Anyone planning to raise bilingual children?

[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

 

[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

 

[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.

 

[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

 

[sleepinbeauty]

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...

 

[caz81]

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...

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?

 

[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

 

[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

 

[wtt :)]

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
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.

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[Miki]

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.

I suppose people those days didn't know or realize the importance of being a polyglot. 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.

 

[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?

 

[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!

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[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 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.

 

[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.

 

[morri]

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 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..)