As I’m trying to learn all the Sanskrit names for the various yoga poses at the moment I started thinking back to when I learned French and English at school (my first language is German). It was difficult and didn’t always come naturally to me (especially French). I do speak and write all three languages more or less fluently but will obviously never completely master it like a native speaker and I will always have an accent.
My children will hopefully find it a lot easier because they are growing up with three languages as my husband is French and we live in the UK so they speak English with friends and their childminder (and of course random people on the bus and at the supermarket). They are 11 months and 2.5 years old so don’t really speak anything fluently yet, but it now becomes very interesting to observe especially my toddler’s language development. She started out by saying a few words in each language (mainly English and German) and mixing everything together. Now she is, I think, beginning to understand the difference between the three languages and slowly seems to differentiate who speaks what language.
It’s interesting to know that there are different systems of raising multilingual children, the main ones being OPOL (one person, one language) and ML@H (minority language at home). In order for a child to learn to speak the language properly they apparently need to hear it 30% of their waking time which means that it’s difficult to teach them three or more languages but not impossible. Before we had our first child we decided that we would use the one person, one language system so I would speak only German with her, my husband French, we speak French to each other and the community language is English.
The challenges
mixing of languages: this is of course not really a problem yet (unless it stays like this) and actually rather cute. “Maya is ein bisschen tired!” (Maya is a little tired), “Maya have ge-said ca va!” (Maya said how are you) or one of my favourites “there are no more Kinder on the Spielplatz” (there are no more children at the playground)
being consistent with other people around: this is not always easy as it’s often considered not to be polite if you speak a language that nobody else understands. I often get around by repeating what I say in both English and German.
being consistent when the child learns their first words: every parent gets really excited I think when their child speaks their first few words. You want to praise them and get them to repeat the words as often as possible so it’s not always easy to stick to your own language which the child might not understand so well yet. As a stay at home mother I spend a lot more time with my kids than my husband for example, so naturally they speak and understand German a lot better than French.
not making up a family language! As we all speak at least two of the three languages at home it’s very easy to make up your own language mix which nobody else will understand (unless they speak the same languages)! I’m probably the worst at sticking to just one language in one sentence but I really need to make an effort with this! Very often it’s simply laziness to use the word in the language that comes to your mind first.
Some Tips
I am certainly no expert as one of my kids only says “da, da” and “ma, ma” and the other one speaks Gerfranglish but here are some tips from my personal experience:
get other family members involved: it’s important that kids know that there is not only one person (mum or dad) speaking the language and that it’s useful to be able to communicate with other family members
let them watch TV in different languages: my toddler loves Peppa Pig and at the moment I can still get away with showing it to her in French or German (she does complain sometimes that the voices are not the same)
repeat everything they say in your own language: this takes a lot of effort but I know it will be worth it in the end. My little one has started to speak much more English now which is only natural so I’m always trying to repeat what she said in German.
read them books in different languages. As we live in the UK most books we have are in English but I also make an effort of describing pictures or repeating some parts in German.
Sing lots of songs. It’s the best way to get them to remember words and they love it!
Find other parents who speak the same language you want to teach your child. We know a few people that speak the same languages so it’s nice to meet up once in a while and practice a language. It makes it a lot more fun for the kids if they meet other children that also speak “that strange language” that Mummy or Daddy are speaking! And don’t forget that other parents are probably in the same position so don’t be shy to be proactive!
The Multilingual Children’s Association is a great resource if you’re looking to raise your children with more than one language.
We are still at the very beginning of this journey so I would be very interested to hear how it’s working out for other multilingual families! What are your challenges and how do you deal with them?
Very interesting post, I love hearing about other multilingual families. We have a two-year-old who is being brought up to speak Flemish (me), English (my husband) and Italian (nursery – we live in Milan). He doing great as far as we’re concerned: he understands all three very well though he naturally mixes them up when he talks. He actually chooses the easiest word from each language, which I think is rather clever 🙂
My challenge is that I don’t feel I’m exposing him to as “rich” a Flemish as I could/should. Although it’s technically my first language I lived in the UK for almost 20 years, and so it takes a lot of effort on my part to express myself properly. I worry that he will be stuck with a pretty useless sort of “kitchen Flemish”. Spending time with his grandparents, reading stories and watching Flemish or Dutch cartoons all help, but I think I need to work on my own language confidence too and read or listen to the radio more.
Thank you Eline! I know exactly what it’s like when you start to “lose” your language a bit if you don’t speak it with native speakers all the time. Great that you get some support from your family! That will definitely help. All the best x
Hi there; thanks for commenting on my post.
I’m so glad you wrote your post and that I found it on the #SundaysStars linky.
We’re trying to raise our little one to speak both Yoruba and English and we’re really struggling. This is because we both mainly speak English and can hardly speak Yoruba without mixing it with English. We’ve not been successful at the one person speaking a language system and we really need to review our goal for our child to speak both languagues. Thanks for the link to the association; I’ll be checking them out.
Your post has encouraged me to put more effort into our desire for our little one to speak both Yoruba and English 🙂
Thank you for your lovely comment! I’m so glad that you enjoyed the post!
It’s really hard raising them with more than one language and avoid mixing the languages. As you both speak Yoruba maybe try to set certain times when you speak it with your child! Like this you can really make an effort and maybe read books, sing songs or do anything else that is fun.
All the best and good luck!
Great post! I’m a Brit in the Netherlands, married to a Dutchman so our three boys are being raise with both Dutch and English. When they were little and at home their English was dominant for a while. When they started nursery I suddenly had to work a lot harder and more consciously and creatively to keep their English going. Once in school their Dutch is by far dominant.
My eldest now reads to me at bedtime in English so we make sure we get at least some reading practice with him and I read to the other two in English too. When they watch a film with me it’s in English. In short, I am grabbing every moment I can to keep English good enough to communicate with my family!
Thank you! It’s great to hear how it’s working out for other people. I’m guessing a lot of films are shown in English is that right? So that will also definitely help! Hope you can keep it going with them (I’m sure you will!)
My friends from the Ukraine have a daughter who is fluent in Russian and English and has passable German. What a great advantage She will have when the time comes to go job hunting.
Really enjoyed this and amazing how many languages you can speak. I speak English and Greek and really want my kids to learn more Greek, it’s hard as we don’t speak it enough at home as my husband can’t although he wants me to speak Greek to the kids so he can learn! They will possibly start Greek school on a saturday when they are older to help offer the linguistic and cultural education my brother and I had in the UK and valued so much. Thanks for linking up to #brilliantblogposts
Thanks for your comment! Saturday school will be good. i think we will try that too… And it will help to make the language more relevant to them when you then speak Greek. Good luck xx
I think I need to teach more French now to the kids. I don’t spend as much time as my wife with them. I talked to Maya in English so I can have a conversation.
That’s a great idea! Thank you so much for your comment.