# Anyone planning to raise bilingual children?



## Amygdala

Hi girls!

I was wondering whether anyone is planning to raise their kids bilingually (or has older kids that speak two languages already)? What are your reasons? Or maybe you had the chance (eg partner speaking a different language) but decided against it? Our kids will grow up with two languages (I think) and I'm a tad nervous about it. If anyone's got a suggestion for a good book on bilingualism that'd be most welcome as well.
Thanks!


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## EstelSeren

We're planning on raising our children to be bilingual in English and Welsh. It's an opportunity that neither myself nor my fiance had and we want our children to have that. It will be awkward as only I speak some Welsh and I'm not particularly confident with it. I don't want Gareth to feel left out but it is a joint decision and he's said that our children can help him learn so it will be OK. As a result we hope to send our children to Welsh-medium schools so our decision will also mean that I will have to take the driving seat at school parent's evenings and such. It is important to us to naturalise the Welsh language in our children though and we know that there are agencies out there that will help us (Twf, for example, send out CDs of Welsh language nursery rhymes, which would be useful as they're something that you'd only actually know if you've had Welsh from the cradle.)

Beca :wave:


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## welshwarriors

We are raising our son bilingual....My husband is Welsh, but can't speak it all lol, so he speaks English with LO and I'm German so I try to speak as much German as I can with him. 
I want him to have the opportunity to choose later on where he's gonna live and work. And the other big factor is that my family is German, my uncle, my mum and cousins speak english bt my grandparents not so it would be a shame if LO wouldn't be able to communicate with them. 
I sing songs, read stories, say rhymes etc in both languages. I studied childcare in Wales so I'm familiar with most of the rhymes etc.


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## morri

I am German , and Oh is South African, so I surely go for bilingual education :D


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## Princess_LV

We're both English, but I'd like to raise our children to eventually be bilingual. My nan started teaching me french before I started school, not a huge amount, but enough to give me a good base when I started learning it at school. Unfortunately, when I got older I didn't have the sense to carry on, and feel that having no formal foreign language qualifications now has set me back on the job hunt front, because so many law firms are international. So I think with my own children I will take the same approach as my nan took with me, but take it further, and offer more support later on. I really think that children with English speaking parents can miss out on the importance of being able to communicate in another language. May need to brush up on my skills first though!


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## sun

We are! He will speak French and English (the two national languages in Canada). 
We will be sending Bun to an all-french school and the english he will learn from us and from society in general.

xx


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## Dinah

Well I *love* languages and have studied several. My passion came at a young age when I realised my grandparents spoke something different to us - Welsh. Sadly they never taught me so I only speak a little but can also speak some German, French and Japanese.

Anyway, I would love my children to have a taster of some other languages from a young age as I know that is best time to start learning them. I guess we will introduce other languages via tv shows perhaps like Dora the Explorer? But I can't expect them to be truly bilingual from early childhood as neither DH or I speak another language fluently.

Also I will be using sign language with my child from birth as I used to teach Baby Sign classes and I work with deaf people. I know that sign language can really help babies connect with their parents and lessen frustration in early years so we'll be using that too :)

Good luck everyone!
Dinah


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## Welshie

We will, We are both welsh but OH cant really speak it. I can fluently so our baby will be brought up billingually.


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## Amygdala

Wow, quite a few people here. So am I understanding you correctly that most of you will just "use both"? I've been reading up a little bit on bilingualism and I'm a bit worried that I'll find it hard to stick to my mother tongue all the time, when I'm used to speaking English to my DH and friends. But from what I've read, consistency seems to be important. Does anyone have any experiences/advice about that?


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## rae27

Absolutely! My DH is Afrikaans and that is his first lang (even though he doesn't really get the chance to speak it over here in the the UK). I can understand a fair bit of spoken/written afrikaans but I am now seriously rusty and need to get better again! We'd love our kids to be able to speak Afrikaans, after all all of their fathers side of the family are Afrikaans. We will also raise them with influences from the whole Afrikaans culture, alongside my English background.
As far as books on the subject go, I've not come across any but would be interested in finding some!


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## rae27

Absolutely! My DH is Afrikaans and that is his first lang (even though he doesn't really get the chance to speak it over here in the the UK). I can understand a fair bit of spoken/written afrikaans but I am now seriously rusty and need to get better again! We'd love our kids to be able to speak Afrikaans, after all all of their fathers side of the family are Afrikaans. We will also raise them with influences from the whole Afrikaans culture, alongside my English background.
As far as books on the subject go, I've not come across any but would be interested in finding some!


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## MissWaiting

yes depending on where me and my OH live then we will if we stay where i live our kids will be english and welsh and also irish and if we live in ireland will be jsut english and irish but we are concidering a move to germany when he gets out the army so if thats the case will be english and german.
as iam welsh and my mans english i want them if we live in wales or ireland to know the language we were taught as kids even thought i cant remeber most but it was brill when i was small to come home and teach my mum the little bit of welsh i ahd lernt that day as my mum couldnt speak welsh so i want that for my children if i can.


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## Welshie

If you google TWF, They have lots of info on raising children bilingually, I do a lot of work with them where i live. 

They are focused on welsh/english but it gives you an idea.

Here is the link :- https://www.twfcymru.com/en-gb/Adviceforparentsandthefamily/Pages/default2.aspx


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## Faerie

There's a BnB group for kids with two languages, you'll find more people there :)

My daughter is growing up with English and Italian at home. I speak with her in English and DH in Italian. She hears English a lot from friends, and Italian from family. She hears DH and I speak mostly in English, though when he's talking to her he'll talk to me in Italian too, and she hears us both speak French. She'll be in a French school, although we're in a bilingual area and they will learn in French and German. It sounds a lot but there are a lot of other kids here in the same boat and I know she'll master all four as long as she continually hears them, I think it's an amazing opportunity for her. DH speaks 5 languages because he grew up with them, so jealous!


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## morri

I have read quite a lot as well and I don't see problems in my term, seeing as we'll mostly talk english, and every other in germany talk German


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## rubygirl01

This maybe a little off from what you mean but my family speaks both Enlish and sign language. When my first son was born he lost his hearing at about a year and after surgery regained it at 3 1/2. When my second son was born he has a speech issue that did not allow him to speak until he was almost 4 years old. I taught him to sign at 2 and he caught on fast. I have to say i LOVE it. I love that i can speak to my children and they feel special because not everyone can understand.


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## sleepinbeauty

That's me! OH and I speak English around the house but he was born in present-day Ukraine so his family speaks Russian (I'm getting there....) We want our kids to be able to speak both.


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## caz81

yeah we are raising Sapphira with 2 languages as my dh is Indian, she will learn English & Tamil xx


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## welshwarriors

I think signlanguage for small children is amazing. I got taught the basics in college for my diploma and used it when I work in a placement with special needs children. 
I will defo try LO with it and see how he gets on with it. 

I think the problem is, we live in the UK therefore he will go to school here and needs to speak English well, therefore if I speak German the whole time he won't pick English up. Hubby sees him 30 mins a day and at the weekend, that can't be a good basis for learning English properly. If that makes sense. Therefore I speak both languages during the day, I might speak German with him at breakfast and lunch and the rest of the time English or the other way around.


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## Faerie

welshwarriors said:


> I think signlanguage for small children is amazing. I got taught the basics in college for my diploma and used it when I work in a placement with special needs children.
> I will defo try LO with it and see how he gets on with it.
> 
> I think the problem is, we live in the UK therefore he will go to school here and needs to speak English well, therefore if I speak German the whole time he won't pick English up. Hubby sees him 30 mins a day and at the weekend, that can't be a good basis for learning English properly. If that makes sense. Therefore I speak both languages during the day, I might speak German with him at breakfast and lunch and the rest of the time English or the other way around.

I've been using a little sign language with Sofia. No idea whether she understands or not, she's not repeated one back to me yet but then I probably haven't been that good about using it. The oxbridge baby learn to talk DVD uses baby sign language and Sofia loves it.

Ok, I hope you don't mind me coming back and pushing my opinion on the whole languages bit again :flower: I would strongly recommend that you stick with German. It is recommended by language therapists to stick to speaking to your child in one language, apart from that though let me just share some experiences:

My DH's mother is Mexican, and she spoke Spanish with him until he went to school, his first language was Spanish (although he would hear Italian from his father and family, his parents spoke together in Spanish). His paternal grandmother couldn't see the point in him learning Spanish, and basically forced his mum to stop. So they started speaking Italian all the time when he went to school. Within a year he didn't speak a word of Spanish and it wasn't until he was a teen and spent summers in Mexico with his other grandmother that he learnt it again. Now he is pretty much fluent in Spanish but he's not truly bilingual like he should be, Italian is his mother tongue.

My best friends parents were both Finnish immigrants living in Canada. A lot of the family had moved over and she pretty much didn't hear any English until she went to school, she certainly didn't speak any. English is now her mother tongue, once she realised it was what her friends at school were speaking she stopped speaking Finnish at home and her sister and her started speaking English together. Her parents obliged and spoke English with them. She can speak some Finnish, but she's had to work really hard as an adult to relearn it (once she realised it was a shame she'd not kept it up).

I was an aupair to a French/German family, they always spoke French together. The mother had spoken German with the kids when they were babies but didn't really keep it up and spoke mostly French, she would generally only speak German when she was telling them off! Not surprising they didn't want to learn it. 

There are a lot of expat families in the area I live in. In France 99% of the expat parents don't speak any French, yet their children go to kindergarten and pick it up within a few weeks and are soon helping their parents out in the stores! I suppose Sofia is lucky both her parents speak French so that we can help with homework etc, but I'm not speaking it with her at home because she will spend so much of her school years (and beyond if we stay here) speaking French.

Ok, obviously your baby, do it your way! But I just wanted to share, and I think if you truly want him to be able to speak German properly you should stick with it and have faith that he is going to be hearing a lot of English and will not have any issues, he's much much more likely to end up not speaking German.


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## morri

I also met a little kid at the cricket tounrament that was in Fallingbostel recently, who spoke english(english parent) but went to a german Kidnergarten so she speaks both fluently. 

I saw a programme which was about sending kids (primary school) age to france and for return send the french child to germany and it was amazing how these young kids learnt the langauge that fast, after one month they went from not understanding a single word to speaking the langauge fluently .
Unless practised and spoken one forgets a language again soon though


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## L005

We will be raising our kids bilingual - French and English. My husband was brought up bilingual and his parents spoke both languages at home with him. His father spoke French and mother spoke English (mostly) and he had no problem learning both languages at the same time :)


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## sun

Just my 2 cents here - but if you live in an english society and you want LO to learn another language, just speak to him/her in that language. Don't bother trying to use both. They will learn the other in school/daycare/society and they learn so fast that they can easily catch on. This is what everyone I know with fully bilingual kids did. :flower:


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## laural11

We will be raising out kids bilingually (hopefully). We'll be living overseas doing development work and would love for our kids to kids to have normal friendships with the local kids. While it is both mine and DH's hope that we will also learn the language where we live, we have more hope for our kids to to learn by sending them to local schools. I figure if they're hearing all one language at school and with their friends, and we speak english at home, they will be bilingual


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## sleepinbeauty

caz81 said:


> yeah we are raising Sapphira with 2 languages as my dh is Indian, she will learn English & Tamil xx

The girls speak Telegu with their grandparents. I'm trying to learn (and Willow teaches me a little. "Grandpa" and little words like that.) Their alphabet is so different from any other language I've worked with before...


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## caz81

sleepinbeauty said:


> caz81 said:
> 
> 
> yeah we are raising Sapphira with 2 languages as my dh is Indian, she will learn English & Tamil xx
> 
> The girls speak Telegu with their grandparents. I'm trying to learn (and Willow teaches me a little. "Grandpa" and little words like that.) Their alphabet is so different from any other language I've worked with before...Click to expand...

Im learning a few words of Tamil so far, i dont know how to read or write it though & neither does hubby (even though it was his first language) as has a completely different alphabet! Will the girls learn to read & write Telegu as well as speak it?


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## amyclaire

oh and i are both english so we wont be bringing our children up to be bilingual.
however, im just finishing my degree in english language and linguistics so ive done a lot of modules based around 1st/2nd lang acquisition, multilingualism etc.
what other language will your children be brought up with?

basically the best way to start, even when your baby cannot produce language, you and your oh should speak both languages and the child learns to perceive it before using it. the more exposure to both languages the better. of course if your child goes to an english school it becomes more difficult as this is all entirely in english. in many foreign schools there are a lot of non native speakers - so the native language is still used but english is maintained as a lingua franca (a language used to communicate regardless of native language), so this would definitely be more beneficial for encouraging bilingualism.

if your child were to be educated in england with entirely english lessons etc --
the "critical period" (the age in which children learn language the easiest) is said to be the years leading up to puberty, so the more exposure to the non native language the better :)

hope that gives a bit of insight :) 
pm if you have any qs xxxx


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## Brightonpixie

I will be raising my child/children bilingual. I am French English bilingual and studies show that children who speak more than one language are more creative, sociable and develop better. There is a great book on Amazon you can get it is call 'the bilingual edge' 

take care 

BrightonPixie


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## wtt :)

welshwarriors said:


> I want him to have the opportunity to choose later on where he's gonna live and work. And the other big factor is that my family is German, my uncle, my mum and cousins speak english bt my grandparents not so it would be a shame if LO wouldn't be able to communicate with them.

We pretty much have the same reasons, except that I'm Austrian but we speak German too :haha: 
I grew up speaking German and English from middle school onwards and am really glad that I"m fluent in both languages. I feel that in this world as it is now and will be in the future, the more languages you know the better. 
My DH grandma is Japanese and barely knows any English and DH barely knows any Japanese so basically, they can't communicate because of a language barrier. It's such a pity but he grew up here and she lives in Japan. Don't want my kids to go through that.


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## Debberann

My husband and his family are Laotian so the girls already understand and speak some Laotian.....definitely planning on further encouragement of it as well.


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## Miki

My DD is trilingual. I speak Malay to her, DH speaks Hungarian. She learns English from books, tv programmes, when DH and I speak to each other and of course we too speak to her in English if we aren't speaking to her in our native language. So far, she's faring well.


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## Avalnda

I'm hoping to learn french a bit better, took it in high school, but didn't really learn it. I want my children to speak both french and english. i'd LOVE to teach them japanese, but that's a bit difficult.. it's my grandmother's first language, i don't know why she never taught my mom, i wish they would have and it could have been passed to me. :shrug:


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## Miki

Avalnda said:


> I'm hoping to learn french a bit better, took it in high school, but didn't really learn it. I want my children to speak both french and english. i'd LOVE to teach them japanese, but that's a bit difficult.. it's my grandmother's first language, i don't know why she never taught my mom, i wish they would have and it could have been passed to me. :shrug:

I suppose people those days didn't know or realize the importance of being a polyglot. :shrug: My dad is half Japanese half Indian, he can't speak any Japanese but he can speak 5 languages. He picked them up while being friends with people. But he didn't teach any of his kids those languages. Well, except English. I'm learning Japanese myself right now. I still teach my dd some Japanese words, and watch some Japanese anime or drama with her. Just to get her used to the language. Who knows it may help her learn the language easier if and when she is interested to learn later on.


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## aubreee

im liking this thread a lot, interesting to read!
i don't have any children yet, but they are gonna grow up multilingual
i am german and OH is indian, they speak english at home tho. but eventually we are planning on settling down in india so i guess the LO's are gonna pick up some Hindi or marathi with their friends. I am already excited to see them grow up multilingual, i wish i had been growing up with as many languages as possible around, it is such a benefit!
my cousins children grew up german-spanish speaking and when they were little they would mix the languages in sentences and words and it was just cute.
But how many languages do you think are ok to have around and when does it get too confusing?


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## calm

Yes, I will be doing so. I will be speaking English which is my first native tongue all the time to LO, but not sure yet what to do about DH, if we will all speak in English, or if he will speak in Spanish and maybe all of us speak Spanish when together, or the other way round. I know he/she won't have any trouble with Spanish because as soon as they start preschool Spanish will become his/her first language (I've seen many cases and the LO always learns perfectly the language of the country where you live just from going school and living in that country). My friend's daughter had an English nanny, and her and her DH only spoke English to their daughter, all storybooks, tele ect was exclusively in English. When she was 3 she started preschool, and now her Spanish is perfect and her English has a bit of an accent and is starting to lag behind her Spanish. I know that I will really have to keep up the English, promoting English books and films ect, but at the end of the day, I am not sure if their English will ever be as native as I would l like.

My own bilingual situation was different. Born in England, only spoken in English until we came to live in Spain when I was ten. I then acquired Spanish naturally at school though English continued at home. I am now completely bilingual and don't have any accent in either languages (trilingual really as we have a local language (not dialect as it derived from Latin not Spanish) )

When I did my PhD in linguistics I did some subjects on bilingualism, and even read books on how to bring up children in a bilingual environment. Can't remember much now but I will read about come the time.

I have seen many children and adolescents get angry at having to speak a different language to parents or one of their parents, and it can become a bit of a fight, especially as they get older. Some will only respond in the language from the country they live in even if parent speaks in their NL. You have to make clear rules and limits, and make sure the LO sees all the positive points to speaking two languages (when old enough to what to know whys) 

I think while you at home, its quite "easy". But once you are at the park, and speaking another language, from that moment it feels like you are creating a barrier between you, LO and the rest of the mummies and LO's. However, if you speak the language of the country you are in, LO might one to extend this to other environments. 

Oh, and then what about homework. More than likely it will be me helping them (kids get plenty of homework in Spain), so it would be sooo much easier to switch to Spanish then.

Its something I will give a lot of thought do and I will have a plan of action. I always speak Spanish to DH, so I can't imagine switching to speaking English with him, its just doesn't feel natural. Maybe it will be Spanish as our common language, and English just with me.

I teach English as a foreign language so I know what I am letting myself in for: a lot of bloody hard work! That is if you want them not only to understand, but acquire the vocabulary and grammar of a near native. Gosh, I feel tired just talking about it!


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## Yuin

We're planning on raising our children to be bilingual in English and Mandarin Chinese. I was born and bred in Southern China and I'd like my children to be able to communicate with my Chinese speaking family... A friend of Mine is speaking her native Mandarin Chinese to her 3- year- old daughter all the time while her husband is speaking English to her. Now their daughter can effortlessly understand both languages. So we would like to use the OPOL method(the One Parent One Language) for teaching them to speak two languages.


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## buterflymomma

We are raising our children bilingual. My husband is Mexican and I am white. He speaks fluent Spanish and we want our kids to as well. Plus I think it would be very beneficial for them when they get older.


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## Septie

We are raising our son trilingually. From birth, I have spoken to him in German, OH in French. When OH and I both talk with LO, it is in French(OH is just starting to pick up some German by listening to me, while I am fairly fluent in French). When OH and I talk, we communicate in English (hoping to switch that to French eventually). We do think LO won't have any problem picking up English on the playground, in pre-school etc, and from what I have read, there will be a tendency for English to become the dominant language. Therefore, we will try to spend vacations with grandparents to encourage language development.
So far, it has been pretty easy:thumbup: I think the hard work will come when it's time to teach reading and writing and grammar, and to overcome the pressures from his English-speaking environment.


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## Minkadanger

We will do this as well, My DH is Taiwanese (Mandarin Chinese) and I speak english. I'm trying to learn but let me tell you Mandarin is tough! We would like to have our children be fluent in both.


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## morri

buterflymomma said:


> We are raising our children bilingual. My husband is Mexican and I am white. He speaks fluent Spanish and we want our kids to as well. Plus I think it would be very beneficial for them when they get older.

Sorry but it just sounded funny to me :haha: bein white does not really say anything about the language you speak huh ? Anyway mexicans arent dark either are they?(well I met some mexican girls in a youth hostel and I would not have been able t tell whether they are mexican or spanish..)


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## lily28

I'm bilingual and so is DH so we will have trilingual kids lol!


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## EllaUmbrella

Yes, I'm planning to raise ours trilingual - English, Cantonese, and ASL. I will just have to remember to keep using sign language! :thumbup:


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## SIEGAL

I only speak one language and it kills me -- no matter how hard I try (years of foreign language study - 2 different ones) I can't get past the level of a 2 yr old. My husband on the other hand absorbs languages and so does his entire family. My husband speaks fluently - English, French, Hebrew, German/Swiss german. He also gets by in a few languages like Italian and Yiddish. My husbands father speaks 9 Languages and his mother 4 or 5. I plan on speaking to baby in English and of course growing up in US he/she will know it. My husband plans on speaking to baby in Hebrew. Also, living in Miami I really am suffering with my half-assed grasp of Spanish b/c its hard to get a job here/talk to people whom you should be able to interact with on a daily basis (i.e. cashier) without knowing spanish. So -- I think I will immerse my child in that early as Spanish is taking over South Florida and eventually the United States by the time my child is in their golden years.


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## sarah1989

We plan on raising our future children bilingual. I come from a French Canadian background, and have spoken French for the majority of my life. I think it is important that DH and I pass this on to our children, as not only is it their heritage as well, but it may be very helpful for future jobs they may be applying for. 

I hope to send our children to a French school as well to get them started educationally at a young age, but around here it is very hard to get into full French schools, so we will have to see!


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## Bucket

I only speak English and a little bit of French, but the French I do know I have known since I was tiny because my grandmother started teaching me languages before I could walk! I found it really, really helpful when it came to learning languages at school.

I'm hoping, BrightonPixie, that you might teach both me and Tinysaurus to speak French. :) xx


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## Brightonpixie

Off course. I have been reading the bilingual edge and there are a lot of tips for learning language at a young age. I believe from birth is good...we should talk about mother/baby lessons! x:happydance:


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## Bucket

Definitely. :)

How are you feeling? My little rascal kept me awake all night again last night kicking my cervix and bladder. I'm starting to feel like a zombie!


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## Brightonpixie

Bucket said:


> Definitely. :)
> 
> How are you feeling? My little rascal kept me awake all night again last night kicking my cervix and bladder. I'm starting to feel like a zombie!

Very tired today, i did not get a good night sleep either. I am thinking of going to the movies at 1pm to see Gainsbourg...wanna come? Still up to go swimming later? 

Have you asked other ladies on here about an overactive baby? xx


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## Bucket

Yeah, posted a thread earlier about it. Still up for swimming, but no time for the cinema I'm afraid (see Facebook). :) xx


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## inkdchick

Yes if it ever happens as my Hubby is Italian so yes and i can only talk so much and get by so i will be learning at the same time LOL


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## Sparklegirl

*Wow, what an amazing thread, our kids will speak English it my first language & dh is dutch so they would have to learn that too, but they will pick that up in school anyway & ofcourse afrikaans, but its going to be hard with dutch & afrikaans coz its kinda similar.*


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## sleepinbeauty

On top of English and Russian, I'd like to pass on Spanish as well. It is so useful in America these days.


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## Elveneye

Yes, we are.
My husband is Scottish and I'm Finnish.
Unfortunately my husband, like many other Scots, doesn't speak or understand any scottish gaelic so that we must exclude for now. (I'm studying the language in my free time)

So yeah.. My husband speaks English to Sophia, I speak to her in Finnish (most of the time, sometimes it's too easy to forget). We are hoping and working towards making her bilingual, mostly to respect both of our cultures and roots. Also because not everyone in my family speaks English. I could not live with myself knowing that I've raised my child(ren) so that they can't communicate properly with my side of the family :cry:

We are not entirely sure how this whole process "should" be done, we are kinda going with the gut. He speaks his language, I speak mine. The home language of course is English, because we live in Scotland and because my husband's Finnish isn't too good yet. But, to maintain the balance, I read a lot of Finnish books to her, listen to Finnish music and talk to her a lot in Finnish too :) Hopefully this will work! We have also been planning on making sure that she will do one year of school in Finland, if we live here, or in here if we decide to move over to Finland before then.

Nice to see so many bilingual (or more) families here! :flower:


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## July28th

We will hopefully have a bilingual family too! I'm from the UK and my husband's from Romania. I've heard that each parent should speak to the child in their mother tongue, but we might find that hard to stick to sometimes, as we both speak English and Romanian!


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## wtt :)

digging this back out lol... any updates? Our son has been growing up bilingually. i speak German with him, DH speaks English with him. He understands both well, speaks both but prefers English (i don't blame him cause it's easier!) :lol:


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## arturia

I'm hoping to raise my future child bilingual German, but this is going to involve improving my German myself and asking my mom to speak it with him/her.


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## wtt :)

arturia said:


> I'm hoping to raise my future child bilingual German, but this is going to involve improving my German myself and asking my mom to speak it with him/her.

That's awesome! German is a very hard language to learn so if s/he gets to grow up with it, even better!


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## arturia

wtt :) said:


> arturia said:
> 
> 
> I'm hoping to raise my future child bilingual German, but this is going to involve improving my German myself and asking my mom to speak it with him/her.
> 
> That's awesome! German is a very hard language to learn so if s/he gets to grow up with it, even better!Click to expand...

The studying I've done seemed to indicate it's pretty easy from the German perspective, but on the other hand I'm always completely lost trying to read anything on forums.


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## wtt :)

arturia said:


> wtt :) said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> arturia said:
> 
> 
> I'm hoping to raise my future child bilingual German, but this is going to involve improving my German myself and asking my mom to speak it with him/her.
> 
> That's awesome! German is a very hard language to learn so if s/he gets to grow up with it, even better!Click to expand...
> 
> The studying I've done seemed to indicate it's pretty easy from the German perspective, but on the other hand I'm always completely lost trying to read anything on forums.Click to expand...

haha well it's not as hard as Chinese but yeah.... :winkwink:


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## M&S+Bump

We had intentions of trying to be a bilingual household, but I was struggling enough after #1 came along that it soon fell by the way side - I left Finland at the age of 10 and we haven't really been back much, other than one single year spent living there in my teens and the occasional few weeks for holidays. I speak, read and understand it fine, but apparently the speech heavily depends on another person who also speaks it being there to keep it flowing. Faced with a new baby and no-one else in the house, I quickly decided it was better to speak to him in English as that came much more naturally, than not speak to him at all, which is what I found was happening. So I gave up on it and have no intention of revisiting the thought - we're never moving back there, my husband doesn't speak it, all relatives we might visit speak very good English. If it was Chinese or Spanish (or even French or German), anything that might actually be useful, that might be different..


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