–
We are a multilingual family, not even bilingual, but trilingual. This means we usually have three languages flying around in the house at any one time- English, Hungarian and Dutch. My mother tongue is Hungarian, Oh-so-lovely-Daddy is Dutch and neither of us speaks the other’s language, so we speak English. We met, married and started a family in England, so it all sort of makes sense.
Early on in our relationship we had already decided that we both wanted to pass on our heritage, including our mother tongue, to our children. We’d seen friends bringing up their children multilingual (mostly bilingual though) and I had experienced learning a language at a very young age. I was 4 when we moved to Australia and went from no English to fluent in 6 months (I kid you not! …and my younger sister was even faster.) Since then I have attempted to learn other languages too (Hindi, Russian, Spanish, German and Dutch), but never got anywhere with them really. This has made me even more determined to pass on the gift of an extra language, and with that the insight into another culture, to my children.
So when Little Miss was born in 2007 we embarked on living in a multilingual household. Here’s what we have done so far:
– Oh-so-lovely-Daddy and I ONLY speak in our mother tongue to the Littlins. This holds true for inside the home and outside, with friends or amongst ourselves. The only time we break this rule is when the Littlins are playing with other English speaking children and our message is meant for not just our child, but the other child too. Something that will affect the other child, for example “Little Miss please come here for a moment to put your sunhat on”. As soon as I am addressing my child only, like explaining something, I will swap back to Hungarian and Oh-so-lovely-Daddy to Dutch. (He and I still speak English to each other, though sometimes if it’s a 3-way conversation one or both of the other languages will be mixed in.) We have done this since birth.
– We have books in all three languages, but I will often “read” an English story in Hungarian (translating it on the fly). We have actually read very little English to the Littlins. In preparation for Little Miss starting school in September, I now give them a choice of what language they want the story to be read in. Their choice varies.
– We have lots of Walt Disney classics and other cartoons on multilingual DVDs, mostly Hungarian/ English. I have tried as much as possible to limit television time to watching these. However, CBeebies has such educational value in some of it’s programs, that I do put this on too. (I’ll touch on this a bit later.)
– We have enrolled both Littlins from the age of one into nursery 1-2 days a week (despite me being a stay at home mum), this was to get them interacting with other children and to be exposed to a purely English environment too. I knew, from my own experience, that English would not be a problem. I knew even this limited introduction to English will help them communicate fluently in it as they started talking.
Have we seen any negative impact of our choice? Well possibly:
– Both learnt to speak just slightly later- I’d say Little Miss was just above the average age for learning to talk, whereas Little Man was closer to the bottom quarter percentile.
– Initially, it was only Oh-so-lovely-Daddy and I who understood them, as they would come out with trilingual sentences. This made it difficult for carers and frustrating for the Littlins.
– Their vocabulary in each language is slightly more limited than their peers, (but adding the total number of words together, they are probably more advanced than the average.)
However, at the age of four and two and a half we have two very vocal children, who will switch from one language to the other at the drop of a hat. They can communicate with both sides of the family, which we are overjoyed by (and so are they!)
In fact, Little Miss loves languages so much she is eagerly learning sign language and her favourite programme by far is Mr Tumble. (We had done some signing with both of them as babies to help bridge the languages, maybe that’s why she loves it so much.)
The next challenge is school and learning to read and write in all three languages. I expect, as Little Miss will be in an English speaking environment most of the time from now on, our efforts to preserve and build on her current skills will become more difficult and require even more CONSISTENCY from us.
Are you raising your children multilingual? How are you doing it? Do you have any hints and tips to share?
I’d love to hear from other parents on how they are tackling raising multilingual children.
(if you have a related blog post please feel free to link to it in the comments section)
I’ve learned so much about you in this post! Growing up we were a bi-lingual family as my mum and dad are from Kenya and India, respectively. So we all learned Gujerati and English growing up. We had bits of Swahili thrown in and oddly fully learnt Urdu / Hindi. My hubby’s ethnic origini is Pakistani so his other language is punjabi. I’d love to teach our LO all 3 or 4 languages and we just speak to him
In every language all the time so hopefully he will pick them all up. The difference from when I was growing up is that our dominant language is English so I do wonder whether he will be a true bi or trilingual, rather than speak English mainly and just have knowledge of the others… If you know what I mean. Hmmm…possibly too mch pondering at 3am!!
I think it’s easier to stick to a single language per parent, as that takes away confusion for the Littlins. It sort of gives them a “container”: Mummy’s language is … Daddy’s language is… And when English becomes their dominant language (which it will, growing up in an English speaking environment) you can still ask them to use “your” language, instead of the easy option, English.
If we had 3-4 languages I would choose the ones you are most confident in and possibly the most diverse, then expose them to the others via other channels- TV, grandparents, etc.
What do you think?
We are a bi-lingual family. French and English. OH and I speak our respective languages with the children. French is the language in the part if Switzerland where we live, so my speaking English with the children is the real challenge. It’s difficult for me as I keep lapsing into french myself and have to make a concious effort to stay on track. We used to be tri-lingual, speaking exclusively German with our darling dog (What? She was German afterall). Since she passed away, we often use german as a ‘secret’ language when we want to discuss a topic without the children understanding…so of course little miss is picking up German rapidly as her curiosity gets the better of her 😉
Like you we have films and books in English/German/French and often give the children the choice of language.
Now we’ve started listening to spanish CDs in the car. Having more than one language makes you want to learn more and more 🙂
It’s all fun…and sometimes headache inducing…but I’m delighted to hear them chatter I’m which ever language they choose. 🙂
Headache inducing…. I know what you mean. Friends of the family have got used to it, but I still see them looking blank at us at times.
I find sticking to Hungarian difficult as well. English just comes so much more naturally by now. I can definitely express myself better in English by now.
How are you dealing with reading and writing? Does it make it easier that it’s English which will feature strongly in school too?
My daughter went to a gaelic-speaking primary from p1-p4, and speaks fluent Gaelic as a result. Though none of the rest of the family speak it, I was stunned to see how easily her little brain adapted and it remains one of the smartest choices I ever made for her. Sadly we moved away before my son could start, but I’ve no doubt that all children should be taught at this age in some kind of immersion atmosphere for some other tongue – and one day will be! Their brains are so ready for it that the alternative seems silly.
So true! I remember from my own experience how quickly I picked English up. … and you know what? Even if your daughter doesn’t actively remember much of Gaelic later in life, she will subconsciously retain it and it will help her thinking and picking up other languages.
This is really funny! I was just speaking today to a staff member at a Children’s Centre that I had just done a TinyTalk baby signing taster at about how beneficial using sign language in a multilingual family can be! And then I come home and find you have posted here about using sign language to help your children link the different languages!
For some random reason which I won’t go into here, my children are learning Italian at the moment at an after school club (we are not Italian, hence the randomness!). My daughter is 7 and has been doing it for about two years. My son has recently joined the class, he is 2 and a half, and to help him I have been using sign language to link the two languages. I didn’t really make a decision to do this but as I am a TinyTalk teacher, I guess it is second nature to sign!
I think being able to speak a different language to your own and to develop a love for language is a wonderful thing! I am hoping both my two will be able to speak Italian together and maybe learn some more languages (my daughter has very basic Spanish lessons at school)…despite me hardly being able to pick it up even though I sit in the classes!! :oD
Our situation is a bit different as both my husband and I speak Portuguese, living in an English speaking country. But, and that is an interesting case, because we have very different accents and the use of our vocabulary is so diverse, I am usually amused by my daughter’s understanding as she is only 15 mo. I also noticed that she tends to say the same words copying either one or the other accent, but for some words she sticks to Dad’s accent. I wonder if is because of the timber of his voice or because she overvalues what he says in general, as I am the main carer and therefore I talk to her much more frequently (and yes, I am a chatterbox!)
The other point is, these children they do pick up languages so quickly that even little exposition to them will do. My daughter loves Mr Tumble as well, and her first English work was thank you, followed very closed by her first signs. Now she is able to sign about half the words she uses the most, like “sorry”, “done”, “hungry”, “tired”, “thank you” and “please”. We opted for English sign language instead of the Portuguese because of the basic reasons – easier to build a bridge between the two in an English speaking environment.
Lastly, I wanted to ignite the discussion by asking if somebody was thought of introducing early reading and, if so, in which language did you do so?
PS- it is not easy to find books in our language here, let alone DVD’s. Sad 🙁
What do you mean by- “introducing early reading “? As in reading to her now or getting her to read earlier than her going to school?
I really mean teaching children to read as in “your baby can read” programmes. I was an early reader and writer although my mum never taught me and I still have lovely memories of my parents’ books and my urgency in reading all of them. I really wonder if we should let them go with the flow or introduce letters and words and would appreciate any comments.
I put this out to Twitter & Facebook followers and in general the feedback was to go with the flow, create the opportunity for the child and the curiosity to drive the learning. However, the word of warning I got from mums with older children and teachers was that if the child is above their peer group in their reading ability when they start school, it may lead to boredom in school and behavioural issues. Tread with caution from that point of view.
Will be interested to hear how you decide and get on.
I think its fantastic that your children are learning to speak different languages, children are like little sponges and soak up all the information at a young age.I wish schools would teach a foreign language as soon as they enter school and I think basic sign languague should be taught too. I did a sign language course and taught my friends’three year old the signs I was learning and she picked it up quicker than me.Even a children’s tv programme that taught a foriegn language for under fives would be great.
My friend has a two year old who is speaking English and his mothers language Urdu and he is doing so well.
Your children are equiped with the tools for learning more languages at school, well done!
Thank you for your comments. You’ll have so much fun teaching grandchild sign language then! 🙂