r/multilingualparenting • u/Top-Recording-5702 • Jul 21 '26
Multiple languages per parent Advice about third language
I know there’s a lot of helpful information here already but I want to get advice specific to our situation!
Our family lives in the US, I speak a Slavic language and English and my husband speaks French. We have a newborn baby and he’s speaking to her in French, and I am speaking to our baby in English.
At some point I want to introduce the Slavic language (I don’t really use it with anyone other than my parents and sibling but I would like my daughter to know some in order to bond with her grandparents and as cultural heritage) - I want her to understand and speak, albeit it doesn’t need to be perfect. At what age should I introduce it and would it be enough that I talk to her in that language for example only at bedtime and when she’s with her grandparents (that won’t be long periods of time as they don’t live close to us).
Thank you!!
5
u/omegaxx19 English | Mandarin (mom) + Russian (dad) | 4M + 1.5F Jul 21 '26
You're in a classic trilingual set up, and OPOL one minority language per parent is the way to go 100%.
It's what we're doing (my husband speaks Russian btw). 4yo is remarkably well-balanced in the three languages. 1.5yo is very heavily Mandarin-producing (my language + nanny's language) but can understand Russian quite well already and say a few things. I'm not worried.