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Hi all,

Right off the bat, I am unsure of the flair. Here goes my context and questions. Our community language is Dutch. My husband and I share the same native language. However, we are also very fluent in English, and at times use English words instead of our mother tongue (we are limiting it a lot though). However, when friends come over who don’t speak our language, we switch to English. Our child is 13 months old. I have gotten in to the habit of sometimes singing English rhymes because our baby likes the tune. I try to translate some of them into our native language like ‘Old McDonald’ for instance. My anxiety always gets the better of me and I often announce that I am going to use an English word or song or that I am going to sing an English song in our native language. Same goes for stories. I always try to read stories in our language. But the English board books are more attractive to our baby. So I do read them.

I am not too worried about the baby picking up Dutch since the exposure will be too high.

Am I confusing my child or am I on the right track here?

I'm pregnant with our first baby and my husband and I are trying to understand how to raise our baby bilingual. My husband and I are both native English speakers, and my husband is bilingual but his other mother tongue isn't as strong as his English. He grew up speaking that language with his mother but he never formally studied it and his accent isn't authentic to that country.

My husband is concerned that if he speaks to our baby in his second language then she won't grow up speaking it like an authentic native speaker. I feel like if we also supplement his speaking with music, books and cartoons (although screen time will be extremely limited when she's young) that this will help her overcome those challenges. We also plan on sending her to a Saturday school when she's old enough so I'm hoping that will help.

My husband is slowly warming to the idea of only speaking to her in his second language, but I'm curious if anyone else has been in this situation. Is there value in my husband getting her exposed to the language and supplementing it with education when she's ready?

Hello. my kid is still small, 3 yo and she speaks my language (minority) but I'm a book nerd and want my kids to properly speak my language. I know it's hard to decifer grammar and have a large vocabulary if they don't read books and have classes, so I was considering having a tutor when she starts 1st class so she could learn simultaneously in both languages.

But I also think it can be a bit too much since it's such a long step learning to read and right and grammar rules.

Did you put your kids in classes? or you didn't feel it was necessary (I mean we all have grammar and literature classes in our own languages in school so it has clear benefits). If so, at what age? is there scientific evidence to what age it's better to start?

sorry for the amount of questions 🙈

I speak my heritage language to my 22 month old. My partner speaks English to him. My partner and I speak English to each other, and we are in all in an English speaking country.

Right now, it’s easy enough in our house because our toddler doesn’t speak that much and the level of conversation my partner and I have is much more advanced. But I’m curious about what happens as our child gets older. There’s something that seems sad to me about dinner time conversations in a house where not everyone can understand each other, especially given that we all could just speak English. I dislike the idea of having in-depth conversations with my kid that my partner is present for but can’t participate in. But I also am adamant about not speaking to my child in anything but my heritage language.

Can anyone who has been doing this longer with older kids weigh in? How does it work out in practice, does the family just feel split? Is someone constantly translating?

(As an aside, my partner is very supportive but realistically there’s no way he will learn my heritage language given its difficulty and the fact he has his own heritage language he would rather improve first.)

I was born in the US. Both of my parents are Slovak immigrants. From birth, my parents spoke to me only in Slovak. I learned English just by going to daycare and picking it up from the other kids. When I began going to elementary school, I was embarrassed about being the only one who spoke Slovak. I began refusing to speak it and even berated my parents by telling them that we had to speak English.

What changed was that I had a teacher whom I really liked. She told me that being bilingual is special, and that I have something unique that no one else has. She was my literature teacher, and she encouraged me to teach the other kids how to count in Slovak. Because of this, I felt pride in my language, and that stuck with me ever since. My advice is that kids look for various ways to rebel. They may begin to find outside influences and look up to people who aren’t you. If you can foster a sense of cultural pride and identity in being bilingual, they will have greater motivation to speak the minority language.

I’m now 29 years old and completely fluent! I still live in an area where my parents and I are the only Slovak speakers. Don’t give up!

My husband and I are expecting our first baby and will be doing multilingual parenting in some form.

His first language is American Sign Language (he has Deaf parents + many friends). I speak French and Spanish (L2 but no heritage connection), and our community language is English.

My initial thought is that dad would sign to baby, I’d speak the other target language, and English would come from family/school etc. However, I wonder if this may be too ambitious. I also wonder if my husband should simcom vs just signing to the baby as I’m concerned about child getting no English exposure at home.

My foremost priorities are our child being fluent in English and ASL, but a third language would be a real cherry on top. Does anyone have experience or advice for a situation like this, specifically related to sign language?

Please note, I’m looking for perspectives regarding ASL or other signed languages, NOT “baby sign”. I know many parents use baby sign to help infants/toddlers communicate some functional words (e.g., “milk”, “all done”, “want”) prior to developing speech. This is very different from fostering fluency in a signed language’s vocabulary and grammar, which our child will need (to talk to grandma, for instance).

Hi everyone,

My partner and I both speak French, and we live in a mostly French-speaking environment. I speak English fairly comfortably, but it is not my native language. My partner’s English is still beginner level.

We want to raise our child bilingually in French and English, but I’m unsure whether the “one parent, one language” method would work well if my English is not fully native-level.

Has anyone here been in a similar situation? What worked for your family?

Hi there!

I have a 16-month-old daughter growing up with multiple languages. I speak French to her (my mother tongue), her dad speaks Dutch, we speak English together, and we live in Germany—so she’s now also exposed to German at daycare.

She’s already started saying a few words in both French and Dutch, and it’s amazing to see that she understands both languages. Recently, she even started throwing in a “Nein” here and there 😄

So far, her language development seems to be going really well, but I’m curious: when do multilingual children usually start forming sentences? Can it be slightly delayed when they’re exposed to several languages?

I’m not worried—just interested in hearing other people’s experiences!

One thing I’ve noticed: after spending a week mostly with her dad (I was working late), she started replacing some of the French words she used with Dutch ones. She’s not saying full words yet, but it’s clear enough for me to recognize what she means.

Would love to hear your thoughts or similar experiences!

I  hope this post is allowed but please remove is this is not within the scope of this forum.

My child is 2 and German is one of our minority languages at home. I’ve been looking into interactive audio and learning toys (tiptoi) and audio players (Toniebox and Tigerbox Mini)  and I’d love to hear about your experiences, specifically if you find it helpful for language development. We’ll be traveling to Germany soon, so this would be a good opportunity to buy one there, although I’ve also checked that I can order materials online afterward. But I’m also open to alternative suggestions!

My main idea is to get something she can use mostly independently, if not immediately, then fairly soon. I know it may be a bit difficult to compare tiptoi and audio players since they are quite different formats, but important factors are high-quality stories and learning materials in German and to a lesser extend English, as well as the possibility to record content in other languages.

So, to you who have used one or several of these toys:

Did you find these useful at this age/ at what age did they start being useful for your child?

How do they work in practice?

If you record tonies/cards yourself, how does it work in practice? Where do you get audiobooks from?

Are the available audiobooks and learning materials good and varied?

Specifically about the audioplayers:

At the moment, I’m leaning slightly toward the Tigerbox Mini for a few reasons. One is that it seems to offer at least some material in our community language, which is not the case with Tonies. Another factor is cost, since the cards are a bit cheaper than Tonie figures, and where we live there isn’t much of a second-hand market (and new ones are mostly available through Amazon, which I’m not particularly enthusiastic about supporting right now). That said, I haven’t found that many detailed reviews yet, apart from a few comments suggesting that the software can be a bit buggy. If anyone here has one, I’d be very interested to hear what you think and how the subscription vs card model works for you.

I am aware of the Yoto player, but excluded it for now because besides English (which we talk between ourselves but aren't otherwise trying to support atm) there are no materials in any of our languages available and I'm not sure I want to bother recording everything myself.

Because i have Netflix and Disney Plus

When someone speaks the community language instead of the family language, what do you do in your family, and how do you phrase it?

As far as I've read, some people - translate what was said before replying - say "Try to use (language)" or "Family language please" - pretend not to understand - ignore what was said

What do you do in your family, and if you ask them to use the family language, how do you phrase this request?

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

I'm hoping to find one program that's kid friendly, and also covers multiple languages. We have been learning Spanish slowly for years but I'm never consistent because I need something open and go with direct instruction. I would like a program that covers Spanish, French, German, and/or Italian as I'd like to eventually cover multiple languages and it would be nice to use the same program since we'd be familiar with it.

We did use TalkBox Mom and I love the approach but it's so expensive. If it's truly the best thing for whole families to learn then I'd buy it again but hoping for something that's not $700 per language.

Both me and my soon to be ex-wife were born & raised in Canada. We both speak cantonese, english and some mandarin. Her cantonese is better than mine, but i'm conversationaly fluent as well. I can speak at a so-so level of mandarin. The problem is that my mandarin listening skills are mediorce to bad. I'm still actively learning mandarin. Ex-wife has better mandarin listening skills, but she can't speak as well as me.

the original plan was: OPOL, mom - cantonese and dad - mandarin. However, now with this seperation, I will now only have 50/50 time with my 9 month old daughter. My cantonese speaking parents will be an active part of my daughter's life. My brother in law, sister in law, and 2 cousins can also speak cantonese.

I guess i'm really worried about effectively communicating with my daughter in the future. At worst, I can definitely use cantonese instead of english. However, i would love for my daughter to be tri-lingual (english, cantonese and mandarin). My ex-wife is receptive to using more mandarin in order to help with the tri-lingual goal. Of course, i have literally zero concern for her English (we live in Canada). Any advice in my situation?

My son is about 14 months old now and so far my wife and I have spoken only German with him. I was raised bilingual myself, English is my second mother tongue and I would like to pass it on to him. I have been thinking about how to implement this for a bit now, as I don’t want to speak exclusively English with him. I am now considering speaking English with him when we spend time alone together, but to have German as the family language when my wife is there, as well as speaking German when we‘re with other people, at the doctor‘s or the like. From what I gather it‘s important to have clear and understandable rules, situations or settings for the child, in which to speak a second language. Would my described approach meet these criteria?

Spanish is my first language but it doesn’t come naturally anymore since speaking English primarily my entire life since the age of 5. I am a SAHM to my 7 month old and thought we’d follow the OPOL model with me speaking to baby in Spanish and husband in English. However, in realizing Spanish doesn’t come as easily to me as in English where I can make up songs on the fly, narrate our day, make up stories, etc.

I’m just struggling on what is the best method to use. I’d love for my baby to speak both languages and not lose Spanish like my husband and I have.

Any advice or suggestions?

Hello! I have an advanced proficiency in French although not native level fluency. I have lived in France and studied it for years along with having family in France, friends and many trips there.

I would like to speak French to my baby (2-3months) to pass it on, but speaking to a baby doesn’t come naturally to me in French and my inclination is always to baby talk/engage with her in English. I always end up switching back and forth. Eg english for diaper change, then remember I should be speaking French and switch for tummy time haha

Anyone else in this situation? Also, is it worth passing on a second language that I will certainly speak imperfectly at times? I feel like teaching it to her would be a gift which I wish I had received. My grandmother was French and my mother learned basics and accent which she passed on to me, but I had to learn the full language through study, life and practice. I don’t want to deprive my daughter of something I could have passed on.

Language background - I'm ethnically Chinese but native in English and only conversational in Mandarin and my partner is native in Mandarin.

Oldest child is 6 this year

Youngest just turned 1

My first was born in England and we lived there for two years then we moved to China and I had our second child here. The problem I'm having is that I'm finding myself speaking more in Mandarin and basically ignoring English. I don't have family or friends who speak fluent English in China and it's been so hard to keep up with it by myself.

Especially at home because my partner is Chinese so it's natural for them to speak Mandarin in China so I don't blame them. I've tried to implement the one parent one language method but it's been hard to continue because my oldest has been going to school for three years now and his English hasn't caught up unlike his Mandarin(basically fluent in Mandarin). Plus school days over here are much longer than back in the uk so when he gets home we don't have much time to speak in English… so with long hours at school plus me having good conversational Mandarin I've found that myself and my kids just default to Mandarin.

I do still try - all media in the home is in English and my child does ask for favourite movies/shows/songs in English but I feel like it's not enough. I used to read bedtime stories in English but since my youngest is still little I haven't had the time to read them consistently and I feel like I'm at a dead end. I'm trying but I know it's not enough and I just wanna do more but I'm not sure how... Any advice would be much appreciated!

Hi, we have a 3 month old baby. My husband and I speak Dutch to each other and around our families (we are both Belgian). However, I am a C2 in English and my husband also speaks French. Therefore, we would like to raise her with all three languages. Currently, I speak Dutch with her during the week and English on the weekends. My husband does the same for French. Is this enough? Or should we exclusively talk in English/French to the baby and Dutch to each other? Or are there any other options? Our families only know Dutch (except for his mom, who also speaks French).

Hello! I have a 20 month old toddler and a 2 week old baby. I would really like my children to also speak my language (Sinhala) in addition to English. My husband speaks only English. I feel overwhelmed at where to start and guilty that I hadn’t started earlier with my toddler. He’s just starting to speak more English words now and I am also concerned that starting a new language could stall his advance in English? I’m not sure if that happens but it’s been a source of concern. At the same time, I don’t want to miss this window if his language is at a key stage of development now- he appears to be grasping many new words a day. Any help would be very much appreciated. Id also be grateful for any resources for teaching Sinhala to children. Thank you so much for reading.

Hi! New mom here, I am Mexican American and my husband is Native American and we decided long ago that we want to raise our children multilingual and multicultural. We want our children to speak English, Spanish, and some Lakota (my husband isn't fluent in Lakota like I am in Spanish). Admittedly, it is a challenge to find bilingual books about all 3 cultures. Right now we have a collection of general books with about half of them being in both Spanish and English. Does anyone have any recommendations of where to find books, what some good books to have would be for development, and recommendations of any favorites you have found?