Seeking wisdom: Raising a bilingual child.

[aliceinwonderland]

Well, if he ever decides to make his debut, the bean will be a bilingual baby :) . This because I am not American, but my DH is. I KNOW this will be very difficult. I've been in this country long enough, that I find it sometimes easier to have a conversation in English (even with my sister), than our native language (sad, but the reality of things).

Any good books/resources I can tap into? Any stories, BTDT advice? I feel bad, because when I envison my conversations with him, they're mostly in English, so is his nickname, etc...The good thing is, my parents (who still live in my native country) will be a very important part of his life (my father is visiting us when he's barely one month old, I'm going home for 3 weeks when he's 3 months old,my mom, who speeks no English will take care of him while I take finals in December, etc.

Should I expect his overall verbal development to be delayed a bit due to the two language thing?? I have that book "Raising a bilingual child", but it didn't excite me that much...sounded a little preachy...

Thanks so much, everyone!

eri and the bean, due tomorrow :)

[cchavez]

Good luck! Raising a bilingual child is a blessing but can be a challenge Check out the site:www.bilingualtherapies.com The articles by Dr. Hortencia KAyser might be helpful to you? Who wrote the book "Raising a Bilingual Child?" I was a bilngual speech language pathologist for 5 years before DS came along. My native lang. is English but I was exposed to Spanish at a very early age.....I try to speak as much Spanish as I can to DS but I feel so much more comfortable w/ English. I am doing the best I can.

[abigailsmom]

I would love to hear any of the answers myself... I am learning Spanish even though I am half Mexican...don't ask... long stupid story! ;) I would love to hear about this issue to be able to teach Abigail!

Thanks for posting such a great topic!

[papal]

Hi Eri,
I have not read any books or done any research on the subject BUT we are a tri-lingual family. My mother-tongue is not English, but, like you, I find English to be the easiest language to speak in. I also dream in English and I think the language you dream in is supposed to be your dominant language.
However, when I talk to Leela, i talk to her in my native language(s) and in English. I mix it up.. maybe I am confusing her but i highly doubt it. We grew up in a family where a variety of languages were spoken and all of us kids were able to understand and grasp what was going on and we learnt to reply in the language we were spoke to!!
So, I think your baby (when it finally arrives! :) ) will thrive in a multiple-language environment. :)

[smilequeen]

Ah, I wish I could help, but I'm just hoping you get some good responses for me to read too :) My DH is bilingual, he was born in Hong Kong. We have no family here, DH's family is actually in Canada, and our little city does not have a large Chinese population for any outside interaction(and what little population there is speaks Mandarin NOT Cantonese like DH). It's going to be almost completely on DH to teach our children Cantonese, and I imagine it's going to be very difficult, but it's also very important to both of us. The only thing we have so far are children's books in Cantonese that we can buy whenever we are in Toronto. So, no help from me, but good luck...I think the benefit for the children is going to great!

[Kate888]

DH and I are both from Taiwan and speaks Mandarin Chinese as our first language. After talking to several parents raising bilingual children, our conclusion (based on experience, not research) is that the children eventually speak English fluently after they start preschool, even if both parents speak few English at home (assuming there is no speech delay in the non-English language). It's the non-English language that you have to pay more attention to, or eventually they'll lose interest or forget about it. Once they are in grade school, they virtually read, speak, write and THINK in English. The earlier you expose the child to different languages, the better.

What we do at home is that we both speak Mandarin to DD most of the time. But we read to her in English (English books), so she gets the rhyme and rhythms in the stories. She also watches TV and DVDs in English. So far it's been great. She's picked up many English words/sentences and plays nicely with the neighborhood kids. Since your DH is a native English speaker and you speak another language, you have a HUGE advantage, becase the best way for children to learn 2 languages is that the parents speak different languages (e.g. dad speaks English and mom speaks Japanese to the child). Thus the language confusion will be reduced to a minumum. I just visited a friend (Taiwanese) who married an American in Chicago. Her 3-year-old DD speaks two languages BEAUTIFULLY! The way they do it is that her DH speaks to DD in English only and she speaks to her in Mandarin only when DH is at work. When he is at home, they speak English.

This has been a fun experience to us. It's amazing to see a little child learn more than one language naturally :) Enjoy it!

Kate
Mama to Maya 2-17-02

[aliceinwonderland]

That's useful to know...That's sort of what we planned on doing. I failed to mention that my sister also lives with us (will be for the forseable future), and she also will most likely talk to the child in BOTH English and our language...
I read somewhere that there might be some initial confusion/possible delay, but eventually they catch up beautifully in both languages.

I wonder if there's anything "extra" one needs to do...I envision possibly saying the same thing twice in the very beggining, once in my language and once in English.

Your point about losing interest is a very valid one: my cousin, her mom, stepfather, and 2 brothers are all native speakers of my language (obviously)...They live here in the States, and the ONLY native English speaker in the house is her DH...her 3 yr old daughter does NOT speak a word of our language: everyone speaks to her in English...

[mommd]

We are also raising DD with two languages. DH is speaking Polish to DD and I am speaking English. We also have Polish books and cartoons for her. I figure she will be exposed to English everywhere, so even if we only speak Polish to her she will learn English just fine.

[Marisa6826]

Renee-

That's great that your daughter is learning Polish!

I'm half Polish and always wished I could speak or understand it. No go.

I went to a Polish community just last week to pick up stuff for Easter. There were very few people there that spoke or could understand English at all.

Good luck!

-m

[Marisa6826]

No firsthand experience for you here Eri, but my best friend is Lebanese. She came here when she was 12 years old, and can speak Arabic, French and English. Her husband speaks Italian, Spanish and Portuguese - although his primary language is English (he's American-born).

My friend speaks to her daughter (8m old) exclusively in Arabic during the day and at home. She does, however, tend to speak to her in English if she is out an and about. Unfortunately, she's had some negative experiences with strangers when she's spoken to her DD in Arabic, so she prefers to just avoid any confrontation.

Her father speaks a few words in Arabic, but is in no way fluent. He does plant to eventually teach her Spanish.

I think the trick, as others have mentioned here, is to speak in the foreign language at home as much as you can to reinforce the babe's knowledge. They will be certainly exposed to English living here.

Good luck!

I wish I knew a second language fluently. You'd think that six years of French would have done SOMETHING for me ;)

-m

[kfcboston]

Eri -

I have zero wisdom on this topic, but just wanted to say I wish I did!! I have always thought it would be SUCH a blessing to give my child the gift of a second language. Best of luck!

[lukkykatt]

I have a few friends who speak Arabic and that is exactly what they do too. They speak Arabic at home, and English when they are outside the home.

Now that their older children are preschool age, they get them together one or two times a week and do more formal lessons with them - like an at-home preschool.

It seems to be working beautifully...

[ralu]

It may be good idea to be consistent in the way you speak (e.g., not mix both languages in the same sentence) so as to let the child get the boundaries between languages.

This is an article that mentions some of the advantages of bilingualism:

http://www.unb.ca/slec/hot_topics/l2_children.html

It also seems that bilingual children learn to read more quickly and obtained better scores at some standardized verbal and math tests in 4-5 grades.

Some time ago, when I was interested in starting doing research on bilingualism, I read a book that I thought fascinating: Life with two languages, by Francois Grosjean. (It's more like a college textbook.) It is however quite an old book and I think the research on bilingualism has advanced quite a bit in the last decade or so.

As far as personal experiences, my child will also be bilingual at some point, but now I don't think he understands English. I met lots of people who have bilingual children. Most of them had a normal language development, but, because they live in English-speaking communities, came to prefer English to the other language. I have very good friends whose 2yo is trilingual (just starting to speak English). He's pretty fluent in the other two languages and can say the same thing in both of them. It's pretty impressive, actually.

Sorry for such a long message.

Raluca

[cinrein]

When I was a baby, my Mom knew no English and my Dad was learning it. They spoke Spanish at home and that was the first language I learned. I could understand English (from TV?) and my parent made it a point to teach me colors, numbers, etc.. in both languages. When I started school I knew very little English and was initially put in the 2-year kindergarden group because of the language barrier. I picked up English very quickly and ended up staying in kindergarden just 1 year. :) I had no scholastic setbacks at all because of language.

We lost the Spanish at home when my Mom started trying to learn English. Once it wasn't spoken at home, it was pretty much lost to me and my brother. We did travel to Argentina once when I was in 2nd grade and we picked it right back up, but then lost it again once in school.

I can understand Spanish now, but really can't speak it. I suspect that if I were exposed to it again, I'd pick it up fairly quickly. My advice is to use your native language at home as much as you can. Yearly trips to see your parents will help your bean keep the language current.

BTW, my parents have been in this country since 1965 and still think and dream in Spanish!

Cindy and Anna 2/11/03

[aliceinwonderland]

wow. That's an interesting story...I'll choose to focus on the fact that you had no delays whatsoever :) :)

My cousin's story is much the same: her mom (baby's grandma) is trying to learn English, so she'll "practice" with the baby.

[boys2enough]

Hi, so glad you brought this up, it is an interesting and informative thread for me. We are going through exactly the same thing: I came from Taiwan 10 years ago for graduate school and my DH, well, is Euro-American (read "Mutt," lol) who does not speak any Chinese.

When I was pregnant with DS1 6 years ago I heard of the "one parent one language" method: basically each parent speak a different language to the child (even when both parents can speak both languages). Hopefully the child will grow up taking this arrangement for granted, and learn both languages at the same time naturally.

I tried to do it, but found that I have become much more comfortable speaking English, esp. expressing my emotions in English. In addition, I also had some bad experiences when speaking Chinese to DS1 outside of the house. So I was not very strict about it. (Digression: Why is that when people hear you speak in a foreign tongue that is NOT French, they assume that you do NOT speak English, or stupid, un-educated etc etc?? and that they can be rude to you? Sorry, just need to let it out... Breathe, ok, ) He also went to daycare, so he was surrounded by English most of the time. When he was about 3, he refused to answer me if I spoke to him in Chinese. He'd say, "Speak English! I can't understand you!"

As a result, DS1 actually cannot speak Chinese now. I absolutely regreted it: he cannot communicate with my parents and most family members at home. The whole language issue makes his visits in Taiwan stressful for him, me and dh. When we were there in March, he was so miserable because he couldn't understand anybody nor could he talk to anybody other than DH and me. I felt so guilty.

So I have been trying my best the second time around: with DS2 I have been speaking Chinese to him exclusively, even when we go out. This does create a problem though: I read English books to him in Chinese, but some books don't translate well, such as nursery rhymes. lol. When he picks up one of those books, I usually ask DS1 to come over and read his brother the book. I am still searching for a better solution.

I am hoping that this (me speaking Chinese to DS2) will work because I am here by myself and don't have Chinese friends close by, it feels like "Me against the World around me" sometimes. However, since I stay home with him all day, I think he understands more Chinese than English now. I know that is going to freak my MIL out, but DH is very supportive and promised that he'll tell his mom to butt out. lol.

I think persistence and patience is the key here. I read somewhere that bilingual children tend to start speaking later than their peers. (DS2 is 16 months now and does not say a word). Some parents panick and drop the non-English language when they see their children are not talking like other toddlers. I am trying not to freak out and stay with the program here. ;-) The promise is that one of these days when he starts talking, he will be speaking both languages. I am keeping my fingers crossed, for us, and now for your family as well. :)

Sorry for the rambling. HTH some. Cheers, Lin

[aliceinwonderland]

Lin--that is very useful.

I hear you on some of the challenges...I can totally anticipate the looks, having to explain myself, etc. People can just get over it...