Bilingual kids?

glitterdragon-2 · July 2016

I'm American and SO is columbian. So he speaks to our son in Spanish and I speak to him in English. So far so good. But DS is only 16 months so he's not talking yet. Anybody else raising or planning to raise their child bilingual?

blush64 · July 2016

I am not bilingual but I will put my child in a french immersion school after kindergarten. Since I am not fluent in anything other than English this is as close as we can get. (I am taking courses in the same language so I should be able to help a bit by the time she needs it)

Gingersnap · July 2016

I wish.
I knew I should have married a hot Hispanic.

glitterdragon-2 · July 2016

@blush64 nice, I was considering something like that as well. I would love it if my kids were exposed to as many languages as possible.

blush64 · July 2016

I would love if my husband knew a language so she could hear it at home from the beginning. His parents didn't teach him enough to be fluent so we are stuck with only the schooling.

Tennis11785 · July 2016

I have a friend who was raised with her parents speaking to her in one language (or knowing her parents, likely both speaking in both languages) but most of her childcare done by someone who spoke strictly English. She said she spoke really late, which they said is normal for her situation. But once she started, she never stopped - in either language!

joyful08 · July 2016

Gingersnap said:

I wish.
I knew I should have married a hot Hispanic.

Girl they are the best

I am biased though. Me and my two sisters all have Hispanic husbands!

glitterdragon-2 · July 2016

@Tennis11785 that's awesome. Yeah I was told to expect a significant speech delay. Something about when they're trying to process 2 languages it just takes awhile. My son's cousin, didn't start speaking until she was 5 or 6. When she finally did it was full sentences in both languages.

WinchesterGirl · July 2016

I speak some Spanish, and I enjoy learning new languages, so I hope to foster that! We are planning to homeschool when we get to that age, and I'm planning to include age appropriate language work each year.

We are also avid travelers, so hopefully that will encourage our kids to learn the languages of the places we visit.

catiecatp · July 2016

Our kid will be exposed to English and Italian in the home - and I hope the child would learn French in school but I don't know how likely that will be in Texas. French could be useful for the child if they come back to Canada - a lot of government jobs would prefer a candidate that was bilingual in both national languages. Italian is mandatory because I want the child to speak to his/her maternal relatives and most of them live in Italy and many of them don't speak English very well (some don't speak it at all - including my Nonna).

From a child development perspective (my area of training in experimental psychology and an area I teach) you won't necessarily see a speech delay in a child learning 2 languages. The delay we expect is in terms of vocabulary for each individual language - but if you add the words known in each language together then you get an approximately normal vocabulary size. I'd have the child assessed just in case if there was a delay because early interventions result in much better learning outcomes - it isn't something to be really worried about but it is something to check. In terms of learning 2 languages, the ideal would be to have exposure to both languages in the home and have each parent use primarily one language (so DH speaks Spanish and DW speaks English). That is the ideal because it will cause less confusion for the child but it isn't necessary.

Speaking of which, I need to sharpen my Italian skills again.

scifichick09 · July 2016

We are going to attempt, bu I'm not sure how successful it'll be. DH is Hispanic, but he hasn't had to speak fluent Spanish in years and has lost a lot of it. His parents and grandparents want to only talk to the kid in Spanish so that it'll learn....but they live 3 states away, so there won't be a whole lot of exposure there.

poofwok · July 2016

i speak 100% in French while H speaks with DS in English. It's cute because DS is starting to talk now and you never know which language he'll use. Always a surprise.

Our most common language in the house is English as H is not very good in French... Pretty sure DS is already kicking his ass.

PerraSucia · July 2016

we only speak english at home, but grandparents speak primarily farsi to him.

My nephew is trilingual in english, german and russian. he was a late talker because of it, but can speak all 3 now at 3.5

Bebe13lue · July 2016

I'm Cambodian and my SO is Irish. I will have to teach my baby how to speak Khmer as he/she will definitely be exposed to it. This will be fun!

poofwok · July 2016

@PerraSucia my son is a late talker as well. Between multiple ear infections (he now has tubes) and learning more than one language at a time, he's had trouble catching up with his speech.

Doctors say that learning more than 1 language shouldn't cause a delay but I'm convinced it does. After reading what you wrote, it just makes sense!

runnermom04 · July 2016

I speak English and my sons bio dad speaks Russian at home. My son is 4 now and fluent in both. Kids are amazing and will naturally separate the two languages in their brain.

Now that I think about it he may have been a little delayed but in the long run its going to be better off.

Gingersnap · July 2016

I've always heard that bilingual kids speak later, too. One of my friends is a speech pathologist and she says that's one of the first things they ask when a kid is speech delayed.

MonaLisaRalphio · July 2016

A little encouragement for parents who do not have more than one language available at home: my parents, who spoke only English and curse words in Italian, bought me some children's books in Spanish when I was a little kid, and I learned a TON of Spanish from them. It was an excellent base for the Spanish education I'd eventually elect in middle and high school. I started off way ahead of all of my classmates, except, of course, for the kids who were already bilingual. Kids are freaking amazing and can pick up skills from even the simplest of influences. If you look at the research on "word walls" in classrooms, you'll see how effective it is for kids just to have vocabulary kind of floating around in their sphere of influence! So there are plenty of ways to introduce your kids to a foreign language, even if you're not bilingual yourself!

glitterdragon-2 · July 2016

MonaLisaRalphio said:

A little encouragement for parents who do not have more than one language available at home: my parents, who spoke only English and curse words in Italian, bought me some children's books in Spanish when I was a little kid, and I learned a TON of Spanish from them. It was an excellent base for the Spanish education I'd eventually elect in middle and high school. I started off way ahead of all of my classmates, except, of course, for the kids who were already bilingual. Kids are freaking amazing and can pick up skills from even the simplest of influences. If you look at the research on "word walls" in classrooms, you'll see how effective it is for kids just to have vocabulary kind of floating around in their sphere of influence! So there are plenty of ways to introduce your kids to a foreign language, even if you're not bilingual yourself!

I agree completely. I'm not the native Spanish speaker but DS will always pick out the Spanish books for me to read to him, when his dad isn't home. It's helping me a lot too. Plus it's just cute.

PerraSucia · July 2016

@concreteangell I've always heard multiple languages delayed speech!

Eveinshock · July 2016

When I was born my father did not speak English so at home Greek was the only language spoken between both parents. I didn't start hearing English until school at 2.5 yrs old at which point of course I picked it up immediately.
My child will probably be in the exact same boat....my husband just moved to US and doesn't speak English yet. We speak Greek at home.

grapeskittles4lyfe · July 2016

I was going to say what @catiecatp said, but she said it a lot better. Growing up bilingual should NOT lead to speech delay.

I grew up speaking Spanish (mother is Colombian), German (dad is German) and English (grew up in Kansas).
SO is German and I speak English to DD, but I'm trying to institute Spanish as a weekend language (DD already speaks a bit from DC).

https://multilingualparenting.com/ has a lot of good tips and pointers.

juliehollz13 · July 2016

***Lurking from December's BMB****

I speak fluent Russian and DH is half Filipino so he CAN speak Tagalog fluently but says he doesn't want to teach the baby because it's a "useless" Asian language and he'd rather the child learn Japanese or Mandarin....:/ But I'm hoping he changes his mind because the more languages one knows the easier it is to pick up others.

cphsiung · July 2016

We are raising our son multi-lingual (English / Mandarin / Japanese). He is almost two, and he clearly understands the languages he is spoken to in. I don't see a big difference between him and single language boys his age other than he is more likely to use a phrase in English than a single word.

glitterdragon-2 · July 2016

@cphsiung yeah my son is 16 months and clearly understands both languages. It's pretty neat

leprechaunlady · July 2016

@GlitterDragon my 2yo nephew is bilingual. His mum (my sister) speaks only english to him & his dad speaks only german to him & has done from birth. He has a great grasp on both languages & it is facinating to watch him switch between the 2 languages. Only just having turned 2 last month, his pronunciation sometimes isnt great so if you dont understand him when he speaks english he'll try the german equivalent! Also when hes at my parents on holidays he speaks english to everyone except for my parents 2 dogs who he speaks to in german for some reason!

glitterdragon-2 · July 2016

Janefelicity said:

@GlitterDragon my 2yo nephew is bilingual. His mum (my sister) speaks only english to him & his dad speaks only german to him & has done from birth. He has a great grasp on both languages & it is facinating to watch him switch between the 2 languages. Only just having turned 2 last month, his pronunciation sometimes isnt great so if you dont understand him when he speaks english he'll try the german equivalent! Also when hes at my parents on holidays he speaks english to everyone except for my parents 2 dogs who he speaks to in german for some reason!

that is so cute !

raelionheart · July 2016

I've read that when they do studies about bilingual children there was not evidence of delays compared to monolingual children. Young kids and babies can process an incredible amount of information. I have heard that it can help to stay consistent. If dad is speaking spanish make sure he sticks with it when talking to the child. The kid may also switch to mostly english when they enter school, but don't let that stop you from continuing to use the other language at home.

My baby will be spending it's first two years in Japan so I'm hoping it can learn and recognize a bit.

BlondePeanut · July 2016

I am hoping that my munchkin will be able to speak some Spanish. Hubby oddly enough doesn't speak a lick even though both his parents are bilingual. I was bilingual as a kid in Italian and English, but when my grandparents who spoke Italian passed away, no one else continued it so I completely lost it by the time I was 5. My Spanish isn't too shabby, def not fluent, so I am hoping to at least have the little one know something. My friend Sue has a son who is trilingual....he speaks fluent English, Spanish, and Vietnamese perfectly. He didn't delay in speaking at all and boy is it amazing to watch a 6 yr old speak all 3 languages.

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