Bilingual household

Parentberries
1

I don’t have kids yet, so this question is just a daydream.

In the future, I would like to raise my children with two languages in the house but I wouldn’t know how to. I know some people who have done this but they were not very helpful when I asked them. Can you Berries help me out with how to do it? I think it would be very helpful for the children when they are older, and a good world skill.

If any Berries out there raise their children bilingually/are planning too/know someone who does or if you have any advice it would be appreciated! Thank you.

2

I’m currently expecting my first child, but I can tell you what worked with my step son when he was a toddler. I started practicing words in English and Spanish with him. I would show him a picture and say the word describing it first in English, make him repeat it, and then in Spanish, making him repeat the word in Spanish again. I’m happy to say that he’s in kindergarten and can hold a basic conversation in Spanish. We started about two years ago. It’s really just about being consistant. Whether you’re using visual aids, or just speaking in both languages. Babies/Children will pick it up pretty quickly either way.

3

We will be raising our daughter in a bilingual home. [name]One[/name] set of grandparents speak English and one speak Polish, DH is bilingual. It’ll be tricky for us at the beginning because we aren’t both bilingual and he is used to speaking English with me at home, but if we want our children to be able to have a relationship with their whole family, it’s necessary. Plus there are so many brain benefits of having a second language early on.

As far as the “how”…many families do the one parent/one language (in our case, she’d speak English with mom and Polish with dad). We may not be that strict, it’ll likely be more English with mom, Polish with grandmother (who lives close and is planning to be quite involved with childcare during the week), and both with dad and see how it goes. I’m sure we’ll learn plenty by trial and error with our first. Speaking purely from friends stories, bilingual kids sometimes take a little longer to start talking, but when they do, there’s very little confusion, they pick up which words/sentence structures go with which language and which language goes with which family member remarkably well. We’ll probably look into formal lessons later on just to hone grammar and balance out the English she’ll get at school, but that’s a ways off still.

[name]Hope[/name] that’s what you were looking for!

4

I plan to raise my children bilingual, however, I am not technically bilingual myself. I took Chinese in college. It was not offered in my elementary or high school system, unfortunately. So I consider myself proficient, but definitely not fluent.

My mom had originally tried. Apparently when I was 1, I could speak Chinese pretty well (she took me to Taiwan for 3 months while my dad was in the [name]Navy[/name]). My dad, however, only spoke English and it became very hard for him to take care of me when he didn’t know what I wanted. My mom would have to translate, so they chose to stick to English. (and didn’t bother teaching my sister at all)

Another one of my friends, her parents are originally from Puerto [name]Rico[/name], so they spoke Spanish, but because their daughters were getting behind in school due to not being able to speak English as well as others, they switched to just speaking English. In the end my friend and her sister both took Spanish in High School and now College. She plans on raising her kids bilingual as well.

My mom’s friend almost had a marriage fall apart because of raising her daughter bilingual. Their daughter was only supposed to speak English to her dad and Chinese to her mom. This is just not a great idea and the dad felt the daughter and mother were keeping secrets from him. They worked it out now, but that’s something to keep in mind.

So basically from that, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a very hard thing to do, especially if only one parent is bilingual and other is not. It’s another stress on the marriage and the child. When should they speak one language over the other?

However, despite this, and as I said, I plan to raise my children bilingual. BUT, I live in an area where there are Chinese immersion programs and my intention is that they speak and learn Chinese at school, they come home and I’ll help with homework and practice with them, but whenever Dad is involved, we will all speak English.

I also think a neat thing would be that if they did speak to me in Chinese saying that they wanted/needed something, I’d praise them, and then tell them to say it in English so dad knows and we’ll make the decision together.

I don’t have children yet, but we definitely want our children to be bilingual, it gives them much more opportunity in life.

5

[name]Hi[/name] there! I don’t have kids yet, but I would like my kids to potentially be multilingual. I am learning Mandarin so that my (future) half-Chinese kids can have more exposure to Mandarin, and hope to send our kids to French immersion so they’ll learn French as well. (French immersion is quite common in this part of [name]Canada[/name].)

This site is great for tips on raising multilingual families: http://www.multilingualliving.com/ They have contributions from lots of parents who are trying in all different ways to raise their children bilingually. The most common way is called OPOL, one-parent, one-language, though some families find that can make it hard to feel like a family. It works best when both parents at least understand each others’ languages so they don’t have the problem catloverd mentioned above. Others try speaking one language in the morning, and another in the afternoon. From what I gather, the most important thing is to have a plan so you don’t get lazy and skip the second language when it gets too hard. You can also try getting books, DVDs, etc. in the both languages, so you’re not defaulting to the common language where you live.

6

I have not done this, but we have friends who are raising their daughter to be trilingual. The mom is French and the dad is Columbian. [name]Sofia[/name]'s mom speaks to her only in French, and her dad speaks to her only in Spanish. She goes to daycare where she is only spoken to in English. The daycare is also teaching her baby signs, and her mom told me that this seemed to really help her tie all three languages together. [name]Sofia[/name] is one and a half now and has very few words, but some language delay is really normal for kids raised w. multiple languages. [name]Sofia[/name]'s mom told me that she did have to educate their doctor about this, b.c he was all concerned w. her lack of words at 18 months.

I have a friend who inadvertently did this also- they spoke only Punjabi at home and planned that their son would learn English when he started school. But then he picked up Spanish from their housekeeper as well.

The school that my son is districted for just turned into an immersion Spanish or Mandarin school. Some of our friends went to immersion schools like this and still speak the second language fluently, so this is something we may do in four or five years when he is old enough.

7

I grew up bilingual. My father spoke to me in English, my mother in Norwegian, and when we were all together we spoke Norwegian when we lived in [name]France[/name], English when we lived in Norway, and Norwegian when we lived in [name]England[/name]. In addition to that we always spoke French on [name]Saturday[/name]'s, and Italian on Friday’s (but this started when we were older). Clear rules as to who speaks what is essential, otherwise your child will be confused. You must be prepared that they most likely will start speaking later than other children.

What we are doing with Roo; I speak Norwegian to her when it’s just the two of us. As a family we speak English, and boyfriend speaks English to her, but sometimes sings her lullabies and read night stories to her in Czech (he doesn’t speak it fluently enough to teach it to her). The fascinating thing is how two languages connects the “wires” in your brain, it becomes much easier to learn new languages, children who’s spoken or been talked to in two or more languages from they were small has a much easier time picking up languages as they get older (I was talked to in two-three when I was little, now I know 6 (7)).

The first thing I will say; don’t speak to your child in a language you’re not fluent in. And it needs to be very structured, otherwise your child will not understand, and the whole thing will be a waste.

8

I don’t have kids, but I’m speaking from experiences with nieces and nephews. However you decide to do it, make sure you stick to rules. My niece would latch on to a word in either English or Spanish, then refuse to use the other word. She would get really confused- water was “agua” and there was no convincing her otherwise. We told her “agua” and “water” were the same thing, but she would have none of it. It got to be difficult if she was speaking with people who didn’t understand the other language, because she just couldn’t accept that there were two words for everything. Similar problems arose with my nephews. I think if you do your research and really stick to a system, you can probably minimize those kinds of problems. Raising a child bilingually is a great thing to do- I always wish my parents had been able to do it for me!

9

We have our plan mapped out. We have/intend on teaching basic sign language starting at 6 months, which apparently helps bridge languages later. I speak Spanish fluently, so I will mostly be speaking to the girls in Spanish and SO will speak to them in English. We will continue using sign language to help them associate the idea with both words. Example, ‘milk’ and ‘leche’ mean the same thing. SO practices his limited Spanish quite a bit also, so as they gets older, we’ll all use both languages more freely.
When I was a baby, my mother didn’t speak English yet, so she only spoke to me in Spanish, and my father spoke to me in English. So, naturally, I was able to differentiate between the languages and communicate equally with my spanish speaking relatives as well as the english speaking ones. As my mother learned English, she used it more in the household, but continued to mostly speak to us in Spanish. When I was 10, we lived in Mexico for 6 months and I attended an international school which helped solidify my bilingual-ness.

We also have plans to live abroad at some point in the future. I’m thinking Spain? :slight_smile:

10

My husband speaks French to our daughter quite regularly. She hasn’t completely grasped it yet, but its interesting to watch. He’ll ask her a question in French, and she’ll respond in English. So she clearly understands what he’s saying, she just isn’t capable of making sentences of her own yet. We’ll continue this when our next baby arrives, we started this when [name]Amelie[/name] was very young.

I also speak French but nowhere near as fluently as my husband, and we both learned different dialects, so we were getting confused. We decided I’d just stick to English to avoid confusing her.

11

I am a bit dubious of our chances of successfully raising [name]Antoine[/name] to speak/understand Arabic. It was his father’s first and only language (he didn’t understand a word of English, despite being born in the US) until age 5; and the language his entire extended family is most comfortable in. [name]Antoine[/name] hears it daily, over Skype, and when the grandparents are visiting, he’s spoken to in it exclusively.

However, most bicultural children end up with aural comprehension of the second language and speak exclusively in the dominant one. It’s a natural process-- both parents speak and comprehend English; school, television, conversations on the street, ordering in a restaurant, etc is all in English, but not so for Arabic. There are always [name]Saturday[/name] language schools which teach reading & writing as well (especially important if the second language has an entirely separate script or writing system), but most immigrant kids I know grew up loathing and despising them.

I speak French fluently but other than a few nursery rhymes it feels very contived to talk to the baby in it.

12

Ok so I read your post again. [name]One[/name] thing that confused me was I was unsure if you yourself are bilingual. I got the feeling you were not, but I could be wrong.

I currently am single and childless (also young). I have no current desire to raise my children bilingual; however, if I marry someone who speaks or whose family speaks a different language (than English) I will try to learn. The only or best shot my kids have of being bilingual is if I marry someone who is. If I wanted to have bilingual children, I would start looking for a mate, who is bilingual so he can pass on his culture. (This sounds silly, but my cousin wanted to marry an Italian and now she is married to someone whose grandparents speak Italian and has cousins in [name]Italy[/name].)

Anyway, I think a lot would depend on the culture you are trying to be bilingual with. It also would help to live in different places. A friend of my sister’s grew up somewhat bilingual since they lived in both [name]France[/name] and [name]America[/name]. (Her friend learned to speak French, then forgot some of it, but took French in high school and was much better than anyone else in the class and picked up it very fast again.) If I wanted my kids to be bilingual, the other thing I would try is to live in an area where a language such as Spanish was spoken as well English in the community.

Good [name]Luck[/name]!

13

I only speak one language (English) fluently and while I used to be conversational in French, I’ve unfortunately lost most of it. Being able to speak a second language has actually become more important to me now that I’m having a child, I’d really like them to know the importance of languages.

His/her dad speaks English most of the time, but is also fluent in Spanish. I’m actually considering when the time comes, to put my child in a primarily spanish-speaking day care.

I’ve also seen families teach two languages to their young children by repeating everything they say twice, once in each language.

14

The situation is hard to explain. No, I was not raised bilingually, and I am not exactly bilingual.
Let’s say the language is [name]German[/name]. My family has a strong tradition of learning [name]German[/name], although there are no [name]German[/name] origins. There is a gift for words and languages in my family. When I was young, my parents spoke to each other frequently in [name]German[/name] so that I would not know what they were saying. I have the family gift of language, so I learned a lot of [name]German[/name] this way. When I chose a language in school, I chose [name]German[/name], and missed a year but was able to be top of the class the year after before skipping two language levels. I am mostly fluent, but not bilingual and I use it frequently. I stay in practice by talking to my friends in both languages and I habitually translate work or write daily lists or notes in the other language, so I am not really bilingual, just fluent. Did I explain that well?

15

The only way of raising a truly bilingual child (that is, a child with 2 mother tongues, as opposed to a child who speaks a foreign language fluently) if neither of the parents is a native speaker of the other language is to enrol the kid in an international school (like the Lycée [name]Fran[/name]çais) from a very young age. Unless the child is exposed to the language in its original form daily (or at least consistently), he or she will never aquire it as a “natural” language and probably won’t sound like a native.

16

I used to live in a part of [name]Canada[/name] that had a large French population. They way their children learned English was through tv and through interacting with others ie) at stores etc. They spoke exclusively French at home to each other and the children but all of the children’s tv programs were in English so they were learning English at the same time but without the parents having to try and teach them.

17

I’d highly suggest finding an immersion program or tutor/teacher then. To raise a truly bilingual child you would need to have [name]German[/name] be a native language. Sure you can be fluent, but you’ll still have an “American Accent” as my Chinese family would say. This is why I don’t consider myself fluent.

Now it would be different if you fully immersed yourself in that country and became bilingual, but that takes years! My mom has lived in the US for 30 years now and because of that, her family claims she has an American accent to her Chinese. She hardly speaks Chinese here and so she’s gotten rusty. It’s odd since her English still isn’t very good, my husband sometimes can’t understand her. I’m used to it because I grew up with her. However, she sticks to English, even at Chinese restaurants, she tends to muddle the two. Often she’ll say the food names in Chinese, but she’ll say it like this “can we get ______ and two of ____” despite the fact she could say it all in Chinese. [name]Even[/name] on our trip to Taiwan, I had to remind her a lot to speak Chinese. My grandparents can’t speak English and my mom would often forget.

Anyway, this is why I’m enrolling my child into Chinese immersion. I don’t think I could teach her/him myself and if I did, it probably wouldn’t be very good Chinese. The nice thing is I could totally help her/him with homework and even practice with her/him just like my mom did when I was learning Chinese in college.

18

I’m a native English speaker and am majoring in French at university. I would definitely love to raise any future children bilingually. My boyfriend is fluent in French, English and Dutch, so the most likely scenario would be that we both speak French and English to the children and he speaks some Dutch with them as well.

Although I don’t know from personal experience, I’ve heard that the key to raising a bilingual child is constant immersion in the non-dominant language. I also second the suggestion of www.mulitilingualliving.com, it’s a great resource.

19

We are native English speakers living in [name]Sweden[/name], so as a family we speak English, but in the company of our friends I speak Swedish with our children (but my husband still speaks mostly English with them since they speak more Swedish than he does whereas I am fluent-ish in Swedish.). They will be 2 in [name]July[/name] and they speak and understand both languages, but probably default more to Swedish since they get it all day at preschool and we play with friends so often. When their grandmother came from the US I was actually worried about them communicating with her but they figured out pretty quickly that they had to speak English with her. It was amazing.
I have always dreamed of having bilingual kids and for us the easiest thing was to raise them at least partly overseas in an environment where they are exposed to the other language daily.

20

My family has a [name]German[/name] background on my mum’s side. But my grandmother never really used it with my mum as a child. We learnt nursery rhymes and songs in [name]German[/name]; but conversation was always quite minimal (especially because my grandmother was the only fluent one left.) But then when I was in middle school I learn [name]German[/name] and took a trip with my nanna back to Germany. That experience made it easier for me to feel confident about my language abilities. When I came back I spoke [name]German[/name] all the time, I didn’t have any friends that could speak [name]German[/name]; but I knew my nanna and my dad understood me (my dad is way more passionate about languages than my mum - weird, I know!) And then I went back a second time and it just all made sense, it was as though it was completely normal to me. I just intend to raise my kids with a comprehension of [name]German[/name], they’ll learn the songs and the history, and probably a few phrases. I am also hoping that they’ll be able to attend a school that teaches [name]German[/name] as well, because its a dying language in my family. My suggestion would be to throw it in with everyday life, say good morning in your native tongue, teach them from the beginning. Often kids fall in love and become more fascinated with second language than they are the first.