Anybody raising a multi-lingual child?

sarahkelly

I asked this on the International Nesties board but oddly, nobody doing like we are Sadie, with one parent using one language and the other using another, consistantly, they were doing more of a "mix" of things.

So if you are doing OPOL (one parent one language) What do you do when your child brings you a book in the language that you do not speak to them in? I speak only English to Sadie, Marco only Dutch, and I'm never quite sure what we should do when she brings one of us a book in the other parent's language (she's book obsessed!).

Marco reads English books to her when she brings them but his English is excellent. I don't read the Dutch ones to her as I don't want her learning my crappy Dutch accent. LOL I will go through them with her and point out the pictures, animals or whatever in English.

And she is way too young to think about reading but a lot of reading is memorizing words you see, so it makes me think that, later on, it will be important for her to hear the book in the language it's written in.  

I'm not worried or anything, just wondering how you all handle it.

chocolatechip06

Sadie is so cute

 I'm not there yet, but I'm hoping that my dad can exclusively speak Portuguese/French to the baby while DH and I speak English.

I can understand some Portuguese but not speak it and I'm hoping my LO has a better run with it.

wannalil1

We are in a bit of a different situation.  My husband and I both speak  Polish and English fluently.  We speak to J in Polish most of the time, her nanny is also Polish.  We have a ton of books in both languages, but she is much younger than Sadie and she does not bring us any to read, yet.  We try to give her a mix of English and Polish but the Polish is definately more dominant. 

Sorry, I do not think that is of much help to your situation, but I think you are doing what is right in "translating" the Dutch book into your own English version. 

soccerwife

I am by no means bilingual....but my Spanish is pretty decent (took it for 10+ years, minored in it in college). DH is clueless when it comes to Spanish. If DS brought DH a Spanish book, Daddy would tell him to give the book to mommy DS just *knew* that Spanish was a mommy thing.

My nephews have a similar issue. My brother married a woman from Puerto Rico. Spanish is her 1st language. My brother knows NO spanish whatsoever. My nephews only speak Spanish to their mother and only speak English to their father. That's the rule in their house.  

 

MewMew

We are hoping our LO is multi lingual. I stay at home with LO and when I talk to him I try to talk to him in Romanian only. I have a terrible accent, lol, but I can talk and understand and also read it. When he is with my parents they also talk to him in Romanian.

DH and his family talks to him in Arabic. DH has an accent when he talks in Arabic too, but at least LO is learning the words.

When we are home together we talk to him in English.

Actually, if I were you I would try reading the book, you said that you can read it but you have an accent, LO won't know, at least he is getting a feel of the words!

GL!

Germanwife2b

SARAH!!!!!!!!

I've missed you!!

To answer your question- when Patrick brings me a German book, I make up a story in English (hee hee).  I just can't read German (and when I try I sound ridiculous and Patrick gets bored) so I just make up a story based on the pictures!

I can't believe how big our little ones are becoming!  I'd love to meet you and your little Sadie when/if I go to Germany in March.  I'm not sure I still have your email, but PM me sometime or page me sometime and we can talk.  Martin has a conference in Amsterdam in March and I'm trying to go too!  Talk soon!