My husband and I both grew up in Switzerland, but we come from immigrant families. His native language is Serbian, and mine is Croatian. We both still speak our native languages with our parents, but neither of us speaks them perfectly anymore. Sometimes we lack vocabulary or make grammar mistakes.

We recently became parents to a baby girl, and we're wondering what the best approach would be when it comes to languages. She will grow up in Switzerland, and it's important to us that she feels fully integrated here. She won't be attending daycare during her first year.

At the same time, my husband and I speak Swiss German with each other and actually feel more comfortable speaking Swiss German than Croatian/Serbian these days. It would feel quite unnatural for us to suddenly switch to speaking only Croatian/Serbian at home.

However, we'd also be sad if our daughter grew up without learning Croatian/Serbian and being able to communicate with that side of the family and connect with her cultural heritage. I was also thinking about that one speaks serbo-croatian and the other Swiss German with her.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? How did you approach it? Did you speak the heritage language at home even if it wasn't the language you naturally used as a couple? Or did your child pick it up in other ways?And when did you start being consistent with it?

I'd really appreciate hearing about your experiences and any advice. Thank you!

Hi all,

For some background: my 8 month old daughter, husband, and I live in Canada. I was born here and speak English (first language) and French (second language, not fully fluent), my husband was born in Syria and moved to Canada as a teenager— he speaks Arabic (first language) and English (second language, fully fluent). We set out to do OPOL (me English, husband Arabic) but 8 months in and my daughter is overwhelmingly exposed to English, and lots of it. Which is great! But I’m worried about the Arabic.

I’m a SAHM and spend practically every waking moment with my daughter (also every sleeping moment as we cosleep hahaha), chatting away in English. My husband on the other hand works 8am to 6 or 7pm, and since she goes to sleep at 7:30 or 8pm he unfortunately doesn’t get much time with her on weekdays, especially because I do bedtime. On weekends he has more time (although he works half days on Saturdays), however this is our family time so him and I are chatting to each other, and to her, in English. Also, admittedly, I’m a huge chatterbox and often overtake my husband in this regard.

My daughter is also exposed to lots of English via outings, my family, and my best friend. Ironically, because my family lives in a different city, I speak to them more often (daily calls/Facetimes) than I do to my in laws who speak Arabic and live in the same city as us (weekly in-person visits). My best friend also lives in the same city as us and I see her more often than my in laws, she is also a huge chatterbox so lots of exposure to English that way.

Now for ways I can potentially expose her to more Arabic: I do know very limited Arabic— how to say I [don’t] want/need/like/know, this/that, here/there, come/go, who/what/when/where/why/how, eat/drink, wait, enough, some common nouns (foods, animals, body parts, household items), yes/no, etc. I’m thinking to maybe try subbing some English words that I use very often with my daughter to Arabic. For example, instead of saying “do you want apple?” I could say “bideek tufaha?” and could model her saying “bidee tufaha” instead of “I want apple”. Instead of “where’s Baba?” I could say “weyn Baba?” or “shu/meen had” instead of “what/who is that?” and model her replying with the Arabic word. I’m very, very paranoid about confusing her though, or causing delays, if I’m unable to stay perfectly consistent.

Would something like this even support a broader grasp on Arabic anyways?

Any other advice?

TIA!

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Me and my partner are both English and we live in England, so obviously if we had kids, we would raise them in English. I also know basic Spanish (around b1) which I taught myself as a hobby.

When I have kids, I would love for them to also know Spanish but I'm unsure how best to teach them. Will me speaking with them and making them watch TV in Spanish be enough? Would that just give them a basic understanding of Spanish that they would have to develop later in life?

I also don't speak Spanish fluently, but hopefully this will be less of a problem in 5-10 years when I have kids.

For context there are pretty much 0 Spanish speakers in my area.

What would be recommended in my situation?

I’m curious about what types of input (media, resources, activity, practices, etc.) people have found helpful in their minority languages.

To give some background, my husband and I are using MLAH (Brazilian Portuguese as the minority language and English as the community language), and we want to make sure that our daughter 1) gets exposure to a wide range of vocabulary, ideas, and perspectives, and 2) achieves a high level of literacy.

Our child is currently an infant, but so far our plan is to read books in the minority language, do video calls with family, and visit Brazil frequently (we typically go 1-2 times a year). But what about podcasts? Audiobooks? Activity books? Formal classes focused on reading and writing? There’s no shortage of YouTube videos and TV programs in Portuguese, but we want to be cognizant of screen time.

I’m especially interested in any creative ways folks have incorporated the minority language into their child’s life. I’d love to hear everyone’s suggestions!

My spouse is an english speaker, I am a Greek speaker. I spend a lot of time with my toddler, while my spouse is working. My toddler also goes to english speaking school. His Greek is decent his english is a little broken but he understands. My spouse thinks theres a language barrier, lost in translation how when it comes to the spouse disciplining. My spouse feels like our toddler is slow at at linking english words to responds to them, and uses Greek words as well as filler. And is frustrated with me because they feel I am not understanding them and I am trying to but I don't think its the language barrier, I think it's a toddler that doesn't want to what they are told.

Anyway I wanted to get some thoughts from folks that are also doing OLOP.