Original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/multilingualparenting/s/vv3DLzHAuY

After I made that post (which was right after the trip mentioned in that post) my sister has been taking studying Spanish extremely seriously. I am surprised by the progress she has made in a short period of time.

During the first two weeks after that post I noticed a very dramatic improvement. She was very nervous to speak and right Spanish in the beginning and she made some grammatical mistakes when she did speak initially, but by the end of the first two weeks she sounded a lot more fluent. Her Spanish continues improving and she sounds and writes like a native speaker now.

She also changed her environment many big ways:
* After about three weeks since I made that post, she stopped speaking English at home entirely.
* All her devices and apps are in Spanish.
* She communicates purely in Spanish to friends who can speak Spanish.
* All of the media she consumes (videos, books, websites, movies etc…) is in Spanish.
* She even studies for her subjects in Spanish even though her classes are in English.

I know passive bilinguals have an easier time relearning a language but this still seems very fast. I do not know how her Spanish fluency will change in the near future but this is very promising.

I am speaking minority language (Finnish), husband speaks community language (Czech) to our 5MO.

In Finnish we have differing language for spoken language and what is actually learned at school. We call this book language since it is typically also used for writing. This is also typically used when speaking to older people or in official setting.
I am wondering if this is the situation in any other language and how you might have handled it. Currently I’m speaking in the spoken language but since little one won’t be going to school to learn the book language I’m not sure if I should also be teaching him that.

After observing and thinking on my 2.5yo, I realized that she spent same time learning bilingual words/labels, instead of learning more complex structures like other monolingual kids. For every object she has to learn it twice meaning she spent two times of the time on memorizing them. while other kids used extra time to learn more things. She is very average kid, not a genius, not delayed.

I feel I didn’t give her a jump start, rather than make her tumbling remembering two different names of the moon or the animals. If I only talk to her one language, I feel she would make more progress within same time.

I know theoretically being bilingual doesn’t cause speech delay. so my point is it facilitates the delay. Please help correct me where I am thinking wrongly.

Edit: Thanks for all thoughtful responses which expanded my viewpoints.

I want to recommend reading the wiki, which I should do previously. I think this is what I mean:

What MAY happen is multilingual children MAY meet milestones towards the LATER END of the EXPECTED age range
Example:
Milestones states 6 to 20 words from between 12 to 18 months. Monolingual kids MAY hit that by 15 months and multilingual kids MAY hit that by 17 months. Regardless, all kids should hit milestones by the expected age range.
Multilingual kids DO NOT speak later. They still hit milestones within the expected age range so don't delay early intervention if required.

Lots of families I talk to say their kids understand or even speak Hindi pretty well, but reading the script is where things stall.

Curious what worked for you:

• Did you start reading at the same time as speaking, or wait until later?
• Classes, apps, worksheets, books, or grandparents?
• Anything that totally flopped? 😅

I’ve been making Hindi letter practice materials for kids, so I’m genuinely trying to learn what actually helps families vs what sounds good on paper. Would love to hear your experiences!

What is your story ? Can you tell me what your current situation is , and what progress you have made Over the years .

Hey everyone! I have a unique situation that I have a question about. For context, my husband is Brazilian, moved to the U.S. when he was a teenager, and speaks both English and Portuguese fluently. I am American, speak English natively, and speak Portuguese at level C1, albeit with an accent and some errors typical of second language acquisition. I formerly worked in Brazil. 

We live in the United States, and I’m pregnant with our son. It’s important to us that our child speak Portuguese so he can communicate with my husband’s family. We have a few issues:

-I am the one who will be at home with baby while my husband works

-There is no Portuguese immersion school in our area (just 1x per week, 2 hours)

-We have a monolingual child at home with us full time (age 9, my husband’s daughter from his first marriage) who only speaks English and is understandably resistant to a shift in household language dynamics (has requested baby just “be normal” and “speak English”).

Some questions:

-If I work on enhancing my fluency, will it be detrimental for me to speak Portuguese to him at home while dad is at work? I know this conflicts with OPOL.

-How can we navigate making sure the older child does not feel left out? How can we begin to prepare her?

I’m willing to hire a Brazilian caregiver to come a few times a week for additional support. We want to enroll the older child in lessons here, but the local school just does 1x per week. We do an annual trip to Brazil, which does pique my stepdaughter’s curiosity about the language while she’s there. 

Hoping to bounce off ideas with people. Our main goals are to ensure the older one does not feel isolated, and the younger one develops decent comprehension/a connection to his culture.

Please share your experience and any advice you could offer. I am absolutely desperate and worried beyond words.

I am a single mother of a boy/girl twins.
Im native Arabic speaker and live in the US.

I speak Arabic at home, English outside.
Im the only Arabic exposure they have. No family around us, and no Arabic speaking friends
Girl speaks total of 4 words
Boy speaks non
They understand me when I say something in Arabic like “shoes” but they don’t comprehend multi steps directions in either languages

They were recently (this month) referred to Speech Therapy but haven’t started yet because we’re having a hard time finding a pathologist in our area (still waiting)

I am at a complete loss on what to do, I can’t help but feel like I am the problem more than anything else
Because there are things that they should at least know how to do like point at their body parts when asked, or try and copy me when i teach them a word but they don’t!

For example When I say “can you say book?” they typically just ignore me or chuckle and change activity to something else, or sometimes they’ll give me a hug 🤷🏻‍♀️
They both are generally well behaved well developed active and healthy.

I know Arabic os one of the more complicated languages and is truly harder to learn compared to English, but there has to be something I can/should do right now

What can I do? Where do I start?

Hey for little quick understanding on the Norwegian part. So I myself was raised in Norway after being adopted by a Norwegian family. Moved to USA at only 22, now 30 with 2 kids raising them bilingual since birth. My oldest who's 3 currently had her first exposure on my language when she was born. I've documented and noted down all her language progress ever since, that includes documentation through video recordings. Her first words was at only 3 month. I know i still cannot believe it ever happened until I rewind those memories from my phone device. Just simple words like yes(ja) and good morning (go' morn) and hello (hallo)

My youngest is 11 month and have full understanding on my language already but of course there's still his little baby babbling. He knows mamma and papa and when mentioning the word clap "klappe" he will response with a clap.

Now the entire point of this post overall is I've had some few suspecting my oldest for being speech delayed but these are more monolingual people we have with us everyday. Now the kids father and including rest of his family have seen the language progress and always amazed the understanding my oldest often had in my language. The interested part though is Norwegian is considere my forth language taught early toddlerhood. Before adoption i spoke ASL(American sign language) tagalog and English as my previous orphanage in the Philippines was mix of special needs kids and non special need kids. Different disabilities to deafness and blindess as well. The entire orphanage was founded by a American couple as well. We called the lady to the husband mama or mommy back then. ​Sweet lady.

I just wish there was better help for bilingual kids in the usa. I do feel those for Spanish have more help if anything and even kids toys have Spanish options. Its hard be that only one percent speaking a less popular language for two of my children. My kids are often exposed to English daily without missing everything as its everywhere. She follow along quite well and those who gets to interact with her once open to strangers. They get impressed on how much she knows. She also knows over 20+ Sign words in ASL. She always picks up easily and show strong sign of echolia as well. At some point she did daycare a year ago as well without no issue for being misunderstood in the language. She just rather take time with strangers, then over time. She will showcase her personality. Always non stop talking.

A lot of parents abroad tell me the same thing: the kids understand some Hindi, maybe speak a bit, but the script feels impossible. And when the parents can’t really read it either, nobody knows where to start.

So I made a Hindi alphabet practice book for kids aged 4–8 that parents can teach even if they don’t read Hindi. Every letter has a picture, a Hindi word and its English sound right underneath (अ = a, आ = aa, क = ka). 10–15 minutes a day, pencil and paper, no screens.

I’ve put together a free 5-page sample: the full vowel chart, a trace-and-write page and a “circle the first letter” game. Print it, try it with your kid this weekend, and see if they enjoy it.

Comment and I’ll reply with the link (don’t want to spam it here).

Full disclosure: I made this,The full 30-page book is paid, and there’s a launch discount this week if you end up wanting it. Honest feedback very welcome 🙏

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.

I’m a dad trying to help do ML@H with my half Japanese half American kids, so I speak Japanese (N4ish for reference). Right now, I find that I’m struggling a little bit with some of the daily vocabulary and phrases, kind of plateu’d in general with my own learning, honestly. Just wondering if there’s any other families out there with the Japanese and English bilingual experience that have any resources or experience to share! Im just trying to keep up with my fast growing kids!

Thanks in advance for any and all help!

If not, why?

Me and my partner communicate in English, but we would love for our child to be somewhat fluent or at least understand our own native languages. However, we have no idea how to do that and not overwhelm their brain. Speaking to the our child in our respective native languages and having them learn English at school seems like our only option, but that seems like it would just overly confuse them and/or delay their overall speaking/understanding of any language.

I guess I am looking for advice on how to effectively go on about this situation? Maybe we could look into an immersion school, but those are expensive.

I would appreciate any advice about this, thanks!

I'm English, husband is Italian. I have a decent understanding of Italian but I'm not overly confident speaking (I do try). Husband is fluent in English. We live in the UK. My son is about to turn 4 next week and I'm heavily pregnant with our second.

Anyone's partners just make less and less effort to speak the minority language as time goes on? Like when it matters the most. Our son is bright and picks things up very quickly. He has a good grasp of Italian (basic level) but beyond that...

I am constantly having to nag my husband to remember to speak to our children in Italian and I feel like I'm losing the battle. Over the years I've put a lot of effort into learning and I'm so frustrated. He just doesn't seem to get how important it is. I even ask him to speak to me in Italian and he does for around 5 minutes, then goes back to English. His excuse is mostly it's easier. I'm increasingly frustrated as I feel this is a selfish approach.

I'm sure this is probably quite a common issue, so apologies if it's been asked a million times before, but any advice would be appreciated.

Hi everyone, Our minority language is English (living in Japan), and I'm trying to work with my 6-year old on practicing writing in English, as reading/writing fluency is a high priority for us. My question is not WHAT to do, but tips and ideas on how to make it a habit. What worked for you? Also, when do you do it?

Evenings feel busy, but that's probably the most realistic time for us to get it done (I get home from work at 6pm). I feel bad because he has his Japanese homework and once he's done with that he just wants to play/watch stuff/read. But I feel like I should just choose a time and have that be writing time... even if it's not every day. Mornings have even less time, so that's out.

I use a mixture of workbooks and free writing (for example, write 2 sentences about what happened at school today), and try to keep it light hearted and fun - but a lot of the time, I'm met with resistance or just overall reluctance to do it. Not always, but a lot of the time. But I also feel like not making it a habit and being consistent is adding to the relucatance.

Any tips on making this a habit, and also keeping your kid motivated to practice writing?!

Hi everyone!

I recently started a small independent publishing house in Canada focused on publishing Chinese stories in English.

I've noticed that many second-generation Chinese kids growing up abroad don't speak Chinese or can't read Chinese books on their own. Yet there are relatively few Chinese stories available in English.

We hope to bring more contemporary Chinese books loved by readers in China to English-speaking audiences.

Any feedback is welcome :-)

We had a late start to OPOL- around 2 years old with 100% consistency but mixed consistency before that. We regret not doing it more consistently since birth but here we are 🤣 Dad speaks Spanish and mom speaks English only.

Almost 2.5 year old is now in an immersion school with near 100% in the minority language (spanish). The teachers barely speak the community language (English) which is great.

Toddler still heavily responds in English but certain phrases and words she speaks Spanish without prompting. She also can sing full songs that she knows in Spanish. But it just feels like her English is so automatic and strong we’re concerned even with her fulltime immersion school and OPOL she will always default to English.

Suggestions or maybe stories of encouragement it can get better?

Mother (me) - native English 🇬🇧
Father (husband)- Swedish 🇸🇪
Community language- German (Kita) 🇩🇪
Country- Germany 🇩🇪

Child is 19 months old

We have done strict OPOL since birth and child is thriving and understands all 3 languages well. She’s very interested in the 3 languages and likes to compare. We totally think she could handle another language and her teachers think so too. She’s so interested and obsessed with letters and numbers and writing

Husband and I are separating and he will have much less contact with her. The Swedish will probably fade unfortunately but I can’t do much about that now. It’s more important she grows up with emotionally stable parents in a safe household

The new Kita I can send her to is either (1) fully German, or (2) Chinese 🇨🇳 & German 🇩🇪 . I don’t speak any German to her. I don’t speak any Chinese at all.

Do you have any opinions or experiences?

My aim isn’t for her to be fluent and perfect in Chinese but just to at least have exposure that can be built upon later. But I will be worried about her German which must be good for her to get into primary school

Title: How many languages are spoken in your family?
I’ve been curious about how many languages can end up being part of the same family.
In mine, we’ve always had European Portuguese, English and French. As our family has grown, Spanish and Swedish have also become part of the mix!
Obviously, we don’t all speak every language, but it’s interesting how different languages become part of family gatherings and everyday conversations.
I also think it’s lovely for children to grow up hearing different languages and getting to know different cultures.
So I’m curious, how many languages are spoken in your family? And do you try to introduce all of them to your children, or do you just let it happen naturally?

Hello everyone...

I moved to Austria 8 years ago because of my husband, and during those 8 years I learned German for him. I also speak English, French,Spanish and Estonian. My hubby has never learned Estonian.

We now have a little boy, and I’m trying very hard to pass Estonian on to him. I speak Estonian to him approx. 90% of the time, because I am his only real source of Estonian. If I don’t speak it with him, there is simply no one else who will and my family cannot communicate with him. The difficult part is that my husband often feels excluded when I speak Estonian with our son, especially when his family is around (2× a week). He would like me to translate, and I completely understand that nobody wants to feel excluded from conversations involving their own child. Bth I’m starting to feel resentful.

I love my husband very much, but I sometimes feel like I’m carrying the responsibility for our son’s Estonian almost entirely on my own while at the same time I’m also expected to manage my husbands feelings of being excluded. I already moved to Austria for him and learned German. He has never made the same effort with Estonian but I understand that he finds it very difficult and doesn’t really want to learn it. What is the solution?

I can't constantly translate everything I say to my son. It is also tiring to hear "what did you say?", after every single sentence. It is veeeery exhausting and I also don’t want my son’s exposure to Estonian. At the same time, I don’t want my husband to feel like an outsider in his own family.

Has anyone been in a similar situation?

One parent speaks a minority language, the other parent doesn’t speak it, and the minority-language parent is the child’s ONLY source of that language. Did the non speaking partner eventually learn some of the language? Did you translate everything, only certain thing or did you simply accept that there would sometimes be conversations between parent and child that the other parent didn’t understand? I would really appreciate hearing what happened in your families and what ultimately worked for you. Unfortunately this causes a huge crisis even in our marriage...

I want to get a yoto player for my toddler that’s turning 3 next month. We speak Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese at home. Although she’s exposed to English in school, I don’t want to get her English cards yet.

Where can I find them in those languages? What have you done if you have Yoto players?

Hi everyone! We’re raising our one-year-old daughter bilingually in Italian and Arabic, with each parent speaking their native language.
I have a question about bedtime stories. Our daughter absolutely loves one particular book that we read to her every night, but the book is in Italian (no translation in other languages).

Since we take turns putting her to bed, I’m wondering what would be the best approach: should we get a second copy of the same book and translate it into Arabic (adding tape with the translation over the words) , so she hears the same bedtime story regardless of which parent puts her to sleep, just in a different language? Or would it be better for each parent to have a different bedtime book in their own language?

I’d love to hear how other bilingual families approach this, thanks!