Baby in a bilingual family

[i.love]

Was just wondering if anyone has an experience of bringing up a child in a family where parents speak different languages?

My husband is English, and I am Russian. We speak English normally, but I think it would be good to teach our little one Russian as well.

Does anyone know what's the best way to do this? Should I speak Russian to him one day a week? Or one hour a day? Or all the time while we are alone? Should I start talking 2 languages to him from birth or should I wait a little bit?

Any advice would be very much appreciated.

 

[knopk@]

I have the same situation and we have decided to raise him bilingual. Each parent should speak their own language to a child until the child is able to differentiate between the laguages.

English will most likely dominate at first but you need to persist. Its not going to be easy but its doable

 

[Mummy2Adam]

Not the same situation so Im not sure on how much time hunny but my 3 year old watches handy manny once a day(think it on for about 30mins) and he can count to 10 in spanish and come out with spanish words randomly so they do pick it up quickly x x

 

[Sarah13]

I think you just speak both languages to them from birth and all the time. My nephew is 2 and learning welsh and English together as both languages are spoken at home and school. So when he is counting for instance sometimes they count in welsh and sometimes English. They pick it up easily under 5 as they don't know any different.

 

[Squeakz]

the best person to speak to is titch shes a speech therapist and i know amy_j and isobel have/are bringing up bilingual children x

 

[misscrazycooki]

I am english and partners family is half french well his mum is on her side so her and daddy talk to leo in french now and again. I personally never could get the hang of french so I'm leaving them too it lol x But its ok hun and just go with the flow maybe count and read stories to him in your language now and again x

 

[Binzy]

I am English and my husband is Italian (we live in Italy). I speak to the baby in English and OH speaks to the baby in Italian. I'd hate my LO not to be able to communicate with my family in the future.

 

[titch]

I think you just speak both languages to them from birth and all the time. My nephew is 2 and learning welsh and English together as both languages are spoken at home and school. So when he is counting for instance sometimes they count in welsh and sometimes English. They pick it up easily under 5 as they don't know any different.

yep we're a bilingua family, both welsh and english. There are no strict rules about bilingualism. A lot of the 'advice' you hear about one person having to speak on langauge and not mixing is not actually scientifically proven, its mostly based on what adults would assume would make it easier, but kids are amazing, theyre brains are just waiting to absorb any language they are exposed to.

theres no evidence that they get confused between the languages

I just switch all the time. It just gives me another load of words for "no, stop, dont, leave it!" I use them all, it becomes very instinctive and you dont really think about it. but then again, it may just be instincive to me, cos my mother spoke to me in both languages.

 

[knopk@]

I think you just speak both languages to them from birth and all the time. My nephew is 2 and learning welsh and English together as both languages are spoken at home and school. So when he is counting for instance sometimes they count in welsh and sometimes English. They pick it up easily under 5 as they don't know any different.

yep we're a bilingua family, both welsh and english. There are no strict rules about bilingualism. A lot of the 'advice' you hear about one person having to speak on langauge and not mixing is not actually scientifically proven, its mostly based on what adults would assume would make it easier, but kids are amazing, theyre brains are just waiting to absorb any language they are exposed to.

theres no evidence that they get confused between the languages

I just switch all the time. It just gives me another load of words for "no, stop, dont, leave it!" I use them all, it becomes very instinctive and you dont really think about it. but then again, it may just be instincive to me, cos my mother spoke to me in both languages.

Thats quite interesting as all the advice I have heard was to separate at first.

I guess it would make it 50/50 if parents speak different languages anyway.

I know of a couple who speak Russian at home but the child goes to nursery 4 days a week and English is a dominating language.

I guess you will have to make quite a lot of effort to raise them trully bilingual

 

[NinjaKitty]

Sorry no advice but just wanted to say that giving your child two languages from an early age really is a gift. I wish my parents had done it with me. Now I sometimes feel left out when I am around my dads family because they'll lapse into Persian and I don't have a clue.

 

[xxbeckyxx]

My niece is being raised bilingual - her mum is Slovakian and only speaks Slovakian to her when they are at home together and then obviously she gets English from everyone else. She already knows which words belong to which language, and she will translate the Slovakian for her Daddy cos she knows he doesn't know it!
Apparently at the age of a few months babies can already tell the difference between languages because of the tone, inflection, vowel combinations etc....don't know how true that really is though - how can they test that??

 

[i.love]

thanks girls, this gave me lots of food for thought

 

[titch]

I think you just speak both languages to them from birth and all the time. My nephew is 2 and learning welsh and English together as both languages are spoken at home and school. So when he is counting for instance sometimes they count in welsh and sometimes English. They pick it up easily under 5 as they don't know any different.

yep we're a bilingua family, both welsh and english. There are no strict rules about bilingualism. A lot of the 'advice' you hear about one person having to speak on langauge and not mixing is not actually scientifically proven, its mostly based on what adults would assume would make it easier, but kids are amazing, theyre brains are just waiting to absorb any language they are exposed to.

theres no evidence that they get confused between the languages

I just switch all the time. It just gives me another load of words for "no, stop, dont, leave it!" I use them all, it becomes very instinctive and you dont really think about it. but then again, it may just be instincive to me, cos my mother spoke to me in both languages.

Thats quite interesting as all the advice I have heard was to separate at first.

I guess it would make it 50/50 if parents speak different languages anyway.

I know of a couple who speak Russian at home but the child goes to nursery 4 days a week and English is a dominating language.

I guess you will have to make quite a lot of effort to raise them trully bilingual

to me its not an effort at all. When you consider there are lots of countries in this world where people are bilingual, like canada, wales, phillipeans... and the welsh have been bilingual for 100s of years. Noone had any 'rules' on how to do it, children just cope fine with it.

 

[titch]

http://www.twfcymru.com/English/bilingualism/Pages/howtobebilingual.aspx this might help, it applies to welsh/english bilingialism but obviously you can adapt the info to your own situation

 

[Amy_J]

ive only just seen this! my oh is italian, and speaks only italian and neapolitan (dialect from Naples) to our son, and i speak only english.

so far he says in english, hiya, ta, dadda mamma baby and dirty. he understands when i say bye (he waves) and when oh says Ciao (he also waves!) he has just this week started to say PAPPI (daddy in italian!!!! sooo cute!!!) he can do the actions to peek a boo in both languages too!

we are just going to carry on doing what we are doing, from what i have read it is truely amazing how they absorb everything!! he will probably go to school in italy in a few years tho as we plan to move back there.
ps.. i would advise you just to speak your mother tongue to your lo honestly i think it will be amazing!! i speak fluent italian but i never speak it to my lo. just my language!

just to add, i have an italian friend here who has 2 children. her husband is also italian. the kids are 5 and 3 and are completely bilingual. the way they switch from english to italian is amazing and the most englishy-y phrases its so cute!!!!. they are at school and nursery where obv they speak english, then just italian at home.

xx

 

[Hope81]

I speak greek my oh speaks as native language English and Norwegian, we live in Norway and we speak to each other English. I don't speak Norwegian yet and he dosent speak Greek...

I will talk to LO exclusively Greek my oh will talk English, we will use English all together and the nursery, school etc will teach it Norwegian. So mu h trouble

 

[i.love]

I speak greek my oh speaks as native language English and Norwegian, we live in Norway and we speak to each other English. I don't speak Norwegian yet and he dosent speak Greek...

I will talk to LO exclusively Greek my oh will talk English, we will use English all together and the nursery, school etc will teach it Norwegian. So mu h trouble

yeah I know - I would very happily just speak English to him - I find it quite hard to switch from one language to another all the time, so I would prefer just to stick with one language. But people keep telling me how good it would be if he knew Russian as well...

 

[i.love]

http://www.twfcymru.com/English/bilingualism/Pages/howtobebilingual.aspx this might help, it applies to welsh/english bilingialism but obviously you can adapt the info to your own situation

oh that's great, thanks for the link!

 

[i.love]

ive only just seen this! my oh is italian, and speaks only italian and neapolitan (dialect from Naples) to our son, and i speak only english.

so far he says in english, hiya, ta, dadda mamma baby and dirty. he understands when i say bye (he waves) and when oh says Ciao (he also waves!) he has just this week started to say PAPPI (daddy in italian!!!! sooo cute!!!) he can do the actions to peek a boo in both languages too!

we are just going to carry on doing what we are doing, from what i have read it is truely amazing how they absorb everything!! he will probably go to school in italy in a few years tho as we plan to move back there.
ps.. i would advise you just to speak your mother tongue to your lo honestly i think it will be amazing!! i speak fluent italian but i never speak it to my lo. just my language!

just to add, i have an italian friend here who has 2 children. her husband is also italian. the kids are 5 and 3 and are completely bilingual. the way they switch from english to italian is amazing and the most englishy-y phrases its so cute!!!!. they are at school and nursery where obv they speak english, then just italian at home.

xx

thanks for your post - I found it very interesting! xx