Babble

Hi there,

anyone trying to raise their kid(s) bilingually? What's working, what's not? Are you going the whole way - teaching them how to read and write, or are you happy if you can get them to speak/understand two languages?

We're trying it and so far it seems to be working. Our daughter is now 19 months old and understands both languages equally well, but she pretty much only speaks English (the language she hears most often and from everyone). She's got a couple of words in her other language as well, but since I'm the only one speaking it to her, I'm not too sure how successful we're going to be in the long run.

Any thoughts on this?

Thanks!

 

We would love our son to be bilingual, but neither one of us is competent enough in another language to make it happen! I enrolled our son in a bilingual playgroup, but that didn't really work out either since most of the other parents were native speakers of the other language and I couldn't really communicate all that well. We ended up spending most of our time there playing together, so the language emmersion part didn't happen.

On a different note, I have a niece and a nephew that are both pretty proficient in French. Their dad speaks to them in French and now they are 11 and 8 and are able to converse in French.

Good luck, I'm sure you will be successful in raising a bilingual child and she will benefit from your efforts.

 

BrooklynMama:

We would love our son to be bilingual, but neither one of us is competent enough in another language to make it happen! I

That's my problem as well.  I want my sons to speak Spanish, but my high school espanol no es muy bien.  We live in a largely Latino area, so they hear a lot anyway, but I fret about it.  My wife speaks Chinese, so they'll probably learn that along the way. 

Our son was born in Amsterdam. I'm Australian and tried as much as possible to speak english to him while everyone else spoke Dutch. When we moved back to Australia he was 2  and passed all his language development  checks with above average skills in both languages. I was really suprised as I hadn't been all that consistent with the english. Now that we are living in an english speaking country, we have switched to speaking only Dutch at home, for his sake AND mine. It's going quite well but we do find it harder and harder to keep up decent ducth and not start mixing the two languages all the time. But at least he can still talk to Oma and Opa, his cousins in the Netherlands via webcam. He has only just started being conscious of the fact that he speaks two languages even though he has been doing it for a while. He will often say something to us in Dutch and then turn to his australian grandma and repeat it in english. Quite honestly, I can't imagine how determined you'd have to be to keep it up if one of the languages wasn't the native language of one of the parents.

Ciao, 

The key to having bilingual kids are, always talk talk talk. You have to talk double constantly, meaning you are speaking the sentence first in the foreign language and then in English. Best scenario is having them repeat it back to you, It is difficult to teach your kids a second language unless you are fluent, but I think it's always a good idea to let them hear other languages.

We don't do the repeating everything in both languages, not often anyway. I think it'd drive me nuts :) My unilingual husband speaks English to our daughter and I try to speak as little English to her as possible and focus on the other other language (my first one, her second one). So far, she's got more English words she can say, but understands both languages equally well.

Both of my children have been spoken to in English and Spanish for several years. My Nanny only speaks Spanish and converses with both throughout the day in that language only. My son, who is now 5, comprehends the majority of what she says but prefers to respond to her in English. My daughter, who is 3, uses a mixture of spanish and english--and can switch between the two at any time. As a former teacher, I felt the benefits of raising the kids bilingual far outweighed the possible detrimental effects--which some studies have shown to be a lag in receptive language development at first. I feel that regardless of the fact that my son is reluctant to speak a second language, he has developed an "ear" for it that will benefit him later--as well as a more complex understanding on some level of syntax and grammatical nuances.

I think its a great thing. My daughters caregiver was from Costa Rica and all they spoke in her home was Spanish. My daughter spoke Engligh at home and Spanish at daycare, she was there for 3.5 yrs. She is in preschool now and when looking for preschool we tried to find one that had Spanish classes for her, we did and she still speaks both languages. I never took Spanish so she is teaching me new words as well.

My son in 13 months old and I am trying to raise him bilingualy. Obvisouly he hears more English then my language which I speak to him when he and I are alone. I am not sure if he will be able to speak both equally or if English will be the primary. For now all he says in ga ga da da ma ma etc. Sounds the same in both languages.

This sounds similar to our situation...

I'm not the expert, of course, but our daughter is a bit older (20 months now) and here's what's happening with her language acquisition. She continues to understand both languages equally well, but most of her words are in English. However, she has a few words she picks up in the other language only or first - but what happens is that once she learns to say it in English, she no longer says it in the other language. It's sort of interesting, but also frustrating to me.

Anyway, we recently lucked out and switched her to a new daycare, one that happens to be bilingual in her two languages because the woman who runs it speaks the two languages and uses them with her own kids who are also there for at least parts of the day. I'm really hoping this will help her get more into the other language as well.

Anyway, good luck to you, I hope it works out! 

 

 

I just started with introducing Spanish to my son recently.  He is 21 months and speaks some english and still uses some sign language he learned earlier.  We live in Costa Rica and I just hired a nanny who is speaking Spanish exclusively to him for the last month.  He hasn't started using any Spanish yet, but I have high hopes.  I also have always bought bilingual toys for him with the hope he would learn both languages.  And, of course he has some Dora and Diego dvds I throw on occasionally. 

This is an interesting topic, and I am looking forward to the journey we all have ahead of us.  Occasional updates on the kids progress would be great additions to this thread later.

 

Pura Vida

Hi,

I'm an American living in Montreal. Both my girls were born here and went to day care in French. We decided, based on other parents' recommendations, to keep the languages separate: I speak English to them and their father speaks French. They are now perfectly bilingual, being on the English side of a French/English school. My 4th grader takes French as a first language with the French students and English as a first language with the English students. We feel very lucky, since she's doing excellent in both. They will switch to the French side 7th grade-12th grades.

The main thing is to not let them franglais sentences, where they stick in French words into an English sentence (or vice versa). Also, we've taught them to always speak French first when they first meet someone in Quebec. In the US, it's English first. And don't use the other language to keep secrets--it's rude! I am convinced that being bilingual (or trilingual) is a big plus for the other language, since it's all related--their vocabulary is pretty amazing.
 

Hi,

As a language educator and father of two bi-cultural children the issue of bilingualism is close to my heart. I've spent a lot of time reading the most up-to-date research, and it seems that these are the key issues:

Firstly, any attempt to raise your child bilingually will probably fail if one of the languages is spoken by a non-native speaker. That is, bilingualism tends to favor situations where the sources of language input (usually parents) are native speakers. If you are, say, an advanced learner of Spanish living in an English-speaking culture and you speak Spanish to your child in an attempt to develop that language in your child, you may well make it easier for her to learn Spanish as a second/foreign language when she is older, but bilingualism will not be achieved. The issue is that in these situations where one parent inputs a non-native language,  their grammar mistakes and non-standard pronunciation are passed down as well - you end up teaching your child your own errors. This is certainly true for one-language homes too; the way a child speaks says a lot about how their parents speak.

 
If you are in a situation where both parents are native speakers of different languages, then bilingualism is very achievable, but it is still conditional. Researchers have said that either parent should only ever speak their mother tongue to their child as mixing languages with a child limits their ability to develop two separate language systems (which is the essence of bilingualism). Researchers have also said that though parents should avoid mixing languages with their children, they should (if they can) mix languages around their child. This means that, in a bilingual situation, parents should demonstrate to their child that while they don't speak the other language with their child, they can speak it, and they're happy to speak it. The whole idea is that both parents teach their mother tongue, but encourage bilingualism...if you know what I mean.

Thanks for this enh. I knew most of this already, but it's just not do-able for us - or I guess I could just speak the second language with our daughter exclusively (it is my first language, so at least we're good that way), but I'm just not comfortable doing it when my unilingual in-laws are around, for example. It always strikes me as rude.....

Since my original post, the good thing that has happened is that we've switched daycares and she's now in a bilingual one (not officially so, but in practical terms she hears both languages there). It has made a huge difference already, and she's only been there for a couple of months. She's increased her vocabulary in both languages, but now uses some words in her second language. Before, she only did when she didn't know the English word, though she's always understood both languages equally well.

Anyway, I will keep plowing along and see how far we get :) Any suggestions on teaching reading and writing in the second language?