Raising Bilingual Kid(s): Let’s Talk!

Re: Raising Bilingual Kid(s): Let’s Talk!

• puppiesandbabies member

  March 2022

  This is something that my husband and I have been discussing a lot lately. Our situation is a bit complex. I'm Canadian but my background is French and Vietnamese. Half of my husband's family speak Spanish and the other half speak Portuguese.
  
  We are currently in Canada and we are leaning towards French immersion for school while hoping baby picks up the other languages through osmosis 😂. But in all seriousness, we had to prioritize which two languages (not including English) are most important to us. It is very important to my husband that baby speaks Portuguese so we've decided that he is in charge of that while I manage the French. 
  
  We haven't worked out how we are going to do this yet (aside from the French immersion). Our experiences were that two languages were spoken at home (Spanish and Portuguese for him and the other two for me) and we both picked them up that way. He learned English through school and exchange programs while I learned English through school and just being in Canada. 
  

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• kboydbowman member

  March 2022

  I am NOT bilingual and I strongly regret it.  I feel like I am lacking a useful skill in life.  And it's hard to learn as an adult - I took Latin which isn't highly useful!  Teach your kids as many languages as you can!  My best friend speaks 7 fluently (born in Denmark to a Danish woman and a Haitiaan man, then later moved to the Dominican Republic and than the U.S., so she speaks Swedish, Danish, French, Spanish, German, and English!) and I envy her.

  Current pregnancy -
  First BFP on 1/4/22.  Due date 9/13/22.
  
  

  Four prior losses, no living children - 1 first trimester miscarriage, 1 blighted ovum, 1 chemical, and one extreme premature live birth daughter who died at 15 days old.

  
  

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• serenity_by_van member

  March 2022

  Ha! So funny, I’m half Swedish and am also hoping to raise our child to be bilingual. She will be born with a dual citizenship, so it’s important to me that she can at least use basic communication skills when we go to Sweden. However, I haven’t given any thought to formal language training yet and my husband doesn’t speak Swedish, so it would basically just be me and my father teaching her for now. Honestly, I rarely speak the language unless I’m in Sweden, so it would probably be a great refresher for me, too!

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• knottie69feaa58e72d54da member

  March 2022

  I’m not bilingual but I’m a speech pathologist and 100% recommend raising your child bilingual!   The languages might progress at different rates, but it’ll all be okay as they get older.   Start exposing your child to both (or all) of the languages from birth.  Children are born with the ability to understand and produce all of the sounds from every language, but they lose that ability as the languages they’re exposed to develop.  It’ll be more difficult for them to learn and become fluent in the second language if they’re not exposed until an older age.   Talk to them and your family naturally in both languages. As they start to understand more, respond to your and make more sounds, you can say the message in English and again in the native language to help them them connect the meaning in both languages.  Hope this helps!  
  

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• babywiik member

  March 2022

  My daughter (16months) seems to understand Norwegian and English equally. Other than mamma, the two words she says are both Norwegian. Ha det (bye) and bøø (boo). We speak primarily English at home (my native language) and if I decide to use Norwegian I'll repeat myself in English as well. My in laws speak Norwegian to her and we see them often. Funny story, the other day I was asking her questions and she was nodding in agreeable to everything. I asked "do you want to go to the moon?" And she points to her mouth which in Norwegian is "munn" and is pronounced similar to moon😂 I asked her later about her mouth and she knew that word too. I'm a little bit jealous of her that she already understands both languages. I mean I do too but I've been learning Norwegian for years.

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• jhysmath member

  March 2022

  I'm not bilingual, but I was a nanny for two families that raised their children bilingual. One was Swedish /English and the other was German /English. Both families had one parent designated to a specific language. The kids were very verbal from a young age, and could switch between languages easily.
  
  The 4 year old in the Swedish family knew I didn't speak Swedish and would try to tell me what her father said to get away with something, but her father spoke English too and I could double check that he didn't tell her she could have I've cream and watch TV all day.
  
  The 2 year old in the German family learned to associate different times with different languages. So when they took their first trip to Germany he thought all kids at playground spoke English and started yelling at some kid in English. The mom said this was hilarious and she had to explain these kids speak German. 

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• pangolindrome member

  March 2022 edited March 2022

  @jhysmath That is the funniest thing I’ve heard 🤣 what a good story! Also, thank you for sharing your observations. I am super nervous about raising a kid half in Swedish. I’ll obviously have to translate some for my husband but I hope he learns too.
  

  
  

  I’m so glad for all the feedback and thoughts so far. 

  @kboydbowman in Sweden we learn English from first or second grade, then in sixth or seventh you choose a third, usually German, French, or Spanish. I chose French because my school didn’t have Spanish and German seemed like hard work.
  I took Spanish through distance learning at a community college for personal enrichment, 101-103, so I understand some. I’ve watched a LOT of anime so I’ve picked up a few Japanese phrases and words.
  if you want to learn a language, it is never too late to start. With a background in Latin, my first suggestion would be Italian, but you’ll find Spanish more useful.
  
  @knottie For sure! And our kid will take all the Spanish classes in high school - my brother’s significant other is Spanish and they live in Spain, although obviously we’ll opt for American (mainly Mexican) Spanish for local reasons, so that we can also visit them and have at least two people speak the language.
  once your pronunciation settles, it is so difficult to master sounds. I have found myself lucky to be Swedish because we have a lot of sounds shared with languages I don’t speak - for as long as we don’t count “eth.” Took me six months to master it.

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• costaricamom member

  March 2022

  We live in a town full of expats from many different countries and many children have parents who speak different first languages. Most of them speak to their children in their own first language until about 5 or so and then introduce English and Spanish (if not one of the languages already spoken) because those are the languages spoken in school here. So many children by 6/7 are speaking 3-4 languages. 

  
  

  It’s funny as they get a little older and switch between languages within the same conversation depending who they are speaking to. 

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