# Anyone with bilingual kids?



## Gremli Skremli

I'm not sure if it's a subject discussed here, but I'll give it a try. Does anyone else have bilingual or multilingual kids? My son is learning Spanish and Norwegian at the same time. He's 2,5 and still doesn't talk much, he has around 80 words and hardly makes phrases.
How long did it take your kids to start talking well? (In phrases) And how did they behave in daycare/school? He won't talk at all in daycare! We moved from Norway to Spain three months ago.


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## la reine victoria

My brother, who is English, married a German girl. They lived in Munich. When their daughter was born, right from the start my brother spoke to her only in English and my sister-in-law in German. So she grew up being completely bi-lingual. School was no problem at all. She went on to learn French, Spanish and Italian so speaks five languages. She is now a successful doctor of medicine, with a child of her own.

I must add that my brother was fluent in Russian, German, Italian, French and, of course, English.

Don't worry about your son, he will start chatting away when he is ready. He is just adapting to his new surroundings and culture and he is still very young. The move must have been a big upheaval for all of you.

My first son was very lazy about speaking.  He understood things very well but wouldn't say anything, just made noises.  Suddenly, when he was around 2.5, he said 'I'd like some orange juice Mummy!'  He is grown up now but never stops talking. 

GOOD LUCK FOR THE FUTURE!


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## elroy

I don't have a bilingual kid but I was one. I grew up speaking Arabic at home and English at school. 

How long did it take me to start speaking? Well, by five I was fluent in Arabic; that's when I started speaking English. Within a year or so I had no problems speaking English. I had no problems at school; the switch between languages was natural and subconscious for me. 

Let me know if you have any other questions. I think it's wonderful that your child is going to be bilingual. And in two of the most beautiful languages ever.  ¡Qué fin!


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## Jana337

You will benefit from reading this thread (yes, I see, not exactly what you want).

Jana


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## cuchuflete

Greetings GS,

My sons grew up in an odd sort of bi-lingual household, with both parents native AE speakers (assuming one accepts Californian as an English variant!).  I spoke nothing but Spanish with them, and got reinforcement from a Columbian baby sitter.

My eldest began to speak Spanish at about 10 months and was using complete sentences by the time he was a year old.
English beyond single words followed, starting at around one year of age.

My second child barely spoke at all until he was nearly two, and then burst into compete paragraphs in both languages.

Their mother learned Spanish from hearing us chatter.

They both had no troubles with English in Montesorri pre-school, starting at about age 2.5 to 3.  By age 5, they were embarassed to speak Spanish with me in front of their monolingual schoolmates, so we reserved it for home, car, and visits to Spain.


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## Gremli Skremli

Jana337 said:
			
		

> You will benefit from reading this thread (yes, I see, not exactly what you want).
> 
> Jana


 
Thanks, but you're right, not exactly what I wanted. In Norway we're a bit spolied language-wise, since the kids learn up to three foreign languages at school, and you're a wimp if you only speak Norwegian and English. 
I must say I find it funny how people here in Spain are obsessed about getting their kids into expensive bilingual preschools. My son is taught English, and he's not 3 yet! In this case I see it as a cheap sales trick from the preschool, especially when I see how it's taught. 
It's great to be able to grow up bilingual, but really the school should take the responsibility of making sure every child get to learn languages, not only those who have parents who are foreign (and willing to teach their native language!), fluent enough in a foreign language to teach it, or rich enough to send them to a bilingual school or preschool. We wouldn't be able to...


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## valerie

My children speak French, Spanish and Catalan. I speak to them in French and their father in Spanish, at pre-school and with friends they speak Catalan. 
Doctors said to me they may speak late (3 years or later), but actually we were not very worried about that, and they all began with full sentences at 2.

My daughter was raised in French and Spanish only, till 2,5  years, and then entered a catalan speaking school. She did not understand a word at that time, so her strategy was to stop any effort to learn how to speak (French or Spanish) and focus on Catalan. During 3 months she almost stopped speaking any language, although she was adapting quite well at school. And for Christmas, she started speaking again and progressing in all 3 languages.

I think your son is in a similar situation, you should talk to the teachers and try to analyse other criterias of adaptation of your son than language: Does he play with other children (at that age, they do not need to speak anything to play), does he participate to the activities, even imitating the other children,...etc. If this is the case, language will follow easily, just let him the time he needs to learn the new language.


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## Gremli Skremli

He plays very well with other kids, and we understand him since he uses body language and sounds a lot. He makes himself understood clearly, to us at least! In preschool they now want to teach him concepts, like warm/cold. I think they're approaching the "problem" in a wrong way (since he understands and uses those words- at home) and should rather concentrate on why he doesn't want to speak there...


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## valerie

I'll add something more. My daughter is quite timid with adults and especially with teachers, this is something we discovered obviously during her first year at preschool, and we were very surprised at that time. One reason could be the pressure she endured when learning the school language, although this explanation is only a guess.

At that time I did not worry a lot, and I think I could have cooperated more with the teacher, who probably also needed it, to share our views of the child, share experience and try to give her more confidence.

I hope everything will go well for you and your son, I'm pretty confident that in some months your worries will have disppeared


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## Kräuter_Fee

I am bilingual and so is my brother. My dad always spoke Portuguese to us and my mom Spanish. We lived in Portugal and we learnt both languages, none of us had problems with them. Of course, we were more confident when speaking Portuguese. Anyway, when I was 10 we moved to Spain so now I'm more comfortable with Spanish.

Having bilingual kids shouldn't be a problem.


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## Gremli Skremli

Thanks for your views, valerie. He might get more timid in preschool with the pressure, he's used to preschool being all fun and games in Norway, not to being told off for not drawing within the right lines. I still feel like I can't start to attack the whole Spanish educational system because my son won't speak, so I guess we'll just hang on and wait to see. And have a bit closer communication with the teacher, I guess!


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## Tino_no

Mmm I don't know, but I heard some months ago, that kids could have problems when learning two or more languages at the same time, I also heard  that they could mix words from both languages, but I think it isn't true, is it?


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## elroy

Tino_no said:
			
		

> Mmm I don't know, but I heard some months ago, that kids could have problems when learning two or more languages at the same time, I also heard that they could mix words from both languages, but I think it isn't true, is it?


 
Yes it is. I always did, still do, and probably always will mix words from both Arabic and English - provided my interlocutor is also bilingual in those two languages.


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## Tino_no

Sí, elroy, pero me pregunto qué pasaría si un niño que, por ejemlpo, aprende español e inglés en su niñéz, se confunda y cree un nuevo idioma que fuera una combinación de ambos: "Quiero to go con my papá".
Creo que nadie lo entendería, pero he leído que nuestro cerebro tiene capacidad para aprender varios idiomas al mismo tiempo.
Saludos


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## elroy

Tino_no said:
			
		

> Sí, elroy, pero me pregunto qué pasaría si un niño que, por ejemlpo, aprende español e inglés en su niñéz, se confunda y cree un nuevo idioma que fuera una combinación de ambos: "Quiero to go con my papá".
> Creo que nadie lo entendería, pero he leído que nuestro cerebro tiene capacidad para aprender varios idiomas al mismo tiempo.
> Saludos


 
De hecho, mis hermanos y yo siempre hablamos en un "idioma propio," tal y como lo describes. 

Hay varias teorías lingüísticas que proponen que la persona bilingüe se halla siempre en un distinto punto sobre el escala del bilingüismo. O sea, si la otra persona domina los dos idiomas y no le molesta usarlos a la vez, la persona bilingüe toma la libertad de mezclar los idiomas, mientras que si la persona habla solamente uno de los dos idiomas, se restringe al idioma equivalente. Luego hay varios otros niveles entre esos dos extremos, que se van usando dependiendo de las capacidades lingüísticas de la otra persona. 

Pero bueno, ya se pone demasiado técnica la discusión. La respuesta sencilla es que sí, muchos niños bilingües desarrollan ese tipo de "idioma propio" que has descrito.  Y aunque puede ser que la mayoría de las demás personas no lo comprendan, no creo que en el caso de que la otra persona no sea bilingüe tengan problemas en hablar exclusivamente en el idioma apropriado.


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## fenixpollo

victoria said:
			
		

> brother spoke to her only in English and my sister-in-law in German. So she grew up being completely bi-lingual.


 That's no guarantee, victoria. 

While my son heard Spanish from one parent and English from another, he also heard English from family friends, people in the park, voices on TV, grandparents, etc. His exposure to the two languages was not 50-50.

He decided to start speaking English first. Spanish is like a second language to him, even though his mom speaks to him in Spanish all the time. He always answers in English.

My advice: speak to the child in the language that is the "foreign language" where you live. For example, speak only Norwegian at home... he will pick the Spanish up from TV and the environment, and he'll master it quickly when he gets to day care/school.


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## JLanguage

fenixpollo said:
			
		

> That's no guarantee, victoria.
> 
> While my son heard Spanish from one parent and English from another, he also heard English from family friends, people in the park, voices on TV, grandparents, etc. His exposure to the two languages was not 50-50.
> 
> He decided to start speaking English first. Spanish is like a second language to him, even though his mom speaks to him in Spanish all the time. He always answers in English.
> 
> My advice: speak to the child in the language that is the "foreign language" where you live. For example, speak only Norwegian at home... he will pick the Spanish up from TV and the environment, and he'll master it quickly when he gets to day care/school.


 
Fenix, how old is your son? Have you encouraged him to speak Spanish? Does he have any Spanish-speaking friends?

Just some thoughts,
-Jonathan.


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## fenixpollo

JLanguage said:
			
		

> Fenix, how old is your son? Have you encouraged him to speak Spanish? Does he have any Spanish-speaking friends?


 Are you kidding, Jon?  I'm a Spanish teacher!  :eye roll:  

Seriously, my solution for 6-year-old Diego is to switch to speak to him in Spanish.  It's an ongoing process and hard for both of us to break our routine, but we're getting there.


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## Gremli Skremli

Actually, my son still prefers Norwegian, although I'm the only one who speak it to him in Spain.. He's just decided he'll only speak Norwegian. Slowly the Spanish words are coming, though. But I'm very aware of the need to keep up the minority language, I'm already planning how we'll only speak Spanish at home when we get back to Norway.
I'm also a Spanish teacher.


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## swift_precision

cuchuflete said:
			
		

> Greetings GS,
> 
> My sons grew up in an odd sort of bi-lingual household, with both parents native AE speakers (assuming one accepts Californian as an English variant!). I spoke nothing but Spanish with them, and got reinforcement from a Columbian baby sitter.
> 
> My eldest began to speak Spanish at about 10 months and was using complete sentences by the time he was a year old.
> English beyond single words followed, starting at around one year of age.
> 
> My second child barely spoke at all until he was nearly two, and then burst into compete paragraphs in both languages.
> 
> Their mother learned Spanish from hearing us chatter.
> 
> They both had no troubles with English in Montesorri pre-school, starting at about age 2.5 to 3. By age 5, they were embarassed to speak Spanish with me in front of their monolingual schoolmates, so we reserved it for home, car, and visits to Spain.


 
Que bueno cuchu. Una pregunta para usted: cuando sus hijo hablan español llevan bien el accento español? Supongo que sí, ya que aunque ud se crió acá en US ud. es básicamente un experto en castellano y con las visitas a España verda?


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## JLanguage

fenixpollo said:
			
		

> Are you kidding, Jon? I'm a Spanish teacher! :eye roll:
> Seriously, my solution for 6-year-old Diego is to switch to speak to him in Spanish. It's an ongoing process and hard for both of us to break our routine, but we're getting there.


 
I'm sure you'll get there eventually.


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## la reine victoria

fenixpollo said:
			
		

> That's no guarantee, victoria.
> 
> While my son heard Spanish from one parent and English from another, he also heard English from family friends, people in the park, voices on TV, grandparents, etc. His exposure to the two languages was not 50-50.
> 
> He decided to start speaking English first. Spanish is like a second language to him, even though his mom speaks to him in Spanish all the time. He always answers in English.
> 
> My advice: speak to the child in the language that is the "foreign language" where you live. For example, speak only Norwegian at home... he will pick the Spanish up from TV and the environment, and he'll master it quickly when he gets to day care/school.


 
I agree it is no guarantee because my brother's daughter soon realised that her daddy could speak in German to her mummy (mummy didn't speak English too well at that time).  So she would listen to their conversation and join in in German.  My brother would ask her in English, 'What did you say?'  She would then translate it into English.  However, since she spent more time with her mother, German was her first choice and, of course, she was educated at German-speaking schools.  Yet she never lost her knowledge of English.  I was very amused when I called in to see her for a very brief visit on my way to Iran.  She said 'Hello, I'm sorry you've arrived too late for dinner but I think mummy can give you some cold meat and salad and some bread too.'  She then asked her mummy, in German, if these could be given to me.

She was only four at the time so, I suppose, a bit too clever!


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## QUIJOTE

Good advice from Fenixpollo, both my kids 8 and 6 speak english, german and spanish, being the third the weakest of them all,but, they can easily change to all three if necessary and choose english as primary and german when they are at home.


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## scribod

I am French, my husband British and our son , who is 9, speaks better English than French since we've lived mostly in England. He is bilingual. His French is revived whenever we travel back to France, talking to the French side of the family. My husband's French evolves quite dramatically when this is the case. I just accept a basic fact : talk the language of where you live. With my son I sometimes mix the 2 languages. I do think we create a language of our own, dictated by the need of making sense the easiest way, in a sort of creative way, seen as one language would say something better in a specific situation, I find it very interesting. Of course we do know it is just our "linguo" so we would not use it very publicly !
From the beginning, I have talked to my son in French, specially as I was first raising him in France, then when he was just a few months old, I moved with him to England to live with his dad, so I progressively switched to English and talked more to our son in English as my English was improving and as my son was more integrated in the educational system. But the fact is he understands French, talks to his French family in French, although words sometimes come difficultly to him. And *my personal recipe is* that I have always read stories in French to him, he also receives a French magasine from France once or twice a month that he is very avid to read and have me read to him. As well we listen to French DVD/music. I never forced him to learn French, I am here to help when he wants to study more French. I have always heard it is better to have the child learn one language first , the school language, and depending to the child and the way he/she develops a second one. In my case I never wanted to enforce French in an academic way; knowing French for my son is a thing of culture/pleasure/relationship with his family/friends, like any native language, it is part of who you are.


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## Bastoune

Let me give you my experience.  I grew up in a bilingual home of French-Canadians (dad’s father was half-Irish, living in Ontario;  mom’s family from Québec), in Québec, and I grew up listening to both and being able more or less to switch back and forth, as I pleased, between the two, with ease.  I admit that very young I didn’t know that they were two different languages, and often mixed things but eventually the young mind straightens things out.  What is more, I remember how my mom told me my first words were in French but my first full sentence in English (“It’s raining out.”)
 
As for multi-lingually raising kids, I knew that my dad’s cousins (French-speaking mom, Italian-speaking dad) in Timmins, Ontario, Canada (with 40% French-speaking population and 60% English-speaking population) grew up tri-lingual.  The mom spoke to them in French, and they all went to French-language schools.  They spoke Italian and English with the dad, and among them all collectively assembled, mostly English.  The fact that they had a good educational basis in French, helped maintain their French, while a good English base from living in Ontario (the media, the anglophones, their dad, neighbours, etc.) helped their English.  
 
Where do you live?  That will make a huge difference on things.  Bear in mind that for children, media will play a HUGE influence on them.  I know a Brazilian woman whose American-born son (now 4) understands Portuguese fluently (that is all that is spoken in the home to him; his dad is American but the parents are divorced) but because of daycare and cartoons, he speaks English all the time.  I feel this is a big problem that has kept him from speaking more Portuguese – since at daycare, living in New York, and having an American dad, he’s just more tuned into the English language.  Sometimes he mixes Portuguese words in when he doesn’t know the English word but it’s rare.
 
I recall that my cousin Dean in Ontario (he and his wife are teachers in the francophone school system) decided that though they live in Ontario, they would NOT raise their kids bilingual – only French-speaking.  They said, “They’ll learn English just by living in Ontario.  They’ll hear it around them but I want their primary language to be French, and if I raise them bilingual in Ontario, English will unfortunately dominate.”
 
So take into account all those factors.  If you’re living for example, in the U.S., in New York, trust me – focus LESS on English, and more on other languages.  The kids will learn English in the school system!!!  Kids are amazing that way.  Some immigrant kids don’t speak a word of English coming to school at age 5 but after one month are fluent and you can’t tell them from the non-natives.
 
I live in NYC and I can tell you, my kids’ French would suffer big-time if we stayed here and I raised them bilingual.  There is no major French media to help keep a balance.  Therefore that balance must happen in the home.  (And if I can gain fluency  in 6 months at age 19 in Italian just by living in Italy, imagine how well your children will do to pick up English even if you rarely speak it to them.)
 
My two cents.


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## Nath0811

I also live in NYC, and I'm worried that I won't be able to raise them French-speaking even if I always speak to them in French. 
My husband is American and just started to learn French at the Alliance Française, but doesn't quite have the level to have a French conversation yet. 

We might move out of NYC, but I fear that we will have this problem everywhere in the US. 

My cousin's children in Los Angeles all speak fluent Hebrew because both parents are Israelis and only speak Hebrew at home. But despite that, the little one seems much more comfortable in English, and brings a lot of English sentences in his conversations. 
That's really what raised the concern for me.


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## Pivra

I don't have one. But I am one and so are my siblings. We grew up in Thailand but our parents would speak English to us at home and in the car sometimes and my mother would turn on a radio to listen to BBC and others. Our parents only took us to watch films with no translation at all and we hardly watch movies in Thai when we go with our family.


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## danielfranco

I don't have any bilingual kids. My two children spoke only Spanish until they were of school age (about 4 or 5) and then started speaking English only. In our home my wife and I speak English and Spanish indiscriminately, switching back and forth even during the same conversation. Each one of us feel some concepts are easier to talk about in one language rather than in the other, and so we have no language preference. We speak to the children in either language. The children do have a preference, though, and it is English, and that's all they speak.


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## elroy

danielfranco said:
			
		

> I don't have any bilingual kids. My two children spoke only Spanish until they were of school age (about 4 or 5) and then started speaking English only. In our home my wife and I speak English and Spanish indiscriminately, switching back and forth even during the same conversation. Each one of us feel some concepts are easier to talk about in one language rather than in the other, and so we have no language preference. We speak to the children in either language. The children do have a preference, though, and it is English, and that's all they speak.


 
Two questions:

-How was it that your kids spoke only Spanish before they started school, if as you say both you and your wife speak both English and Spanish at home?  Why did they pick up Spanish and not English?
-How have they suddently forgotten all of their Spanish?  Especially if you and your wife still use it, albeit along with English?


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## danielfranco

I think my kids spoke only Spanish before they were of school age because the people the children were in touch with: both our relatives speak very little English, and the lady who used to baby-sit for us spoke Spanish only. I don't know how is it that they did not speak to us in English, but we probably spoke Spanish to them more often than not. I cannot recall. And, in the present, I don't think they have forgotten their Spanish, I just think they don't feel like speaking it, and we probably speak English to them more often than not. For example, if the wife and I are talking about something in Spanish that the kids might find objectionable (like, running errands instead of going to the library, or something else they rather do instead), they have no problem piping up with their objections.


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## Gremli Skremli

Thanks for all the answers (and obviously, I should´ve asked for experiences with biligual kids in general, of course it´s interesting to read about people who have grown up biligually themselves).
My son is now three and has 200-250 words in both languages. I nursery school they´re very satisfied with his development, and so are we. Now we´re moving back to Norway and will continue to focus on both languages, but a bit more on the Spanish, of course. I hope he´ll choose to speak it too, since his dad and I only speak Spanish to eachother.


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