Anyone tried it with THREE languages? (French, Polish, English)

[blondecat]

Hello
DH and I still have a long way to go but we've been scratching our heads over the language thing.

His is French, mine Polish, we speak English to each other and we'd both like to keep the mother tongues going. If we drop Polish, DC will never learn it as it's so different. If we drop French... well, that's just inconceivable, considering I've been sent off to an intensive French course already. The respective families are getting intransigent. At least mine is. Les belles parents just assume it will be la francophonie all the way.

Has anyone done it with three languages?
Won't DC get confused? I am worried as a friend's daughter reached age of 3 and still doesn't speak in full sentences. She understands but doesn't talk save in her own language and with single words. And they speak Polish only at home with English coming in at the nursery.
Will we jeopardise DC's progress by bringing in too many languages?
Can anyone recommend some good books / approaches?

Frankly, I suspect it's Polish that will suffer. All but one of my friends are British and I use English more than Polish anyway.

BTW DH doesn't speak a word of Polish. OK, about 10 words and some Russian, which is to Polish what Dutch is to English. So he won't understand if I speak Polish only.

sorry .my keyboard got problemes my husband is the polish one .myson didn't speakproperly before 3 and a half but i i normal .then onceh wil start h will catch up very quickly .i am french mix race (gabon /france) our familyn school teachers discouraged us saying it is too much for a child but it is not true .children are not adults they are likespongeand it is nowthat they can absorb al these langages .even with one lguage some cildrendo not seak before th ageof 4 so having 3 aguagesor two isnot the reason of a delay in the speech .you justhav tobe disciplined once you have started speaking your laguage to you child never mix with english or french words in your sentences and alway speaktohim in you language no matter where you are ... it is whe you mix that thecildcanler on refuse to speak your language..once i watedto sak english to my son when h was3 base the school ask me to do so.he refused .it is magic he can communicate it iamly fom both sides good luck and do no give up when people pressure you

Blondecat I am another who would try and speak Polish to your baby, too.

And yes, it will feel strange at first (I am the opposite way round, live in Poland but am British and am the only regular English input for my kids, don't have many Eng-speaking friends here) because you're speaking a language you don't normally use that much (before kids I only spoke English about once a week on the phone to my mum). But I wouldn't have wanted either them or my mum to miss out on that commmunication - and half of their background. I think it's all the more important with Polish because they're unlikely to "pick it up" any other way, unlike English, which they will have in school anyway.

And I read to them soooo much, right from babyhood, and only in "my" language. It's only now (kids 5 and 6.5) that I am starting to read any Polish to them. And reading things like rhymes helps with the rhythm of the language (Polish has a lot of rhymed stories, think Tuwim, Brzechwa, Fredro - a great contemporary writer is Malgorzata Strzalkowska).

I also think any kind of structure is important in helping them to differentiate. Whether it's one parent one language, or in-home language and out-of-home language, or whatever, but I think the confusion comes when parents aren't consistent in whatever system they choose, at least for the first few years.

Good luck

I have a friend with a four year old who speaks Polish, Farsi and English, all really fluently. It certainly can be done!

By the way, do you live near a Polish club or Church. Sometimes they run toddler groups in Polish. Sorry if someone has suggested this already. Haven't checked all the posts.