any other bilingual mamas or mamas to be?

bonjourbelle05

I am curious if there is anyone else who is/is planning to raise their baby bilingual?  I'm fluent in English (obviously) and French and would like my son to learn both because I know learning languages earlier on is best (and it'll make learning other romance languages easier) (I'm also a French teacher, so I've read tons of research on the subject).  I'm just not sure how to do it in my own household...DH only speaks English and no one I see regularly speaks French, so DS would only get the language from me.  I have some picture books in French and several French cartoons (once he gets older), but for those of you who have done it/plan to do it how will you balance the two languages?

boo-bitz

DH is from Quebec, so fluently bilingual. I speak fluent English and conversational French.

DD1 is slowly learning a bit here and there, but we will go for it more once she is in school as we plan on enrolling her in a partial immersion program from kindergarten onwards.

K&V&K

We live in Qc, Canada. My DH's mother tongue is french, and mine is english, although we're both bilingual. From day 1 with our kids, we have spoken to them in english/french, him mainly in french & I in english. Both our daughters (age 5 & 7) are perfecly bilingual, with no accent. I believe that if they immersed in both languages, they will absorb them. Good Luck to you.

 

TAGSL710

I'm a Spanish teacher and I want to speak to him as often as possible in Spanish. I have a bunch of books, too, that I bought on our honeymoon in Spain knowing I would do this. I also bought activity books and learning aids. I agree it's best to try to immerse them as much as possible when they are younger. I have a colleague who is Colombian and she speaks solely to her two kids in Spanish and they are bilingual but she still sends them to summer school in Colombia because they are lacking the conversational fluency. 

on_a_whim

My father's side of the family is French, from Quebec... and I grew up speaking both English/French - so I would really like our boy to learn both languages fluently..

t-lou rosales

I am a SAHM and I speak Korean to my 4yr old when I am home with him. My husband only speaks to him in English. He understands 100% english and korean. When he speaks he uses english. But if I ask him to say it in korean he can.

They learn so fast and I thought he was going to be confused at first but he totally understands now the difference. 

gita5

I am from Slovenia where I lived most of my life and all my family is there so will for sure be speaking Slovene with our little boy as well as English. Both my husband and I also speak Spanish so we are thinking about including Spanish too.

 

RachelOC

I'm from Sri Lanka and I hope that our baby will be bilingual but the chances are pretty slim. I of course speak the language but my husband doesn't, so 80 percent of the time she will only hear english. My parents speak the language in their home so when she is there I will ask them not to speak English so maybe she can pick up a few words here and there and I can talk to her in the language as well.

I think you have to be very committed to teaching two languages and its not as easy as it seems. My younger brother was born in America but raised in a sri lankan household and cannot speak the language at all but does understand it. My parent's always spoke to him in English so that's probably the reason. 

AKB090609

Not quite the same, but I am fluent in ASL and plan to use ASL and spoken English with the baby. To be fair, I am so used to using both languages at the same time I don't think I could avoid it.

erikaluna01

I Mexican American and speak English and Spanish at home. I will continue doing that but emphasize more Spanish as I know when she gets older she'll be completely surrounded by English (school and television). I really want her to be bilingual. It's a big necessity where I live since the Latino population is so large. 

ovechkium

I speak English and Russian and DH speaks French. we will speak to him in every language we know and try to expose him to as many more as possible from friends. My niece is 1 year and 10 months and she is already trilingual.

KellersPrag

My SO is from Guatemala, and he is obviously fluent in Spanish and (mostly) fluent in English. I am obviously fluent in English and fluent in Spanish. I've spoken to a lot of people about this subject for the last few years because it has always been very important to me to raise my child bilingually in Spanish and English. The funny part is that I had it planned before I met my SO!

I've been told that one parent should speak to baby from birth exclusively in English and the other parent should speak to baby exclusively in the other language. They say that's all it takes. Obviously later on, extra things like cartoons or books and the like would be helpful, but that's the best way to start.

kellelle01

TAGSL710:

I'm a Spanish teacher and I want to speak to him as often as possible in Spanish. I have a bunch of books, too, that I bought on our honeymoon in Spain knowing I would do this. I also bought activity books and learning aids. I agree it's best to try to immerse them as much as possible when they are younger. I have a colleague who is Colombian and she speaks solely to her two kids in Spanish and they are bilingual but she still sends them to summer school in Colombia because they are lacking the conversational fluency. 

Same with me.  With DS #1, I plan on starting this summer.  He's just starting to really talk in English...1 word or 2-3 words at a time, so I figure this summer is a good age to get him started with Spanish.  I was watching Bethenny Ever After a week or two ago and she was taking her daughter, Brynn, to Spanish classes where the guy was teaching them songs and talked to them in Spanish the entire class.  Seemed like a neat approach.  Since I teach at the high school level, I'll need to pick up some books this summer from the library on how to teach little ones the language.  I'm pretty excited.

write2staceyz

I speak both English and Chinese. My husband only speaks English.

We will hire a nanny or send the baby to a chinese family day care, so she can learn some Chinese.

When the kid grows a little bit older, I will send him to after school program to learn the Chinese writing.