Is your child bilingual? How did you teach them?

Question

How do you raise a child to speak 2 languages without confusing them? Any advice? We want our child to communicate with BOTH sets of grandparents.

Thank you! :D

Thank you. I'm Gaelic, Irish and English my husband is Hindi, Telugu and English. We speak English and Hindi at home and Gaelic and Telugu to our respective parents. We don't know where to start when the baby comes! Due in December.

Answer 1

I'm bilingual myself, what my parents did was: they taught me Czech (their language) and in kindergarten I knew only Czech. I couldn't speak English at all, and my teacher got worried. However, in grade 1 I started speaking English. I think the child will quickly catch on.

Answer 2

Well, I was brought up speaking Greek as my first language but at around the age of 4 or 5 my parents started giving me "Language Lessons" for an hour at a time for a day. They had all these little tricks to help me learn English. They also somehow managed to teach me Czech and French later on in life....around age 10 or 11. A lot of my family is from all around the world and most of them are first generation so they don't know English very well. I needed to learn a lot of languages to converse with them.
Just think of a word to teach your child how to say in 2 different languages and work from there. Depending on the language you want your child to speak , you can have him or her see a special language tutor especially for younger children. Good luck!!

Answer 3

Spanish first or English first will not matter. Humans learn in things known as "concepts". E.g. you know that the word "spoon" will become "spoons" when there is more than one. Furthermore, English is very similar to Spanish. Why? Because it uses close concepts. Learning Japanese and English would be harder because the two don't share the same concepts. Plus, the earlier your child learns the better. Little children are known to learn how to play instruments such as Pianos even at the age of 4. In my opinion, I would teach the kid both. Little children's minds are very underestimated. If anything, their minds are a lot more baffling than a 62 year old mind. Teach the child English first, since that is the most widely distributed language around the world (Source: Guiness World Record). For example, for every hour you teach your child English, you should spare another 10 minutes learning Spanish. "Every little helps". I hope that helps.

Answer 4

Unfortunately nooooooooo. We speak English at home and live in an anglophone environment.
Children do not get confused.
I've heard plenty who were naturally bilingual. Spoken language at home was different that in the outside world.
Might come a time when they get teased at school too....
Or they are just not that interested.
I know a Romanian couple whose kids now refuse to speak Romanian.....althought they understand it.
I know a couple : HK Chinese Lady (with perfect mandarin knowledge) married to a Canadian guy. They adopted a little girl from China. She is (the mother)unable to teach her basic Chinese and enrolled her in Mandarin classes. After 3 years, the kid (not stupid at all) can only still add up to 10 in Mandarin. Refuses to learn.

Ukrainian wife/Scottish father : English.
German father/English mother : English.
Pakistanese couple : kids speak English. (understand a few words though).
Chinese/Chinese : English...........!
I have a long list !

etc.....not always as easy as it seems................

It is one annoying question which is asked of me quite often. And like people putting blame on me.

Real life is more complicated. Peer groups etc....Gets on my nerve when people lecture me.

And just some kids are just different than others .......!! Respect their individuality.....weaknesses/strenghts. Mine can't get around prononciation........never mind grammar !!

Grand-parents live far away.

it is not always true that kids will naturally be born bi-lingual. Some do, some don't. There is just more to it. Won't write a thesis. They actually do absorb quite a lot and do not get confused at all.......they have some kind of compartmentised mind. It is just up to the community, place they live, schools they frequent, classmates and so on. They do have a natural ability to learn languages very fast; unlike adults. Their brains are very open.

At times there are too many dialects too at home....depends on the family.....close closeted or more open to the world.

French speaking mom, English (also gaelic) speaking dad....kid wants to be English !!!!! alright then......!

I tried, and tried when he was younger but.....classmates were sometimes making fun.

But apart from that : Kids do have an extremely open mind and CAN learn many languages and not be confused one bit !

I think it is easy when a couple share a similar language; if mixed....usually one uses the language spoken around to get by instinctively.

All that I hear ........but from experience.......not the truth !

Answer 5

in my case, my dads Chinese my moms Indian, my dad speaks Mandarin, Cantonese, English, Malay, etc, my mom speaks English, Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Malay, Cantonese, Hakka, etc. Dont be surprised in my country (Malaysia) everyone is *at least bilingual. I speak all of the above except Tamil & Telugu

I went to a Chinese-language elementary school but speak english @ home. U child wont have a problem in my country coz everyone around u will start speaking their native tongue (eg malay, tamil, english, various chinese dialects). It's easier in biracial families though, so no worries, u child will pick up fast

Answer 6

Children have the capability to learn faster and to speak difficult and diverse languages. My children are bilingual.... We speak both English and Spanish at home... My kids are 2 & 4 and they have no problems w/ it... I would recommend focusing on one first @ least when he/she is a small baby. but they will learn.... I had the same worry I spoke nothing but English to my kids and then they met the grandparents that spoke nothing but spanish and they caught on. Children are too smart.... take advantage of what you have to make them more well rounded individuals

Answer 7

Raising a bilingual child is not as complicated as one might believe it is. Since my children were born I've committed myself to speaking to them in Spanish. My husband will only speak to them in English. No matter where we are or what we're doing we follow that rule.

Now, when my children speak to me they speak to me in Spanish and to my husband in English. We read books in Spanish & English, we do different activities in Spanish & English...we just live our lives that way!

I'm a dual-language teacher, meaning that at the fifth grade level I teach 50% Spanish & 50% English. The children start out with this "90/10 dual language model" since Kindergarten. No matter where they come from, or what their language backgrounds are, the kids start out in Kinder with classes being 90% Spanish and 10% English...by 5th grade their classes are 50% & 50%. There are different dual language schools available throughout the country.

Some schools are strictly 50%-50%, meaning that K-5th grade they are running a half & half model, some are 90%-10% like mine, and some just have what we call "happy Spanish"...only 45 minutes a day of Spanish. You may always enroll your children in such programs...but I only suggest doing it if they're coming in in either Kinder or 1st and if you'll carry it through until 5th grade.

These schools have great results. When instructed appropriately, children come out bilingual. All the children I've taught at my school have been bililngual (also able to read & write academic Spanish) by the time they get to fifth grade.

My daughter will be entering Kinder at my school next year, and my son, will be entering our pre-school program. Wherever you are in the US, I suggest you look up a similar program. You should also support it as much as you can at home, by providing books in Spanish, and of course, speak Spanish.

Good luck! Stick with it, it's definetly worth it!

Answer 8

I'm trilingual

My parents spoke to me in one language at home, the place we lived in spoke another language (I spoke to that language to friends and people outside of the house) and I learned English in school

It was never confusing for me

Answer 9

we're raising our grandchild to be tri-lingual in English, Japanese & Cantonese.
Children have the capacity to learn many languages as a first language, but they may go through a stage where they intermingle them. Don't worry about this 'cos they quickly learn to code-switch, i.e. which environment requires which language. Like talking to Dad & his family in Cantonese, Japanese with Mum & her family, and English outside in the community.

Answer 10

I'm bilingual. My parents just spoke both English and Spanish to me so I grew up speaking both. Just speak both languages to your child, they'll know how to distinguish them.