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Baby growing up in multilingual home...

 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots Post Reply
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Olympia
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5984 days ago
195 posts - 244 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Old English, French

 
 Message 25 of 43
13 June 2010 at 2:54am | IP Logged 
Lucky Charms wrote:
[QUOTE=John Smith]
The Japanese boys speak is very different to the Japanese girls speak. I was just wondering if a Japanese speaking
mother raised her son in an English speaking country (she would be his only source of Japanese) would he sound
like a woman when talking??? Where would he pick up the male forms? Just a thought.


Yes, I have heard of that happening before in Japanese. I actually know a woman who is teaching her children
Portuguese as a non-native speaker, so she is pretty much their exclusive source for Portuguese, and her son went
through a phase where he would use the feminine forms of adjectives and such because that's what he heard from
his mother. It took a little while but eventually she was able to get him straightened out. I think she used TV and
movies to point out male speakers because I know at one point her daughter believed that only women spoke
Portuguese since she only heard it from her mother and a female caretaker. Her son was also reluctant to speak it
because he wanted to speak English like his father rather than Portuguese like his mother and sister.
3 persons have voted this message useful



Olympia
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5984 days ago
195 posts - 244 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Old English, French

 
 Message 26 of 43
13 June 2010 at 2:58am | IP Logged 
ladanoise wrote:
I sometimes look at a blog (http://multitonguekids.blogspot.com) in which the children are in
a highly multicultural environment. The family lives in France, the mother speaks her native tongue (Italian) to the
children, the father speaks his native tongue (Dutch)and the parents speak English to each other because the met
in an English speaking country. One of the children is highly interested in English precisely because he hears his
parents speaking it and he is already trilingual. So go for it!


Great blog! I've been reading it for awhile now. It really inspires me to one day introduce foreign languages to my
children should I ever become a parent. It really is amazing.
3 persons have voted this message useful



Torbyrne
Super Polyglot
Senior Member
Macedonia
SpeakingFluently.com
Joined 6098 days ago
126 posts - 721 votes 
Speaks: French, English*, German, Spanish, Dutch, Macedonian, Portuguese, Italian, Swedish, Czech, Catalan, Welsh, Serbo-Croatian
Studies: Sign Language, Toki Pona, Albanian, Polish, Bulgarian, TurkishA1, Esperanto, Romanian, Danish, Mandarin, Icelandic, Modern Hebrew, Greek, Latvian, Estonian

 
 Message 27 of 43
30 September 2010 at 9:47pm | IP Logged 
This thread seems to come back into my thoughts at this time of year. Perhaps it has something to do with the autumn being the start of term on my side of the planet. Anyway I think it makes sense to carry on my new and accidental tradition of updating on my daughter's achievements in the last year.

I continued speaking French to her at home until this summer, when we moved around a lot between Macedonia, The United Kingdom and The Czech Republic. At that point I started using a little English with her again to maintain her abilities in the language. I also wanted to change home languages with her in preparation for French school.

So before the summer, she was speaking fluently Macedonian and English to the level one would expect of a 3/4 year old, building some fairly complex structures in both languages with conditionals and using the past tenses well. She has also developed a wide vocabulary in the languages and says some surprising things too, including a little word play to make a joke and explaining things like "the sun is our morning star and at night the night time stars come out and they all turn around". She also asked me "why are all the dinosaurs extinct?", "why is water wet?" and "how are clouds and rainbows made?" which blew me away. I believe in giving accurate answers in a way a child can understand but some of those questions really tested my ability to do that! :)

Her French speaking remained weaker, but she was able to construct sentences and follow stories with no problems at all. She would not hold a full conversation in the language though and I put that down to the lack of play with children or contact with adults exclusively in the French language. She would say things like, "pas couper les ongles s'il te plait, papa" (don't cut my nails please daddy) but then revert back to Macedonian/English.

Spanish and German also grew over the year and she started replying to more and more things in those languages too. She could hear stories in both languages and ask meaningful questions, albeit in English or Macedonian more often than in any other language.

After an intensive spell in the UK in July/August there was a marked change in her English and the biggest thing to note is the first change in her language with me. My daughter finally started to converse with me in English and not Macedonian, as she had done since she could talk. I believe the fact my wife and I speak only Macedonian was the key factor in my daughter also using this language with me, in spite of the fact that I never spoke it back to her. This was sometimes tough as my natural reaction is often to speak Macedonian nowadays.

The other languages have also remained a constant. Sometimes I will think they have gone, but then she will say to her half-Polish friend, "Chodź tutaj!" (come here) or to me once, "Pwy s'yna?" (who's there in Welsh?). She uses bits from other languages too, but I think you get the picture. None of these have been things we have tried to teach her per se. She used the Welsh phrase from a song I sing in Welsh and seems to have remembered the meaning and the Polish from hearing her friend's mother using it with her son.

Some other interesting changes are the ability to now separate languages, so we are getting less instances where she mixes languages in a sentence. She will now turn to my wife and speak Macedonian and then look at me and speak English. She is also aware that some people speak a language and others do not and she will translate for them. I sometimes ask her something in German or Spanish to convey to her mum in Macedonian and I have to say that it gives me a good feeling to hear her get it right. The best thing is she enjoys it too and at the moment her favourite channel on TV is Kika (German cartoons). She also asks for Peppa Wutz.

For the coming year, she will continue with French at school/nursery, English and Macedonian at home (and outside) and German and Spanish as before too. Finding time for an hour to speak Spanish and an hour for German a day is tougher now than it was, so that may have to be reduced slightly and replaced a little with more DVDs/TV to keep them up too. As my daughter grows, so do the questions about all round development, such as maths, literacy and other subjects. I am trying not to be too rigid in my plans and to remain responsive to her specific educational needs. The great thing about languages is that you can use them to communicate any ideas and this only enhances knowledge in various areas and vocabulary in the language too.

I will try to update again next year or even before if I notice big changes in that time.

Edited by Torbyrne on 30 September 2010 at 11:47pm
13 persons have voted this message useful





Fasulye
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2012
Moderator
Germany
fasulyespolyglotblog
Joined 5850 days ago
5460 posts - 6006 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto
Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 28 of 43
01 October 2010 at 7:36am | IP Logged 
Torbyrne, thanks for your interesting report on the language education and progress of your daughter!

Fasulye

Edited by Fasulye on 01 October 2010 at 7:36am
1 person has voted this message useful



ReneeMona
Diglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 5338 days ago
864 posts - 1274 votes 
Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2
Studies: French

 
 Message 29 of 43
01 October 2010 at 12:56pm | IP Logged 
Torbyrne, I am so jealous of your daughter! ;-)

They say that multilingual children are often a bit behind in their linguistic development and catch up to their peers later but this doesn't seem to be the case with your daughter at all. Well done!

One of the things I hear a lot from multilingual people is that they are not really fluent in any language because they can never express everything they want to say in one of their languages. To me, this seems like a really uncomfortable situation for someone to be in. How do you make sure this doesn't happen to your daughter?
1 person has voted this message useful



Cesare M.
Senior Member
Canada
youtube.com/user/CheRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5173 days ago
99 posts - 135 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 30 of 43
09 November 2010 at 4:26pm | IP Logged 
Torbyrne wrote:
This thread seems to come back into my thoughts at this time of year. Perhaps it has something to do with the autumn being the start of term on my side of the planet. Anyway I think it makes sense to carry on my new and accidental tradition of updating on my daughter's achievements in the last year.

I continued speaking French to her at home until this summer, when we moved around a lot between Macedonia, The United Kingdom and The Czech Republic. At that point I started using a little English with her again to maintain her abilities in the language. I also wanted to change home languages with her in preparation for French school.

So before the summer, she was speaking fluently Macedonian and English to the level one would expect of a 3/4 year old, building some fairly complex structures in both languages with conditionals and using the past tenses well. She has also developed a wide vocabulary in the languages and says some surprising things too, including a little word play to make a joke and explaining things like "the sun is our morning star and at night the night time stars come out and they all turn around". She also asked me "why are all the dinosaurs extinct?", "why is water wet?" and "how are clouds and rainbows made?" which blew me away. I believe in giving accurate answers in a way a child can understand but some of those questions really tested my ability to do that! :)

Her French speaking remained weaker, but she was able to construct sentences and follow stories with no problems at all. She would not hold a full conversation in the language though and I put that down to the lack of play with children or contact with adults exclusively in the French language. She would say things like, "pas couper les ongles s'il te plait, papa" (don't cut my nails please daddy) but then revert back to Macedonian/English.

Spanish and German also grew over the year and she started replying to more and more things in those languages too. She could hear stories in both languages and ask meaningful questions, albeit in English or Macedonian more often than in any other language.

After an intensive spell in the UK in July/August there was a marked change in her English and the biggest thing to note is the first change in her language with me. My daughter finally started to converse with me in English and not Macedonian, as she had done since she could talk. I believe the fact my wife and I speak only Macedonian was the key factor in my daughter also using this language with me, in spite of the fact that I never spoke it back to her. This was sometimes tough as my natural reaction is often to speak Macedonian nowadays.

The other languages have also remained a constant. Sometimes I will think they have gone, but then she will say to her half-Polish friend, "Chodź tutaj!" (come here) or to me once, "Pwy s'yna?" (who's there in Welsh?). She uses bits from other languages too, but I think you get the picture. None of these have been things we have tried to teach her per se. She used the Welsh phrase from a song I sing in Welsh and seems to have remembered the meaning and the Polish from hearing her friend's mother using it with her son.

Some other interesting changes are the ability to now separate languages, so we are getting less instances where she mixes languages in a sentence. She will now turn to my wife and speak Macedonian and then look at me and speak English. She is also aware that some people speak a language and others do not and she will translate for them. I sometimes ask her something in German or Spanish to convey to her mum in Macedonian and I have to say that it gives me a good feeling to hear her get it right. The best thing is she enjoys it too and at the moment her favourite channel on TV is Kika (German cartoons). She also asks for Peppa Wutz.

For the coming year, she will continue with French at school/nursery, English and Macedonian at home (and outside) and German and Spanish as before too. Finding time for an hour to speak Spanish and an hour for German a day is tougher now than it was, so that may have to be reduced slightly and replaced a little with more DVDs/TV to keep them up too. As my daughter grows, so do the questions about all round development, such as maths, literacy and other subjects. I am trying not to be too rigid in my plans and to remain responsive to her specific educational needs. The great thing about languages is that you can use them to communicate any ideas and this only enhances knowledge in various areas and vocabulary in the language too.

I will try to update again next year or even before if I notice big changes in that time.


Richard Simcott, you do not know how amazed I am of you. You and me have a lot of things in common in terms of languages. Your genius abilities in language has enabled your daughter to learn languages as well. I am greatly impressed by your daughter's linguistic abilities and how they progressed over the years. I am very proud of your daughter. Thanks so much for sharing your story. :)
2 persons have voted this message useful



dragon32
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 4957 days ago
12 posts - 21 votes
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 31 of 43
03 May 2011 at 4:46pm | IP Logged 
I am a native English speaker (living in England) and my wife is Russian but we speak to each other in German. Why? We met while working in Frankfurt and back then her English was ropey and my Russian non-existent. Living in Germany and both being more or less fluent in German, that language became our method of communication and we have spoken this way in private ever since.

Nowadays her English is pretty good and I have some Russian. We are planning on starting a family and will ensure that our children learn English and Russian from birth. However, I can't see my wife and I abandoning the German at home. Hopefully the children can also pick this up, at least passively.
1 person has voted this message useful



solka
Tetraglot
Groupie
Kazakhstan
Joined 6551 days ago
44 posts - 61 votes 
Speaks: Kazakh, Russian*, Turkish, EnglishC2
Studies: FrenchB1, Japanese

 
 Message 32 of 43
13 June 2011 at 6:56pm | IP Logged 
@Olympia

I found that many native speakers have troubles with learning gender, and can make
mistakes initially. My son has been using female gender for himself in Russian, but he is
getting better at separating and using the right one now (he is bilingual in
Turkish/Russian, and I am his only source of Russian).


1 person has voted this message useful



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