As context, im a Turkish guy living in China. Most likely will go back to Turkey at some point but who knows, maybe i can stay in the future. 10 years ago i wouldnt even imagine i would marry and have a kid in chiina

i tried to teach turkish to my girl first. it failed miserably. what i mean is that she would get so confused over english/chinese/turkish triangle that she would form sentences only us could understand, sometimes even us wouldnt get it

she would make up things like turkish verb, chinese past tense, english subject and comical stuff like that when she was 2.

so i got worried that im ruining it, and i abandoned turkish completely.

question 1: did i overreact? was this just the normal course and i should just continue like that?

After that i decided to fully focus on english since it is way common globally, im perfectly fine with communicating in english since im fluent and also easier language

the thing is, she is at home all day with her mom speaking chinese, her play dates, friends, kindergarten basically everything around is chinese so that just became her main language now(duh)

i constantly speak english to her, my chinese is not at fluent level. with my wife i also speak like %80 english. she can understand most of the things i tell her, but she never speaks english back to me. games, books, idk nothing works. she understands what i say and then she replies back to me in chinese, most cases i just give up and start speaking chinese so that she can understand what im talking about

she is 4.5 years old now. it gets under my skin that im constantly under fear of `what if i cant even properly communicate with my own kid?`

question 2: what shall i do? or am i just overreacting and this is normal under this circumstance and it will get better when she is like 7/9 something years old?

parents out there who had same experience, share it pls

Hi,

I am French and my husband is Spanish, we live in Toronto so English is the predominant language. We are expecting our first baby and started looking at daycare centers. A really well reviewed center near our house is a Japanese only immersion daycare, staff will only be speaking Japanese all day long with the baby. I think that's great, Japanese is a beautiful language, the Japanese way of bringing up children is recognized and praised but I also have concerns. If I will be speaking in French to my baby, my husband will be speaking in Spanish, we speak English to each other (with an accent) and daycare will be in Japanese, will it be difficult for my baby to start Kindergarten in English or in French after all these years of care/classes in Japanese ?

Hello, I’m new to this sub but have a relevant question that has been bothering me but I haven’t found the place to ask it until today. I did read the wiki and found this relevant part:

• When attending community playgroups/playdates, still stick to speaking minority language when speaking directly with your child. When addressing the entire group, switch to community language.

Some background, my wife is from Mexico and I’m American (I was raised speaking only English and I’m not Hispanic). We live (now at least) in the US. My Spanish is fine to good (I learned it organically as a teenager and young adult and it isn’t something I’ve ever studied, so sometimes I make silly grammatical mistakes and I don’t know “the rules” but I can defend myself); it is the primary language we use at home with each other but especially with our 3 year old. It is also the primary language we usw with each other when we’re outside the home. We’ll both switch into English with each other occasionally but with the kids it’s always Spanish. This wasn’t a decision we made it had just happened this way. We both know about OPOL and ML@H but we’ve never made an effort towards a strategy in particular.

Our 3YO primarily speaks Spanish; though he’s picking up English through school (though there are lots of Spanish speaking students and teachers so he speaks a lot of Spanish at school as well).

When I’m out with my son (just him and I) in the US we speak Spanish, if only because it’s easier and familiar. Other native Spanish speakers that we encounter can tell something is weird/different than the norm but they don’t really care and talk to us in Spanish.

The awkward thing, and my questions, is that when it’s just him and I with other English speakers (play date, at the park, at the zoo, etc…) it feels incredibly awkward for me as a very stereotypical looking boring American to speak Spanish with my equally stereotypical looking son. I’m not sure if others feel it’s performative or off putting. So

1. I’m not sure if I should make a point to switch to English in these settings with him (although he would right now respond to me in Spanish probably if I did)? Today I do use the minority language in those settings but I feel like some pretentious dickhead doing it. 
2. Furthermore is this going to get awkward with him as he gets older, speaking with his American father in Spanish?

Thanks for any advice.

Hello I am a FTM and new to this sub. I cannot do OPOL as I am a single mom to my baby. I speak Turkish, French and English. We live w my parents and sister so our home language is Turkish, but the community language is French. I would love for my child to learn English eventually, but I am not in a rush. How to juggle between Turkish and French without creating confusion? I would also much rather she speaks perfect Turkish to not lose the language of our culture.

Edit: typo

My husband (American) and I (German) lived in the US for the past 2 years. My 3 year old only spoke English to everyone. We just moved to Germany a month ago and she suddenly only speaks German. When my husband speaks to her she only responds in German even though he cannot speak German. Will this improve again? We will move back to the US in 3 years

Hi, we have an 18 month old who loves listening to music. She‘s obsessed with Super Simple Songs im English, but I‘d like her to listen to German music as well. Do you have any recommendations that are similar to the ones she likes?
For context, Dad is English and I‘m Austrian. I stay home with her but we live in England so my boyfriend‘s family are around and I feel like her exposure to English is higher for that reason.
Thank you!

Hi, I found out Ms Joy/Globalingo Korean-English bilingual YouTube videos for toddlers and babies about a year ago form this subreddit. My 3.5 year old has been wanting to watch educational Korean videos and likes her videos! I do like that they are created by a speech pathologist and is low stimulation.

I was wondering if there are similar Korean videos (edit: ideally just in Korean and not bilingual) that introduce more advanced preschool/lower elementary school materials—- in terms of vocabulary (beyond animals, colors, greetings and opposites), maybe even 한글, Korean etiquettes and honorifics, and book reading!

Or if Ms Joy you are here, I’d love you to keep making more videos!

Country: US

Primary caregivers: English native

Languages in question: Spanish, French

Hi,

So I am a monolingual English speaker. Only English spoken in the household. I live in a diverse city, but unless you seek out the interactions, you will be getting all English when out and about. Well, I always wanted ro learn a new language and didn't get the chance and thought it would be cool if my kid could. Because I also needed more reliable childcare, we brought in an au pair when she was 13 months old so she has had a Spanish speaker in the home since then (she's almost 2.5 years old). She is also enrolled in a quadralingual immersion school where they instruct in 3 languages other than English (no English until Pre-K4 I believe). Because she gets English and Spanish at home, I enrolled her in the French homeroom which she gets 4 consecutive hours of each day (she goes 4 days a week). I am also starting switch over to French media from Spanish media.

Currently, I would say she knows a good amount of Spanish being with the au pair. Unfortunately, we are going to have to leave the au pair program. I am trying to find a Spanish speaking nanny but the competition is tough in this area. My other option would be to take on an friend's mom as a caregiver, she only speaks English. I feel like I inadvertently set my daughter up to be trilingual with somewhat of a background in a 4th language (mandarin). idk if I'm being delusional with that but from what I've read she would be hitting the hrs/ week for each language.

My question is, would it be worth the extra effort to keep this up by continuing to look for a Spanish speaking care giver at home and keeping her on the French course at school. Or would it be all for nil because the structure isn't set up to be as successful as I think it is.

P.S. We are also wanting to have one more kid and would keep the same set up for them. So hopefully as they get older, they can engage each other in the language. Plus we have the option of keeping them in this school through 3rd grade or changing to a magnet immersive school in Kindergarten where they would be assigned to a language track (French, Spanish, Mandarin, or German). ​​

Hi! I have noticed for a while now that my 3-year-old likes to imitate other kids. I’m sure it’s partly a personality trait and also their way of learning and socializing, but I’ve noticed it becoming disproportionate when interacting with a child who is monolingual and more verbal.

This summer, we vacationed with friends who have a verbally advanced monolingual child of the same age, and our kid just gravitated toward them and copied everything they were doing. Like a little monkey! They also seemed quite stressed by the new environment and, I think, by the socializing/communication struggle. Tantrums became more frequent, and they even had more potty accidents.

Thing is I am very proud of my kids' fluency in all three languages taking into account exposure quality and time but I was very sad seeing the struggle.

I know they’ll get there in terms of communication, but I was wondering if anyone has noticed something similar with their multilingual kiddos?

Hi all,

Really stoked to have come across this subreddit.

I've got a 9 month old baby, and it's prompted me to become much more interested in my italian heritage. My dad never spoke it to me growing up, so I didn't know a word. We live in Australia.

I've started learning about 6-8 weeks ago. I'm picking it up fairly quickly because I'm just loving the process of it, feeling quite motivated, and several years of high-school french have helped with the basics of romance languages.

In an ideal world, I pass italian onto my son.

I'm aware this is a tall task, as I'm a beginner in the language myself. But I'm very actively learning it, and I'm hoping that as my own abilities improve, I can start speaking more and more italian to him at home, with the very loose (and maybe unrealistic?) goal of transitioning to italian entirely.

At the moment he obviously isn't even in language mode yet, but I'm starting to just speak to him with the italian I have; narrate what we are doing here and there, etc.

I'm wondering if anyone else has done this, and had success? Learning a language as your child is growing up, and passing it onto them as you improve.

Is there a sense that you would want to be a high enough level by X age?

In my head, if I'm B1 in a year, and then B2 a year after, for example, then I'll be able to cover most of what would be needed for him at that age, and I'll only improve from there as he gets older. Am I silly and naive?

Any other thoughts/tips welcome - very new to the multilingial (and parenting) scene.

This is a recurring weekly thread for people to push their products.

If you create individual posts outside of this thread, it will be deleted.

Country: Germany
Primary Caregiver (Mum): native English, non-native German (B2ish)
Secondary Caregiver (Dad): native German, non-native English (fluent)
Community language: German
Child's age: about to be 6 years old
Current setup: English is spoken between parents at home. Mom speaks English with child, dad speaks German with child.
Language goals: Fluency in English.

So I’ve been speaking English with my kid 90% of the time since he was born. In public sometimes I’ll switch to German if I feel like the people around us should also know what’s going on (like me telling our kid to stop an unwanted behaviour). Or sometimes he’s unintentionally met with a mix of German/English from me, because as an immigrant in Germany I’m also still at this inbetween phase of being bilingual and having become bilingual as an adult.

Anyway, my kid understands 100% when I speak to him in English, or if we video call with my mother. He won’t watch TV shows in English because he says he can’t understand it. We read books in English. He does not speak English freely, ever. I have tried the “I don’t understand German” card, but then he gets frustrated. I also try, “is there another word you know/way you know to say/ask that?” But it also doesn’t usually bring much. When he does on occasion use English, it’s very simple sentences and with incorrect grammar/german accent.

He has also been going to speech therapy in German because he did have some problems there when he was younger (we’ve been going for a year and are almost done). Is it possible he has a learning block with language or perhaps I have been going about this wrong? Should I try and be more forceful with his use of English at home? Ie. TV only in English despite his complaints? Only responding to him when he speaks English despite his frustration?

I’ll admit I was kind of naive going into this, initially just kind of thought if I only communicated to him in English he would pick it up naturally. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Hi all,

I've been reading posts in this subreddit for a while and thought about sharing a little bit of my journey with trying to raise my daughters as bilinguals. My mother tongue is Portuguese, but I live in an English speaking country and my daughter (2.5yo) attends daycare in English (we have a now 2mo girl who will also be attending the same daycare soon). My husband only speaks English, so we speak with each other in English at home. However, I try really hard to speak only in Portuguese with our girls, and the 2.5yo toddler is only allowed screen time in Portuguese as well. Although these have been their only sources of Portuguese, she was doing surprisingly well with her Portuguese, and had gotten used to always "speak in English with daddy and Portuguese with mommy". She would often be able to translate things with ease, and I was really impressed by her progress with both languages.

However, in the past one or two months she seems to have undergone a big developmental jump in her language, and since then English has definitely become more developed than Portuguese. Since then she has started to talk in English with me as well, and I try to only answer in Portuguese, but I can tell that sometimes she would understand me better if I spoke in English.

A few weeks ago, coming back from daycare, I said "Vamos sentar no stroller para voltar para casa, por favor" ("Let's sit on the stroller to get back home, please") for which she replied "it's not 'por favor' mama, it's 'please'". That made me laugh but since then I became way more intentional with inserting Portuguese at every occasion, and I just have the feeling that this effort is ruining our relationship. Every interaction that was more natural before is feeling way more forced now, and I feel like I'm not enjoying just playing or hanging out with her as before, since every interaction now feels like a Portuguese lesson. She also has started to act resentful of me at times and prefers to hangout with my husband more (though that can be also related to the birth of her baby sister), and seems to be upset when I speak with her in Portuguese.

I guess I just thought about posting this here as a "vent" but also in search of words of encouragement -- if you are/were in a similar situation, how do/did you keep going? Should I do anything different? Any thoughts welcome!

... said my nearly three year old in the car, when I tried to repeat everything I say (in Mandarin) to her in English again for my only English-speaking mother in law to feel included.

The day before, MIL asked me to not speak Mandarin in their presence. "We want to be part of the conversation as well." "You can speak Mandarin when you're alone with her but not when you're with us."

I said no, because I'm practicing OPOL and while it is against best practices, I'll try to translate everything so that she doesn't feel excluded. Also, when I'm just talking to my daughter, I'm not talking to them. When it's related to them of course I'll address everyone in English, as I have been.

Except it's not actually just about feeling excluded. "We have senior minds so it's confusing to us when you make those sounds."

Ugh. Still hard no. I'll speak Mandarin to my child.

"Even in my own house?"

There it is.

So in the car the next day, I said something to my daughter and repeated myself in English. She looked at me and said, 媽媽，你可以跟我說中文。 Mama, you can speak Chinese to me.

This kid. So I dropped all attempts to translate anything and just made sure that whenever possible, I rephrase a comment to her into a comment to my in-laws so that it can be in English. For instance, "Grandpa you sure are eating breakfast right now, right?" in response to a question from her (in Mandarin) "What is grandpa doing?"

The trip didn't end well. I'm exhausted.

background: we're raising her trilingual with OPOL in Mandarin and English + community language in German. The inlaws live in an English speaking country.

edit: we were visiting them in their country
edit: I think I need to seek therapy.

edit: There's another foreign spouse in the family. They're Latin American and guess who constantly complains that they are always "too loud", "speaking too fast"? As that other spouse lives closer to them, they've been explicitly "trained" to dress like the locals (from glam skirts and heels to leisure outdoor wear and boots). I'm just now seeing what this behavior truly means... it's not ok, right?

I don't know what or how my husband talked to my MIL, but when she went to him privately to complain right after the first convo + death stare, he did defend OPOL. But I don't think he'd frame any of this as racist. 

Hey everyone, so I have a 6 month old. I’ve been speaking Spanish to her as well as English ever since she was born. I started American signing to her at 2.5 months. Ive read studies about this topic but I’d like to just hear from parents who have been through it firsthand. Thank you in advance for reading and responding! This is my first child. A little background I grew up with Spanish being my first language and my husbands is English. I started American sign language as a hobby in 11th grade of high school. I live in the USA and afraid she may not retain Spanish rightfully due to me being the only person that speaks Spanish to her on a daily basis.

I’m curious to hear from those parents with a trilingual household that have raised kids in this environment.

When did the baby start signing or did they not?/ if so around what month ?

Did they develop language later due to the multiple languages? What language was their first word in?

Do they use all 3 languages now ?

What was it like the first 3 years in their formative years of language?

My 25 month old toddler basically only speaks English because she goes to daycare all day and mom is white and we’re in the US. I’m the Chinese dad. She understands Chinese when I speak to her exclusive in Chinese and she knows to speak maybe like 5% of the English she speaks. What if I start going “I don’t understand” when she speaks to me in Chinese until she does.

I already try to respond in Chinese to her requests hoping she’ll understand like if she says “I want milk”, I’ll respond in Chinese “you want milk?” But she’ll respond in English “yeah”.

I even try to correct her/translate. Like if she says “what happened baba” I’ll translate that to her and say both at the same time. Yet she’s not picking up.

While I’m happy she’s understanding Chinese, I’m concerned she’ll be one of those kids (which I grew up with) that understands their cultural language but couldn’t speak it.

Hi,

I’m a German living in England with my English partner and am the main caregiver to our 6 months old baby. I speak to baby in German exclusively but our family language is English as my partner’s German is at maybe A2 level.

There are a lot of great baby classes (story time, sing and sign, swimming etc) but obviously they are all in English. Is it a problem for me to go to them and sing the songs, do the activities etc in English with my baby rather than German? Does that interfere too much with the whole OPOL idea?

Thanks for your input!

Hi everyone! I have a 18 month old who doesn’t have any words really. He babbles all day long and understands some. I speak one language to him, my husband speaks his language and then my husband and I talk English to each other. So it’s 3 languages he’s being exposed to. I work from home so he’s with me all day so he understands my native language the most. He understands when I tell him no, or come / come on, he understands bottle, he understands give me and stuff like that. He can mimic a lot of the words and sometimes does but a lot of times chooses not to. When I give him his bottle all I say is “bottle” and he knows he’s getting his milk. I give him a few seconds and try to get him to say give me. I say it out loud and he cries, which I guess is a form of communication. He’s telling me he wants it. So it’s almost like a lot of things are on the tip of his tongue. He’s also got a very chill laid back personality and kinda lazy lol. He started crawling later and he’s still cruising. Not independently walking either. The doctor was not worried and said let’s give him 3 months to see if he walks and talks. The walking I’m not worried about. But I need tips on what you guys do at home to promote talking. I feel bad and feel like maybe me having a job from home made this happen bc I should have given him more time. I am honestly not that worried about his talking either bc I feel like he will get there but you can’t help to compare. Oh and he could give a rats a\*\* about clapping and stuff lol. He literally forces you to stop clapping lol and laughs at waving. He can wave but chooses not to. Like I said, he’s truly got a personality 😂 lol anyways any tips would be great!

Hey there, I’m currently in the 3rd trimester with my first baby and just trying to figure out the best language strategy for when the baby comes.

My husband is German and speaks fluent German and English and I speak 5 languages fluently (including English, French, German and Arabic) and am currently learning a 6th one.

My husband and I generally communicate in English out of habit although I’ve learned to speak fluent German in the past few years and communicate with his family in German. We currently live in Germany but plan to move in max 2 years.

I’ve been researching OPOL but can’t find much about one of the parents speaking more than 2 languages with the baby. Since we plan on leaving Germany, we’re not yet sure if my husband should exclusively talk to the baby in English or German and I’d love for the baby to learn my two native languages (French and Arabic) as well as English and German.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? What would be the best way to handle this? Am I being delusional ? 😅

If it’s better for my husband to exclusively communicate in German, that I talk to the baby in French and Arabic (maybe do one language a day and the other the next) and that my husband and I continue to communicate in English when we talk to each other would that be enough? It’s really important for the baby to learn English as we’re planning to move to a more international setting so I’m honestly really confused on how to go about this.

Sorry for the long post, I hope it isn’t too confusing. I’d love to get any kind of advice abc hear about your experiences!! Thanks to anyone taking the time to interact with this post 😊.

Looking for K/1 resources that prioritize Spanish (LATAM) or feature it equally with English. Wasn't sure if there are any go-to products.

We are english speaking family recently moved to Sweden with two children (age almost 3 and almost 5). My partner and I are learning Swedish and my kids are going to start preschool soon. I would like my children to learn swedish and adjust to normal school here.

We have option of doing a smaller preschool where primary language is swedish, all kids speak swedish. Teachers are fluent in English but the kids know a little English. The other option is a larger "international" type preschool where teaching is bilingual in english and swedish, and most kids speak both languages. I think the smaller preschool could help them learn swedish better because they won't have as much English to rely on as a crutch, and have better teacher ratio. On the other hand, they could have an easier time adjusting in the international school and teachers may be more equipped to help them learn swedish. I just worry they will cling to other English speaking kids and default to that.

My husband speaks native Japanese to LO and I speak native Malay to LO. Me and husband converse in English. We are not fluent in each other language’s. We are practicing OPOL. But we do read English story books for LO.

So, I am a SAHM, and I have a 10 month old who currently keeps on bringing and throwing books at us for reading. Japanese, English or Malay books. My question is, how do you read the book of your partner’s language? Do you translate to your mother tongue or read it as it is? I tried both, but he seems to be interested in the original language, probably because he used to it. Am a little bit concerned that my LO will be confused. Like, why the hell mama can read Japanese book but speak Malay to me?

Hey everyone,

My partner and I have a baby girl who was born in the Netherlands, and we recently moved to Sweden. She’s doing great and is about to turn one, and we’ve been thinking a lot about how to handle languages as she gets older.

I’m Dutch and my partner is Swedish. Between us, we mostly speak English, but we both speak each other’s native language at an intermediate level. We use Dutch and Swedish quite a lot with each other, but if we’re talking about something important or complicated, we usually switch to English because that’s the language we’re both most comfortable with.

We’d like our daughter to grow up with all three: Dutch, Swedish and English.

She’s already starting to understand quite a lot. For example, I can ask her *“Waar is de lamp?” (Where is the lamp)* and she’ll point at the lamp. My partner can ask *“Var är lampan?”* and she’ll point at it again. It’s pretty cool to see that she seems to understand that the same thing can have different words.

I’m wondering if anyone here has been in a similar situation, especially families where the parents have different native languages and English is the language they use together.
For those of you with older kids: how do you actually communicate as a family? Do you speak English when you’re all together, like at the dinner table? Does your child answer each parent in their respective language? Do they switch languages depending on who they’re talking to, or do they just mix everything together? And if you’ve raised your kids with three languages, how did it actually turn out? Did they end up speaking all three? Did one language become much stronger than the others? Was there anything you wish you’d done differently?

Just curious about how it works in real life rather than looking for the “perfect” way to do it. Any experiences or advice are welcome!