behaviour is expected from them etc.Again, thsi is much less so at private school where they get more pastotal care , clearer rules, language support.

My children speak 3 languages but do bear in mind that this doesn't mean ' 3 mothertongues'.
They are fluent in all three but the older they become, the more their home-languages stay at child-level and their Eglsih develops more.Also, don't think the problem is how many languages, but speaking another language at school can be a disadvantage initially.
How big the disadvantage is depends on how much opportunity the child had had to learn the language before starting school, the class-size (the difference between my eldest who started at stateschools and the youngest who started at private school are amazing) , the support the chld gets etc.
Also, the 3 languages are not at all confusing for my children, but sometimes the 3 cultures are and my children seem to be more insecure at times because they don't know what behaviour is expected from them etc.Again, thsi is much less so at private school where they get more pastotal care , clearer rules, language support.

My sil grew up with a German speaking mother, English speaking father, in French speaking switzerland. She said her language devep=loped a bit slower than average, and she did mix languages at times (found it confusing that other people didn't understand her at times). She is now fluent in 4 languages.
She and my bro have a son growing up with English from his father, German from her, and French elsewhere(nursery mostly)

I am very envious, as it is definitely the way to learn multiple languages.

My son was born in Austria and everyone around him only spoke German (other than me who only spoke english) Now we are home in Scotland I only speak German to him and everyone else speaks english. At two he is very able to differentiate between who speaks what language. At nursery he has picked up some french and spanish too.

My son is 2 yrs and daughter 7 months. I speak to them in English, my partner in Dutch, and we live in France so my son goes to a French creche. We has books and DVD's in all 3 languages. I also sing to him in Welsh. I find that my son is slower than other children his age with his ability to speak in full sentences etc, though he chatters on confidently in his own wee language, and he seems to forget words easily, or not be sure he's got it right, because he keeps getting told 3 words for the same obeject. But I've been told that it all comes together suddenly, and I'm not worried about it as he doesn't seem to be worried about it himself.

My son is being brought up bilingually here in London. At 2.2 years old his main language is our mother tongue (we do not speak English at home), but I allow him to watch English TV. I can also speak German and am learning Italian and my DH speaks fluent French.

We have concentrated on teaching him our native language first, we are not worried about his English as he will pick it up quickly at school. We also wish to introduce him to French (through DH) before age 7 (experts say 0 - 7 is a fantastic age range for learning languages) Amazingly I have been letting him watch a CD that does the English alphabet and numbers and already he is showing enourmous potential for learning English quickly, he can repeat half the English alphabet in the right order.

This is a real advantage for bilingual children. They are able to learn other languages much faster than us adults ! This was certainly true in my own case. Up to the age of 5 my grandmother spoke to me in Azeri Turkish. When she died I stopped speaking it, but still heard other realtives speaking it and understood everything they said. 33 years on I still understand the language very well ! I learned English when I moved to the UK aged 9. I speak my own mother language extremely well, so much so that when I go back to my native country people can't tell I have spent 30 years abroad. I have a very good ear for languages and learn them very fast. I am sure this ability has a lot to do with the fact that I was raised with 3 languages.

It is such a pleasure speaking different langauges and if you have this advantage at home, it is a wonderful gift to your children who will one day thank you for it, hopefully

A friend of mine is Russian, her dh Chinese and the dc attend German kindergarten and school. Their Russian and German are fine, can't judge the Cantonese. They had to learn to read and write 3 different alphabets but it seems to be working ok.

Perhaps because those 3 languages are all so very different, less transfer problems arise?

I have friends with this combination

Mother is Korean - she speaks Korean to them
Father is German - he speaks in German and educates 2 older children in German
Live in Laos - speak Laotian (a pitched language so extra hard)
In Laos French is also an official language so they are learning french.

2 girls (8 and 5) and one boy (3) are fluent in German, Korean and Laotian and also almost fluent in French. When they came to the UK they played fabulously with my children (who speak English and Gaelic and a smattering of Spanish). There were 7 languages in use for the week they came to stay, and the children were just fine.

It can work out. Kiddy brains are just SOOO adaptable!