Anyone planning or have a bilingual family?

[cherelle]

Just wondering if anyone has any experience of a child being ilingual from day 1? My OH is welsh and his first language is welsh, we are planning on having a ilingual family and im learning. I dont know how hard it will be though!
xx

 

[AugustMum]

Im attempting to learn french so I can teach Paige from a very young age. I know that Tiny on here is raising her son to be bilingual, with welsh and english

At the moment all Im doing is learning a few french nursery rhymes that I sing to her, counting to her in french and just saying something to her in french then repeating them in english. Not sure if its making a blind bit of difference but oh well lol. Im not sure how Tiny is going about it, but she gave me the idea of nursery rhymes

 

[megsmeadow]

We're by no means bilingual but my OH speaks fluent French so I've asked him to keep blethering to Ross in French.
Some of my extended family are amazingly bilingual, and trilingual We have a relative married to a Danish woman, living in Denmark and so their sons speak Danish and English, then his sister is married to a French man living in Germany so their kids speak French, German and English. I think when they are exposed to conversations etc at such a young age they just pick it up. Like English is a brand new language to our LO's anyway, so why not add in another. I'd love to learn Galic but I'm afraid my memory is rubbish!

 

[amyjayne77]

my sisters hubby is norwegan. the kids were adopted at about 3 and 18 months about 4 years ago and they are now bi-lingual. When they are in Norway, they speak just Norwegan, and over here they speak both. My sister learnt Norwegan to become a GP over there, but they live here now. Hmm that was complicated!

 

[tinytoes]

I try to be bi-lingual . I speak Irish with Aoibheann , and English with OH as he isn't fluent . I think he's learning with Aoibheann and I hope we will be able to lapse comfortable between the two languages eventually .

 

[titch]

theres LOADS of support in wales for people who want to raise their kids bilingual and you dont need to be able to speak welsh to get to the groups. We go to a welsh playgroup on a friday called 'ti a fi' (you and me) its run y meithin. most of the parents dont speak welsh themselves but the staff do and you pick it up cos they use simple language for the kids. we sing the same rhymes every week too and gave me a booklet with the words in to take home.

the charity twf cymru give away free nursery rhyme CDs and their website is good. im going to a free session next week which teaches welsh to parents and theres a stay and play session to chat to other parents but i havent been yet.

when youre around people speaking welsh to your child you pick it up so fast because they use really simple repetitive language for the baby.

i mostly speak english with morgan but i just switch between the languages. textbooks tell you not to do that but welsh speaking families do it naturally all the time .

we always say 'nos da' (good night) 'beth syn bod?' (whats the matter) 'amser....' (time for...) that kind of thing. we also look at a lot of welsh books. they often have the english translation in smaller font so you know what youre saying.

finally, not the best way to learn language for the LOs but Morgan watches the welsh childrens programmes on s4c in the mornings

 

[titch]

and of course, he is my 'babi bach '

 

[kiki]

We are raising our son(s) trilingual in Finnish, German and English. I'm bilingual in Finnish and Swedish and my OH in German and Dutch and we speak English to each other.

 

[cherelle]

Thanks Tiny, great advice!

We have been given a couple of booklets with the TWF info on from the midwife and ill definately look into welsh playgroup and any free sessions. Where abouts is the playgroup you go to - in Cardiff? x

 

[titch]

No its not. If you google meithrin cardiff you should get the details. I found out about it from my health visitor.

 

[cherelle]

Thanks!