- Pregnancy
- Baby & Toddler
- Parents
- Getting Pregnant
- Baby Names
- Product Reviews
-
Registry
- Community
-
More
Want a personalized experience?
Download the free app
Toddlers: 12 - 24 Months
Raising a bilingual baby
My ds is 16 months, and I speak solely French to him. I'm 1/2 French Canadian, so my mother and I only speak French to him. He gets the English from his daddy, my mil and her relatives, his babysitter and everyone else. The pedi said he might be a bit delayed, but the benefit of speaking both outweighs the delay. He babbles constantly is learning both. The other day he said "cookie" and "encore". Encore for again in French. Anyway, is anyone else raising a bilingual baby, and are you worried about the delayed speech at all?
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Raising a bilingual baby
We are as well. My husband's first language is Tagalog. We weren't told she'd be "delayed." We were told that she'd pick up roughly half and half. So if the baby has 6 words by 12 months, she'd have 3 tagalog and 3 english.
She has far more english than tagalog right now but can point out all her body parts in Tagalog and identify some animals. She also calls her relatives by their tagalog names "Tito, tita, lolo, lola, ate, kuya etc..."
I don't think "delayed" is the word here. But definitely you have to pay attention to which language they prefer for which object. I'mstill learning tagalog myself and sometimes I think "huh, well that could be "spoon" in her other language but i have no clue." So I just say "yup."
i'm not raising a bilingual baby at this point, but your strategy is a popular one among two language families (I'm a linguist in training). It is officially called "one parent one language" if you want to do more research. PLEASE keep it up. The benefits will outweigh the delays. Try paying attention to how your child reacts when you or DH speaks to him. Is he comprehending equally when you reprimand, ask questions, etc? He may show dominance in communicating some words over others simply because they are easier to pronounce, because he has a more solid semantic association with one word over the other, and a whole plethora of other things taking place in that wee little mind.
I just read a study that said that children who came to the U.S. from korea or china between ages 3-7 learned English to native like capacity. So you are giving your child a great advantage and i applaud you for that!
Children at this age can comprehend more than 3 times what they can produce even in monolingual situations, so don't worry about delays. Also, look into "code switching" which is the use of two languages in a single utterance or conversation. It is very common among bilinguals. Good luck. If you have any other questions, let me know!
our 4.5 y.o. is bilingual and he's doing great. Most of our friends have bilingual kids at home. My 4.5 y.o. started speaking very early so I never even thought about any speech delays. DS2, however just started speaking. Someone mentioned to me that there could be a delay because we're raising him bilingual too, but it's soooo really good for them, and it'll be easier for them to learn other languages as well.
I just posted this a couple of days ago! We're in the same situation. DH is French Canadian and speaks only French to DD. I speak only English. She is not saying any words yet but has pretty good comprehension in both languages. She knows a lot of body parts, animals, directions and loving words in both languages.
From what I've read/understand they might be slightly delayed but quickly catch up.
LOL...I imagine I'll be going through this as well.
We have our DD in Spanish immersion. She's not speaking too much yet in either language but I've never connected this to her not having that many words or being slightly behind developmentally in communication.
I don't speak Spanish at all, so if she does bust out a few words I'll just be nodding and smiling
Ds hears spanish all day from his nanny and english from me, dh and our families. He is delayed and we'll probably start therapy soon. I attribute the delay more to him being a preemie and a boy than to dual languages. I'm not really worried about it either way...he'll learn. I'm actually concerned that he doesn't get ENOUGH spanish since he only hears it from the nanny. I try to buy children's books in spanish and record cartoons too so that hopefully it'll be reinforced by those products as well.
He already responds to directions and responds with signs, points (points to body parts) or head shakes (yes/no) or sounds (ie. the appropriate animal noise, vaccum cleaner sound, etc.) when asked in either language.
Oh...and both our pedi and the speech therapist who did his eval poo-pooed an additional language as a cause for a delay and stated that most children in european countries learn a MINIMUM of two languages as a child and often more.