Bilingual toddler - advice please

[gutzgutz]

DH and I are trying to bring up our PFB bilingual (he is 20 months). He is from another country and I am English. We both speak each language exclusively to him and mainly English (fluently) to one another. We live in the UK.

He has recently started to talk and has obviously picked up words in both languages. My query: if he says the word in DH's language for, say, water do I repeat it back to him "yes, correct, that's xxx" or should I say "yes, correct, that's water" i.e do I reaffirm my language from me or DH's language or that particular item?

Hope that makes sense. Any advice grateful received.

sorry, have realised there is a specific area for bilingulism. will repost if necessary

Think you might get more replies on the bilingual board.

Good luck

Talk one language at home and the other one out and about. He needs to be able to figure out what words go with what language.

My DS sorted it out himself at 3, the only problem i have now at 3.6 is he tries to speak to anyone not white in his dads language! im sure he will get it eventually

I'm probably going to go against the orthodoxy here, but ...
I live in an international environment where practically every child I know is at least bilingual and many, including mine, are trilingual - all sorts of language combination and all sorts of approach. Whatever people do, it always seems to work out eventually provided children get enough input in the various languages. With us, DD1 started clearly distinguishing around 3 and now (age 8) can read in all 3 languages and switch completely confidently. We speak two languages at home, and DD1 spoke a third at school for 4 years. We mostly usedl OPOL but we're not particularly rigid and do alot of code mixing (when we talk around the dinner table we often chop and change mid sentence). It's fine. Other families use different approaches and they work too. I would concentrate on ensuring enough exposure (books, 'immersion trips', dvds in both languages etc) and not worry too much about things like correction.
Thay said, when any child is learning to speak the most useful tip is to model back a standard chunk so a child pointing at a dof saying 'dog' might prompt 'yes, that's a dog', or 'me and, instinctively I would always model back in my own language, like you suggest.