Any bilingual babies out there?

[calm]

So I always talk to my babies in English, though we live in Spain and they will go to Spanish school. I actually studied quite a bit about bilingualism when I was doing my PhD courses, but to be honest I can't remember that much, need to refresh and read up about it all again. They do get Spanish input as my parents in law talk to them in Spanish. Wondering if there are any other bilinguals out there?

 

[Boozlebub]

Hi! My DS is being brought up trilingual. I speak English to him, DH speaks Finnish (live here so hears it everywhere) and then DH's father and brother and BIL speak Swedish to him so he hears all three on a daily basis. So far at 1.5 years old he understands maybe 90% of all the English and Finnish and 50% of the Swedish he hears. He only has about 10 words and the majority are English but he has a couple of Finnish words and a couple of Swedish ones as well.

It's amazing seeing him understand in different languages. He can point out all his body parts in both English and Finnish and a few in Swedish. I feel it's such a gift to give him.

 

[Kirsty3051]

Our sons will be brought up speaking English as their first language because we live in the UK. I'm Italian, my family are Italian (obviously) so they'll grow up with a lot of Italian too. My husband HATES when we have conversations in Italian because he only knows the basics. I'm hoping he'll pick bits up as the boys learn

 

[pachamama92]

I'm in Spain too. My DS is 3 and OH is Spanish (with very little English.) I speak to DS in English, OH speaks to him in Spanish and we speak to eacj other in Spanish. Tbh DS speaks Spaniglish but he now seems to be separating the language. Pretty funny what he comes out with sometimes:

"Hay mucho hot!"
"I don't want vamos al school"..
"El birdie no want el cheese"...

He starts school today (state/'bilingual')

So will be interesting to see how things progress!

 

[calm]

Such a lot of lovely variety, we will have to report on how our babies go!

The fact that I have twins, that apparently start speaking later, that are male and premature, and will be bilingual, should all mean late speakers. That is going to stress me out! I'm looking out for the twin language that some twins speak though, if they become fluent in that they will become trilingual

pachamama, so cute and funny the Spanglish! DH and I speak in English together, so see how that goes. Though they will need help with reading/homework in Spanish so I'm going to have to speak Spanish then, not sure how to do that. It is a beautiful gift as Bozzlebub says, but sometimes I wish everything didn't have to be complicated in my life

 

[Perplexed]

We are bringing up our kids bilingual as both dh & I are bilingual. English is more often spoken by dh's siblings than mine- my own family speaks English well but doesn't speak it much at home (except for my youngest brother who mostly speaks English).

Though I think so far dd speaks more of our other language than English but she knows some English too.

 

[Cattia]

My godson is bilingual - he is being brought up in the UK with an English mother and an Italian father. His father speaks Italian to him at home. I think he has been on the slower side to start speaking but can now speak in English and Italian to about the same level. When he goes to Italy he is surrounded by Italian speakers.

 

[LilFooshFoosh]

Ours is going to an all day French school. Both DH and I speak French & English (DH is more fluent in French than I am). Before he started school (last September) we only spoke English to him at home, but taught him colours, numbers, the alphabet etc in French. It took him until the Christmas break before he felt comfortable enough to try speaking French. Now we randomly switch between the two languages at home.

I help DS with his homework so I'm getting a refresher as he goes along.

We've also taught him very minimal bits of German, Lithuanian and Dutch for when he talks to his grandparents and great grandparents.

 

[JumpingIn]

Both British here but I speak French and make an effort to use a lot of French when talking to baby even now at 3 months as I know he is learning how to produce vowel sounds at the moment. I'd say I use 50/50 French-English at home but I'm preparing to step it up to near 100% French once he's around English speakers more. In the womb he loved the sound of German! Unfortunately I barely speak a word except numbers, colours etc

 

[Beanonorder]

We live in China so my kids are being brought up with English and Chinese. My Chinese is rubbish so the nanny speaks Chinese to them and I speak English. I'm also teaching a bit of Afrikaans.

 

[calm]

We live in China so my kids are being brought up with English and Chinese. My Chinese is rubbish so the nanny speaks Chinese to them and I speak English. I'm also teaching a bit of Afrikaans.

Some people I know live in China and they speak Spanish at home, the child has English at school, and Chinese in the rest of circumstances. She took a long while to speak, but now she is fluent in all 3!

 

[Beanonorder]

We live in China so my kids are being brought up with English and Chinese. My Chinese is rubbish so the nanny speaks Chinese to them and I speak English. I'm also teaching a bit of Afrikaans.

Some people I know live in China and they speak Spanish at home, the child has English at school, and Chinese in the rest of circumstances. She took a long while to speak, but now she is fluent in all 3!

I think ds will have that problem. Dd stayed home with either dh until she was almost 2 so her exposure to Chinese was more limited so she learnt English quickly. But ds is home with the nanny and although she speaks English we've asked her to speak Chinese to the kids.

 

[Perplexed]

Ever since reading this thread, I've realized that DD actually knows some words in both languages and if she asks me for something in one language and I don't hear her (or i'm concentrating hard on something that it takes me a while to realize she's talking to me) she repeats it in the other language, lol! But these days sometimes she uses both languages at the same time.

 

[calm]

Ever since reading this thread, I've realized that DD actually knows some words in both languages and if she asks me for something in one language and I don't hear her (or i'm concentrating hard on something that it takes me a while to realize she's talking to me) she repeats it in the other language, lol! But these days sometimes she uses both languages at the same time.

How cute My two are two small at the moment to talk, but they clearly understand both languages. Apparently right in the womb they can distinguish two between languages (don't ask me how research knows that)

 

[SpringCrane]

Unfortunately, my son is growing up with only English. I did want to add that what I learned while studying language acquisition is that it's best to have adults use whichever language they are native speakers of the majority of the time around their kids. They get a much richer exposure to language that way. This was primarily something to teach ESL parents... eg, both parents speak Spanish but are raising their child in the US. A lot of parents want their kids to know English so they only speak English at home, but in fact they're doing their child a disservice.

Not sure if that's helpful information, but just thought I'd share! I'm quite jealous of all the bi- and trilingual babies out there!!