Raising Bilingual Children, IT'S NOT EASY! What Worked & What DIDN'T! Kids Speak Croatian & English
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- čas přidán 30. 06. 2024
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Raising our kids bilingually hasn't been as easy as we originally thought it would be. We had to try a few things to really find out what worked for our family. The one parent, one language approach was the one I read about while pregnant with Olivia, and what most people talked about with regards to the topic. It didn't really work for us, though.
In this video, I'll walk you through some of the challenges we found, and what we ultimately decided to try instead (which really worked well for our family). Our kids are 5, 3, and 2 at the moment, and they now speak both languages fluently
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It's so good to grow up with multiple languages! I was born in NYC so I grew up with everyone around me speaking English. But both of my parents were Estonian so they always spoke in Estonian when speaking to me. Now I can speak and write fluently in both English and Estonian.
That's great!! :)
Tallin is such a beautiful place...
instaBlaster
My mother is Slovenian, and father was Croatian. For as long as I can remember, we have used both languages at home. My sister and I always spoke Croatian with father and always Slovenian with mother. It must have been so funny watching us, all seating together and talking, while me and my sister were constantly switching languages :)
This is a great video. I am Croatian, raised in the US, living in China. My wife is Chinese and my daughter is doing good with both English and Chinese. She is just like yours when it comes to Croatian. She understands, but responds with this complex mix of Chinese/English/Croatian, sometimes she uses all three in a single sentence. Little kids speaking Croatian is the cutest.
Koliko je stara vasa cerka? Da li sada bolje govori Hrvatski? Sa koliko godina bi ste rekli da je naucila tecno da govori neka od ta tri jezika?
@@tequilabumbum4373 sad ma cetri g. A zadnju godinu Dana zivimo u HR I sad najbolje govori Hrvatski.
aleksander, I just made a met a lady name Silvana and her son is the same exact
Bilingual people can become certified medical translators and you can make six figures easily via computer
They are so stinking cute. My future husband is Hispanic, and our family will certainly grow up speaking, reading & writing both 🥰
Thank you! Yes, knowing both parents' languages is important :)
Thats so cute
I was born in an bilingual family in Istria. My first language is Italian, than may parents sent me to an Croatian kindergarten to learn the language and integrate with others kids. I was 3 at the time and I can't remember not knowing both languages. After that I finished all the schools in Croatian and finally the university in Zagreb so, as you can imagine, I speak fluently Croatian, but with my parents, sister and a couple of friends cant help myself but to continuing just in Italian. Beautiful children's, sve najbolje vam želim!
Sei grande !!!👍👍
Rodjen u Istri Kako Sam razumio tvoji braca I sestre I neznaju Hrvatski pa Kako zive
@@kirksdva8310 nije nigdje spominjao da roditelji/sestra ne znaju Hrvatski, nego jednostavno u kući pričaju Italijanski međusobno.
Understanding a language is easier then speaking it. With a lot of TV programs and especially cartoons being in English on Croatia TV must help a lot, they can hear and follow the language but getting them to speak Englsih is most important where they have to learn pronouncing words and forming sentences naturally . The earlier the better.
Great job and the kids are too cute.
Thank you so much!
My parents spoke albanian to me from the beginning and I replied in albanian. When I was four we came to Sweden and I started school at the age of six. So, in school I spoke swedish and at home albanian. Then half a year later my dad switched all the kids channels on the tv to german ones. This, because I was born in Germany but we only lived there for a year. I asked for it because I wanted to know how to speak german. Three years later we started to learn english in school and I did. So at the age of 15 I was fluent in four languages. It took time but it worked.
I have three siblings, the first one who is 1 year younger than me speaks swedish, albanian and english, and understands german. The other two are 18 and 11 and speak all of the first three languages but don't understand german.
The youngest one who is 11 spoke only swedish until the age of 7 but understood albanian. Our parent's never spoke or speak anything else than albanian to us.
Our parents never told us that we had to speak albanian at home. They learned swedish through us, the kids and we learnd albanian from them.
I really think that If you just give kids time they will eventually start answering in the language that you speak to them.
Except of the languages that I'm fluent in I understand bosnian and almost all languages that are similar to german, swedish and Bosnian.
I'm not sayying that it's super easy to learn a language but rather that if you're surrounded by a lot of people that speak different languages the chance of you learning the language is big.
So you learned German simply from watching German tv? Cool, but I think this doesn't work for most people. I watched Turkish series for years and learned like 5 words Lol. I have to actually study a language or speak to someone everyday in that language in order to learn.
@@seaofroses8888 I think it does if you watch without subtitles. Cause when you have subtitles on you focus on them and not really the language that they’re speaking.
I have studied English at school for many years now but I think how I’ve learned it the most is by watching CZcams in English without subtitles. That is how I’ve become more fluent in it and learned how to express myself more naturally.
@@ainoilona5611 the fact that you studied English in school helped you more than you think. When someone tells you, this is the word and this is the translation, you are a lot more likely to recognize that word once you watch videos than if you watch having 0 knowledge of the language. In my opinion, it would take a ridiculous amount of time(years) to decipher what is being said if you watch with no subtitles from the start. You need a foundation first. Even now that I'm studying turkish I understand very little when I go no subtitles, However, my progreas these past months studying and watching has been 10x more than I learned in years of watching only.
@@ainoilona5611 I’m skeptical that watching videos alone does the trick. I have watched a lot of language learning tutorials on CZcams, and I’ve never seen anyone recommend watching videos only as a good method. It would never work for me, but thanks for sharing
@@seaofroses8888 Yeah, you’re right. It would take years and it’s also easier the younger you are because learning is easier when you’re younger.
I grew up bilingually (English and Dutch) and realised the advantages from an early age. When I had kids of my own I was living in Norway with Dutch husband . I spoke English with the kids and Dutch with my husband, while he spoke Dutch with the kids. Living in Norway we knew that that language would become their main language, as school and peers/friends will decide that. We have four kids and they all responded in their own way. Child one used correct language with respective parent, but switched to replying in Norwegian from age 13. Child two only spoke English to start with, then only replied in Norwegian at home and eventually started using English at home again when he wanted to improve his English. Child three consequently spoke Norwegian at home until he was 17 and Child 4 started using both Dutch and English at home from the age of about 13. The kids are young trilingual adults now. They speak Norwegian amongst themselves. We speak English, Dutch and Norwegian to each other, without thinking about it. We do notice train carriages falling silent when we travel together, as people around us whisperingly try to figure out where we are from!
My nephew had his mom speaking with him in Spanish, we are from Spain but with Arab background. Since my sister spoke only in Spanish he never wanted to speak in Moroccan /Arab. The rest of us would talk to him in Moroccan /Arab so he understood everything perfectly in spite of not talking back in that same Language. So one time he travelled to Morocco to visit extended family and he realised he had no choice and that was the first time he spoke in Arabic. From there it was easier for us to make him speak. Later on he travelled to France because my sister got work there and now he speaks three languages pretty fluently.
i'm bilingual twin. my mum is japanese and my dad is polish and we live in Poland. my mum speak to me only in japanese and yes, she was also pretending that she doesn't know polish (she didn't have to pretend that much haha) and now we fluently speak japanese and polish (and english 😏) i'm very grateful that my mum didn't give up and kept speaking in japanese to us. because even if we don't speak polish that well until we are in kindergarten or school, kids around us will speak in polish and we will naturally learn it.
Oh my god! Glad to see another Slavic-Japanese mix :D
My mom is Japanese, dad Croatian and my parents kept talking to me in their mother tongues.
I also added English for myself later so now I am fluently trilingual :))
@@dora125 hi! i'm working on being trilingual ;D
@@michikuji298 High five to fellow multilingual! ;D
Just curious, how did your family communicate, when you and both of your parents are talking together at a table, when your mom pretended not to understand your dad?
I think the Four Walls approach makes the most sense for your family. Since the kids are heavily exposed to Croatian outside the home, it makes the most sense to speak the other language only within the home.
I grew up in a bilingual family. My dad's native language is English, although he studied in a language school overseas to learn Arabic. My mom's native language is Arabic, although her side of the family also knows English, French and Italian (although not everyone spoke all of the languages fluently - different individuals spoke different combinations of the languages). I grew up predominantly with English, Arabic and French (with some Spanish and Italian influences mixed in).
My mom used the OPOL approach, not because she was concerned I wouldn't learn the languages, but because she wanted me to learn accurate pronunciation. Even though my dad knew Arabic, she did not want him to always use Arabic with me as she wanted me to be able to pronounce sounds accurately and vice versa. I sound completely American when I speak English and Jordanian when I speak Arabic, so I would say she met her goal. :)
Living in a mostly English language context, my English skills are the strongest, but I find it hard sometimes to only express myself in English. There are words in Arabic that I feel English does not have a strong equivalent to that I use more in my everyday vocab because I am bilingual. At home, we mix languages. Same with my mom's side of the family.
It all boils down to what is going to be functional for you as a family and what skills you want for your children. The early years can be hard (one of my little cousins refused to speak Arabic when she was young as they were living in Canada - it's better now, but she still prefers English), but keep doing what works and keep encouraging them to appreciate both as they get older. :)
Stvarno ne znam kako sam završio na ovom YT kanalu jer ovo nije content koji inače pratim, ali od kada sam pogledao prvi video samo sam nastavio pratiti. Sarah, ovako preko ekrana, ima neku odličnu karizmu, rekli bi: "Its hard to look away" i ne bi se čudio da je uskoro gledamo i na velikom ekranu!!
Čiča miča, gotova je priča... hahhahahaa komedijašica mala :D
Puno hvala na lijepim rijecima :)
Ja sam isto slučajno naletio i nije mi žao. Zanimljivo i dobro odrađeno. Pohvala!
Fenomenalno, love it ! You guys are great. Volimo vas youtube kanal. Samo napred ! Hvala za posting ☺
presamodopadna je , priča 109 na sat. uglavnom dosadna
I absolutely love this!! I was born in Zagreb, moved to Toronto just before the war broke out. I can totally relate to this situation except when I started daycare, I was telling stories to all the children in Croatian. As time went on, I learned English but was not practising much Croatian at home. To this day, my parents speak Croatian to me and my responses are always in English lol Wish I was pushed a bit more to keep speaking Croatian but I didn't have Croatian friends or cousins around me to kinda force me to practice - everytime I come back home to visit, everyone I know there wants to speak English with me. ugh. Hoping to brush up on my language skills over the next year and watching you and your children learning is really inspiring!! :)
That’s awesome!!! You’re doing an incredible job!!
@@RoyalCroatianTours iz kojeg kanadskog grada dolazite,ako nije tajna ??
Burlington, Ontario
I am Canadian too with no Croatian roots as far as I know.. you are doing a great job! It inspires me to learn more. Thanks you for sharing !
My parents each spoke their own language to me as a kid and apparently I started speaking as if both were one language (mixing words in one sentence) and it apparently took a couple years until I completely differentiated the languages. Now I have no problem speaking either.
Omg me too!
I haf a linguistic class years ago and was told that this was the best way to be raised bilingual
My daughter is doing the same! Sadly my husband doesn't speak.my native tongue (German) so we have to use the O.P.O.L. She is 4 now and English is in the forefront a lot... It's hard for her to communicate with my family back home so I totally would change to the 4 walls approach if I could! Your kids are awesome! Way to go!
Me too... I started to speak relatively late (around 2-3), but in both languages at same time, almost completely separating them. My mother knew 1, father 2. Although the mother language was used by everyone in the family, I grew up learning, thinking, dreaming, counting etc in my father's language. Mother's language was my 2nd mother tongue and national language. I pretty much hated learning 2 more languages in school (English and French), and ironically now I did not speak mother's language fluently for 6 years almost, only very little, occasionally, and English replaced it (maybe not in vocabulary, but in everyday use and speed of thinking during communication for sure). I moved to my father's language country, husband is local.
I am quite worried, that my children probably will not speak one of their roots language. :( Schooling multilingual is also important.
@@akinom91 I know this is old and maybe things have gotten better for you. If not something my husband and I did was we would get flash cards and I would say the English word and he would say the Basel German word (this is a dialect of German). With ordinary household things, counting, colors, ABC's, etc we would do the same. Our daughter started saying both words when speaking. I caught her practicing counting in bed. It was one eins, two zwei, etc. My daughter is 3.5 and has dropped saying both words to everything. We live in Basel Switzerland so my daughter hears Basel German from my mother in law, husband, and outside world (it was difficult to get her to speak English). My daughter never went to school.
I know I was in way lucky. My daughter was starting to speak right when the pandemic started and my husband got to work from home, so this was easy for us to do.
im trying to learn Croatian and Croatia is my dream country so i started watch your videos. Then im also a mother from Asia and my husband is Caribbean and we hope my kids learn both language. This video is help me a lot. thank you
:) No problem!
I had a teacher who's whole family moved from Korea to Croatia. Both him and his wife Korean, with 3 kids ages pre-school to 4th grade (around that). None of them spoke any Croatian prior to coming here, but kids are little sponges and month into their move their kids where singing Croatian children songs. Kids are often very good about this, us adults struggle more. From converstaions eith them the key is to find a good school that will accomodate kids during the initial struggles.
(They also obviously speak Korean, since that is ther "home" language)
Hope that helps too
How did you find out about Croatia and what made you like it so much that it became your dream country?
Croatia is a racist society and there are no immigrants, think twice about moving to Croatia or any Eastern European country
@@AK-ij1ll
Das sagt ein serbischer Nationalist (AK 47), nachdem es den Serben - Trotz 70 Jahre Unterdrückung - nicht gelungen ist Kroatien zu unterjochen. Das sagt ein Serbischer Nationalist, nachdem es den Serben nicht gelungen ist, die Völker um Serbien herum auszurotten. Das sagt "AK 47" übrigens das Synonym für "Avtomat Kalasnikova" oder Russisch Автома́т Кала́шникова. Also das Synonym für die "Schurkenwaffe", mit der die Serben versucht haben ihre Nachbarn auszurotten und das nicht nur in Kroatien, sondern auch in Bosnien, Hercegovina , Kosovo einfach in der ganzen Gegend um Serbien herum. Ich nennen nur zwei Orte des Grauens, welches die Serben an ihren Nachbarn begangen haben. SREBRENICA und VUKOVAR! Auf der Balkanhalbinsel gibt es kein nationalistischeres, kein rassistischeres Volk, als es die Serben sind.
This is what a Serbian nationalist (AK 47) says after the Serbs failed to subjugate Croatia despite 70 years of oppression. This is what a Serbian nationalist says after the Serbs failed to exterminate the peoples around Serbia. This is what "AK 47" says, by the way, the synonym for "Avtomat Kalasnikova" or Russian Автома́т Кала́шникова. So the synonym for the 'rogue weapon' with which the Serbs have tried to exterminate their neighbours, not only in Croatia, but also in Bosnia, Hercegovina , Kosovo simply in the whole area around Serbia. I mention only two places of horror that the Serbs have committed to their neighbours. SREBRENICA and VUKOVAR! There is no more nationalist, more racist people in the Balkan Peninsula than the Serbs.
Da smo mi Hrvati rasisticko drustvo, o tome nas poducava "AK 47", ocigledno Srbin. Potomak i pripadnik otomanskih hordi, koje su igrom slucaja Turci zaboravili na Balkanu. Pripadnik etnije, koja nakon objelodanjena "Nacrtanija" ima samo jedan cilj. Cil iztrijebiti sve svoje susjede, koji se ne zele posrbiti. Na "Balkanskom Poluotoku" nema etnije koja je ili u proslosti ili danas bila u toj mjeri rasisticka ili nacisticka kao sto je to Srbija. Od onog dana, od kan ih je Osmansko Carstvo zaboravilo na Balkanu pa do danas.
I grow up in Italy, so I was surrounded by Italian speaking people. My mum is Russian, and was really hard for her to teach me Russian because as a kid it didn't make sense to me to learn it, I thought only my mum spoke it. Even if it wasn't easy for both of us, now that I know the value of knowing different languages, I am glad that she tried everything to teach me that language.
So you do speak Russian right now?
I think it's great to teach children other languages as soon as possible because they will learn it as a second mother language, which will help them to learn even more languages when they get older, not to mention how their brains will function better!
Absolutely!
I so get all this. I'm Irish, living in France and always intended to only speak English to my 3 kids. But they always answered me in French and after many years of constantly being angry (cause they wouldn't reply in English, or because I was speaking in French), I decided that life is too short to be permanently cranky with them. My husband's Engish is really bad, so all speaking English was not an option, the home langage is therefore French (as is school, friends, sports etc). I just had to get used to the idea that they had the basics and we could go from there. I always read to them in English and they watched english language DVDs rather than TV. Communication with my family was never very natural, however my 20 and 23 yr old daughters are now pretty fluent in English, and both are following studies/careers fully related to English. My 17 yr old son is not so great, but better than most kids his age who don't have English at home.
Your kids are super cute. Awesome job with teaching them both languages. Bravo!!!! .... Predivna porodica! Volim gledati vas kanal. Uvijek je nesto novo i zanimljivo. 💕
Puno hvala, Sonja!
Children are like sponges. They don't question or complain that something is too hard.
When I was a young boy, I lived on island Vis (Dalmatia), and spoke local dialect and Italian.
In school official language was Serbo-Croatian, with Latin alphabet.
My grandmother lived in Slovenia, near Austrian and Hungarian border. I would spend my summers there,
speaking Slovenian, German and Hungarian. In the 4th grade we were taught how to read and write
in Cyrillic alphabet. In the 5th grade we had to pick 2 foreign languages. I picked English and Russian.
Page forward...I ended up coming to USA, marrying great American lady and starting family.
My wife quickly gave up trying to learn Croatian. She thought it was too hard.
My children speak it, with cute English accent. They started off with some juicy Croatian swear words (my bad for not paying attention) and progressed from here.
You are becoming a language acquisition expert, my dear! Love the bit about your kids not thinking you speak Croatian and congratulating you when you do. Hilarious!
:D they're hilarious. Olivia is starting to catch on!
Kod nas se u Dalmaciji kaže...Od doktora doktor...od sudca, sudac....od zemljoradnika ,zemljoradnik...A za vas ću reći:;Od pametnih roditelja,pametna , dica!
For me it was very simple. My parents do not speak English, but back in the early 00s a lot of the "good" cartoons were only available in English and there were no Croatian subs so basically I learned English and Croatian simultaneously from like age 3. Now I am at the point where I don't speak Croatian or English well🤣 it's more of a Crenglish now
Hahah that's great!
I'm Croatian, living in Denmark, most of my work is in English. And sometimes, I can't remember a word in any language. I call it By-lingual 🤣🤣
I never thought of it before. As a Croatian kid growing up in Canada, my parents would speak to me in Croatian and i would respond back in English
Hahah the opposite problem I was having with my kids! :)
@johnnycroat SAME
Same with my daughter. Still struggling to make her say anything in Croatian even though she understands a lot.
Are you still responding in english?
@@a.r.4707 I am quite grown up now...trying to speak as much croatian as I can with my dad. struggle trying to find the right words at times. my dad now responds to me in english , speaks english to his croatian wife and she does not speak english he lives now in croatia
Gospođo vi simpatični, u očima vam se vidi pozitiva i radost. Djeca ijako mala lijepo odgojena. Vi ,Ivan djeca ,baka i dida prekrasna i sretna obitelj. Mogli biste biti dobra promotorica za Hrvatsku. Hvala 🌹👏🏻.
Puno vam hvala na prekrasnim rijecima
I do so understand you. I am Dutch and live in Greece. In our house, I always spoke Dutch to my kids and my husband and MIL Greek. This method worked well with my son, at 2 years he could already interprete between my parents and Greek relatives. But with my daughter it didn;t work She understood me, but never spoke a word of Dutch until she was about 10. But we should know that first you Listen, and then you Speak.That's how kids learn to speak all over the world. The result of kids being bi-language is that they understand the whole structure of different languages easier. Now my kids are adults and they each speak 4 languages fluently. So don't dispair, it will come. Love you!
Jako mi se sviđaju tvoji videi, klinci su preslatki i mislim da je fenomenalno da klinci tako rano uče što više jezika jer lako upijaju kao male spužvice.
Svaka čast kako dobro govoriš hrvatski, hrvatski je težak jezik za naučiti pogotovo strancima, tako da BRAVO samo tako nastavi. I love english language and have been learning english since elementary school but I don’t have a lot opportunity to speak in english so after this pandemic subsides or at least when we all get vaccinated I would love to meet you and get coffee with you and speak in english. I’m born and raised here in Zagreb. Keep up the good work with the videos I really enjoyed them.🤗🤗
I am a bilingual child. My parents spoke Serbian with me at home, but outside in public and at school I spoke German. Both languages are fluent and without accent. Of course, one language is usually easier than the other (in my case German). But that's because I live in Germany and speak German every day. But apart from the languages, the most beautiful thing is the difference in culture. You combine two worlds and you take the best of both worlds. You will see when your kids are older that it will be more and more beautiful! :)
I can relate to that, though I learned German first as a 12 year old. As a kid I needed just a year there to be fluent without any accent. Then both English and German helped me to learn basics of Danish but I never learned to speak it because I moved out of Denmark, but if I stayed, though 30+, I could’ve learn it in another year. So I really think it is not important how old you are as long as you are exposed to culture speaking different language.
It’s amazing that they speak both languages so well!
I’ve seen kids that parents tried to teach english while they still haven’t spoken much croatian and now they have a problem because children don’t want to speak croatian at all...
I can totally understand the feeling of pressure and responsibility about learning our mother language to our kids. You are doing an excellent job. I raise two bilingual boys (French and Greek) in France and I know that this is not an easy task! Congratulations for what are you doing!
Boli je oko 😄 Tako i kod nas, sto izgovora, samo da ne moraju spavati 🤣
Lol tako je!!
🤣 Naša malena, kad treba spavati, kaže da ona ne može zatvoriti oči, može samo gledati 🤣🤣
I grew up in germany and my parents spoke only in croatian till i went to kindergarden with three years. as a kid it was easy to pick up the second language (which was germany that time). now things changed and im better in german than in my mothertongue. i started to reduce my "linguistic deficits" on croatian by reading shallow novels :)
In Bali people use two languages, my kiddos use english as their first language and also serbian so they know mom's language too, and they are learning mandarin in school too. ❤💚
Gospodjo ovo je fantasticno. Vi bi mogli da drzite on lajn casove Englesko- Hrvatskog jezika. Mnogo bi pomogli i nama da ucimo od vas.
Hvala! :)
Valjda satove, a ne časove.
@@mikasadaiki702 Pa mi iz Beograda kazemo casove. No svejedno je razumemo se.
@@SuperIraklion ok. Oprostite
@@SuperIraklion @SuperIraklion mi se - a to se jasno vidi - nikad nismo razumileli. Da smo se razumijeli, Vukovar i Srebrenica se nikad nebi bili dogodili.
Well, I think it is completely normal for you to wish your kids speak both languages. And, they are in the right age to do so, which is evident from your video. Through clips of your kids speaking both languages, I can see how much love and effort you are (both) giving to them. Your work is very refreshing in these "privacy feared" times, and, Croatia being so small country as is, it would not be a miracle if we stumble upon each other one day... Great job, as ussual! :)
Thank you Mario! :)
Sofia is soooo cute i loved her giving kisses to her sister though they’re all beautiful.
Thanks Lynder!
This is quite impressive! Your children are able to speak each language without inserting English words when they speak Croatian and vice versa.
Yes! At first there was a lot of mixing, but it didnt' take long for them to straighten everything out in their heads :)
Bravo svi ste predivni puno srece svima i neka vas dragi Bog blagoslovi.
Hvala! 🥰🥰
It must be great to grow up bilingual! Teaching your children both languages is one of the greatest gifts you could give them! Pozdrav iz Srbije
Absolutely!! Pozdrav iz Hrvatske :)
My kids learnt 2 languages parallel. They are really bilingual now but at the age of 3 nobody could understand their language which was mix of two languages words and grammars. But it was also one parent- one language, and not to give up because it is sometimes easier.
Oh my God! What a heavy job! congrats to you both ...or I would say four!
I´m an english translator and I´ve been trying to find the way to teach english to my grandchildren just by talking to them, but it´s very very difficult. The fact that we linve in a country where English is not spoken by almost anyone. So it is quite a hard work to inspire the to speak english. It´s been a pleasure tu get to know you! my son is getting married with a croatian girl in august ,so i´m studying croatian right now!
Go on delivering videos about languaje in croatia, they are very very usefull to me!
i´m Claudia from Argentina. Bye!
Thank you for sharing!! I couldn't picture the difficulties of raising children in bilingual environment until this clip.
It was such an amazing to see how your children are actually became bilingual. Congratulations, good job, bravo. 🙂
You're a wonderful mom! Of course, your kids are too. I can imagine how hard it feels when your kids can't speak with your closest ones and other relatives.
Seven of my cousins are born in other countries. Two are born in Germany to my uncle, three are the kids of my aunt. Finally, the last two are born in Australia. It was so funny listening to one of them calling a rooster "muška kokoš." :)
Right now - he speaks Croatian almost perfectly. Since our language isn't exactly global, it wasn't a school where he learned the language. When your children start to learn English in school - it's possible that they will teach a teacher how to speak fluently. ;)
I was raised in the US until I was three, with an American father and an Austrian mother. I understood both languages but when we moved to Austria I refused to speak German for the first few months, then I was able to switch effortlessly between the two. Now I have a 2-month-old and intend to raise him bilingually as well, as the English language is very dear to my heart. Everyone has been telling me that I have to be very strict about only speaking English with him and my partner only German.
Thank you for this video!! I will definitely put more thought and research into this.
Your kids are adorable! Really enjoyed this video. You do a great job of flawlessly editing your videos. For being such a new channel your videos seem so professionally made. Love that every video is informative but also very interesting. Can’t wait to watch more! Thank you for making these
Aww, thanks so much for your kind words Tatum!
Fantastic job. Thank you for sharing the ups and downs. Are there any approaches for a situation when you're the only speaker of your language? We live in Canada but I'm from Slovakia. My husband can only speak English.
You're really doing a great job!
I'm a single mother living with my 4y old son in Switzerland. So he's speaking German/Swiss German outside the house and Serbian/Croatian with me and our family. And by watching different cartoons on yt he's also learning to speak English. I'm so happy and proud seeing him making such progress in this area as I myself love being able to understand and speak all those languages (more or less^^) Soon he'll learn at least English and French at school as I did myself. A great tool to see the world and get to know different countries, people and cultures.
I like your yt channel, you got a new follower. :)
My father grew up speaking italian with my grandparents here in the german speaking part of switzerland and he speaks it sooo well! But one of the main reasons was probably bc my grandparents didn't speak any german back then and my father could only reply in italian in order to communicate and i think acting like you don't know any croatian was the best decision you could ever make!
Brilliant and educational video!
Thanks Sonja!
Pozdrav. Jako zanimljiv video i iskustvo. Moje licno je npr. ona prva verzija koju ste pokusali. Naime, bila sam 2g. dadilja u Svicarskoj, majka je govorila hrvatski, tata njemacki a moj zadatak je bio malenu uzrasta 2g. nauciti engleski. Na pocetku sam se bojala u nekim situacijama kad smo bile vani da me nece razumjeti pa sam govorila hrvatski pa prevodila na engleski :) posle nekih pola godine sam se skroz prebacila na engleski i dosta dobro ga je savladala. Inace, ona je bez greske znala sa kim koji jezik treba pricati i nikada nas nije pomijesala. Sa tatom je samo njemacki pricala, sa mamom hrvatski a sa mnom engleski. Cak je i sa bakom na madjarskom komunicirala, doduse nije ga puno pricala ali ju je sve razumjela. Ne znam je li mala samo genije za jezike ili su jednostavno kod nje taj pristup i podjela savrseno legli.
Ali bas mi je interesantno cuti i za ovakve druge nacine. Lijepi pozdrav
Hi! I am a Australian with Croatian parents living in Canada. I have been living in Canada for 6 years now and I really miss speaking in Croatian to my parents and their friends. Your channel brings a lot of nostalgia and happiness. Your Croatian is amazing! I have really come to appreciate the language now that I barely use it. Hvala za tvoja video! Bas me donosi me radost!
Aww, thanks for your lovely comment :)
My children are perfectly bilingual in German and Greek. We live in Greece and I'm German. I started speaking German from the day they were born. As my husband doesn't speak German, our family language is Greek. When we are all together we speak Greek. When I'm speaking to my children alone I usually speak German. Sometimes they are lazy and answer in Greek, but I just kept speaking German.
We have lots of German books and DVDs, which helped a lot. And here in Rhodes we have an association called SPOR that is actually a conglomerate of associations of different groups that wanted to teach their children their mother tongue. They have sections for English, German, French, Swedish, Finnish, Italian, Spanish and Dutch. My children go there twice a week and they learned reading and writing and are now preparing to giving their language exams that give them access to the German educational system.
It's a lot of work in the first years until the children feel really at home in their second language. Later it comes naturally.
Very nice story. Good job mum! Tata pomozi i ti 🤣🤣
Hvala!
Our kids grew up in different english and german speaking countries. We always spoke in the house the opposite of the language that was spoken outside, school, kindergarten.....their father is American I'm German. This system worked very well for us. The first years they mixed things up but after starting school they learned to separate the languages better. During Highschool where they were required to take a foreign language, we actually encouraged them to take a different language again (french and spanisch). This was another enrichment of their knowledge. I would always do all this the same way again.
Thanks for your comment!
Well done! Your family is a delight
Thank you!!
Awesome! Congratulations! So nice to see happy people raising happy children. God bless. Cestitke od srca!
Thank you so much!
THEY ARE ALL SO GOOD! I'm so proud of them and you and Ivan! This is super cool, I can't wait to chatt with them when we are finally able to travel again! I'll have to rebook my flight:)
Thanks Kate!!!! Come on over girrrrrl!! Can't wait for you to visit!
Iskreno vjerujem da će biti odlični u oba jezika. Djeca su kao spužve i brzo upijaju sve oko sebe.
Samo opušteno i uživajte u procesu! ❤️
I really love your videos. When I start watching, I just have to watch them all the way to the end. The way you speak is very clear and immersive for the listener, you know how to express really well and relatable. I am Croatian and live in Croatia, and I've recommended your channel to my cousin who lives in the US. She grew up bilingually, spoke mostly English but as she got older, Croatian became more and more interesting. Especially since her parents speak a strong Dalmatian dialect, so standard Croatian - the one you are using so eloquently - is like a whole new language to her. And to see you master it so well; we are both in awe :) Keep up the good work with the videos!
Hi Marija, thank you so much for your sweet words! I'm so happy you're enjoying our videos :D Pozdrav iz Zagreba!
Zelim vam puno zdravlje i srece! I was born in Croatia, but my family moved to Canada when I was only 4 years old, I learned English in school and it's my main language now, but I would still speak Croatian to my parents and their Croatian friends....although there are some words that I've forgotten after all these years, I know if I was back there it would all come back to me....I've only been back home when I was 10 and 15 years old, that was a long time ago! I'm amazed at how well you picked up the language, you're doing a great job and your children picked up both quickly!
Hvala vam puno! :) sve najbolje i vama!
That is such a cute, sweet and interesting video. Thx for sharing your education. Your family in Canada will be so happy that they can communicate now. 😍😍
Thank you so much!
God bless you and your wonderful family🙏🏻😊 Prekrasni ste
Thank you so much! :D
I notice in their early stages, they have a slight croatian accent when talking in english, but little by little it starts to disappear, in the end though they will be fluent in croatian and english, spanish was my first language and when I started learning english at school, my spanish accent was still there, but overtime that accent went away and now i am fluent in both
Im so impressed!! Well done
Thanks Stevie!
90 riječi 😄 mama priča hrvatski prva liga 👍 ovo je poučan kanal na kojemu sam zapeo
Hahah :D
Predivna porodica. 👍 Great job. ☺️
Thank you so so much for this video! I love how you were so honest about the obstacles along the way and the pressure you were feeling. The way you broke down all the information was so detailed! I definitely feel that the 4 walls method is the best way when you are living in a one language dominant environment!
Thanks Joel! Yes, it hasn't been the smoothest road, but I hope that this video can make it a bit easier on someone else in the same situation :) 4 walls is definitely working the best for us!
I was raised bilingual by a German father and an Italian mother in Germany (one parent-one language) and it went perfectly well. Then I married an Italian man in Italy and had two children, but I wasn't as lucky as you, because neither my husband, nor any of his relatives knew any German, and therefore at home we had to speak Italian. At first I tried German with the children, but since I was the only one and they knew that I could speak Italian, too, they never made an effort. Anyway, later they learned it at school and now they really speak it well.
Yes, it makes it hard when you're the only one speaking the other language!! Glad they learned it though, and speak it well :)
First of all a big hallo from PrinceRupert,BC from. Extremely proud Canadian and Croatian.. almost everyone know that in my adopted home of 12-13 k people.
Sarah, I’m totally in love with yours super sweet videos. Still can’t believe it that something like exists. It’s so beautiful to see my home town Zagreb,Croatia and the people through the eyes of an Canadian.
You are such a wonderful family and watching yours videos my heart gets melted.
For now just sending you my best wishes and love from one of the most beautiful place on earth, northern BC.
Thank you so much and keep up your good work.
Bob
Divna obitelj ,
puno srece i uspjeha.
Puno hvala Marko!
You have the cutest kids!The two older kids accented English is so fun to listen to.
Omg so cute. Much blessings and love for you and the family
My husband and I are American but all 4 of our kids were born in Italy. We did the four walls approach, but our kids know that we both speak Italian (with a funny accent they say) because whenever we are outside of our home (even if it is just us) we speak Italian. We are out a lot and they go to school here so they have always been fluent in both languages from when they started talking, and the locals tell us that they have the local Italian accent. It probably helps that they don’t get English from anybody else here because for the longest time we didn’t know any other English native speakers here and still rarely see any.
She reads so well and with such expression!
Thanks! She's actually making up the story from looking at the pictures :) But her expression definitely makes it! :)
Hi Sarah,
I came across your videos when my partner and I decided to plan a holiday in Croatia this summer. I really enjoyed watching your videos about all the beautiful sights of Croatia and its language. The video that I wanted to react to was the one about bringing up children bilingually. It was really interesting to read about your experience and decisions.
I wanted to share my experience with you which you may - or may not! - find interesting.
I am a French national and came to England to live with my now ex-wife 20 years ago. We have 2 children, 11 and 14. I am a keen linguist and for me it was crucial for my children to speak French and now about their French heritage. I also wanted to be able to always be able to speak to them in my own tongue, without having to think, that's why we didn't go for the 4 walls approach. We are lucky enough to be able to go back to France twice a year and I therefore wanted my children to be able to communicate with my family over there too.
We used the one parent, one language approach quite strictly. To this day, I only speak English to the children when we are in an exclusively English-speaking environment, eg. with a group of English friends. I also made a conscious effort to buy French children's books, DVDs and CDs, to show them French TV shows. We also try to speak to my family online regularly.
I was fortunate because the children's mum speaks fluent French so it was easy to make it our second family language.
I was worried because when they were young, whilst they understood French fluently, the children spoke very little French to me. I persevered and it's only when they turned 9-10 or so that they started speaking French more confidently and spontaneously. Their mum and I are now separated so when they are with me, French is the main language they hear and they are speaking it more and better and I am now seeing the fruit of my efforts!
Anyway, I was really interested to hear about the approach and am sure it will work brilliantly for your 3 little ones.
Keep the video coming!
Rémi
Love your videos
Awesome, all power to you guys! And Olivia.... She is adorable 100000000%!
Thank you Tomislav!
Thank you so much for this video 🥰 It is very helpful for us who are just starting the journey of getting our kids bilingual.
You can do it!!! :) Just stay consistent - that's my best piece of advice. Best of luck!
Beautiful family! God bless!
🌼🌷🌺🌻🌹🐞🦋🐠🦚🦢
Prezanimljivo :)
Hvala! :)
Draga Saro ja Vam se zaista divim kako ste postigli da djeca pričaju dva jezika. Vjerujem da nije bilo lako u početku, ali evo Vi ste dokaz da uz dobar trud se sve može,i evo rezultat je tu. Vi odlicno pričate hrvatski jezik, nemate uopće puno onaj engl. naglasak, sve lijepo izgovarate,bravo. Vaša obitelj,muž,svekrva,svekar, mogu biti ponosni što imaju tako lijepu i pametnu snaju. Super da djeca pričaju i engl, mada uče ga i u školi i većina mladi ljudi u Hr znaju engl.To je baš važno da djeca govore oba jezika, baš kad idu u Kanadu da mogu pričati sa svojim rodjacima,bakom,djedom. Super su svi videi,neki dan sam otkrila i pretplatila se na Vaš kanal.Lijepi ste Saro i simpaticni, postigli ste super rezultat sa jezicima. 😀🥰
This is such a lovely video ❤
Thank yoU!
Hello.
Your strategy of pretending to have forgotten the local language worked very well ! 👏
I am happy for you, for your kids and for all your family.
Greetings from Belgium.
You're such a wonderful mom. We just found you and my wife loves your wisdom and honesty. God bless you and your beautiful family. Many kisses from Vancouver 🇨🇦
Awww, thank you so much for your very sweet words!! Very best wishes to you from Croatia!
I can relate to this as my father is Croat and my mother is Austrian.When I was four years old I started mixing Croatian,Austrian and English so my mother just started speaking to me in English.
Great to see a personal experience with raising bilingual children. I’m having similar challenges, so this has inspired me to try the 4-walls method. Wish me luck!
You can do it! Best of luck!!
Thank you so much for these insights I’m trying to bring my daughter up with more languages this gives me much great food for thought!
Tako krasna obitelj😊🙏🏻 Od srca sve najbolje Vama svima❤️
Puno hvala, Mate!! Imate lijepo ime (kao moj sin :)
I was a trilingual child. Nobody thought me by the age of 7 i was speaking fluent Croatian, German and english. I played video games in English, watched cartoons in German and born in Croatia. Now I'm 15 i learned Spanish, Dutch, Slovenian, Slovakian and Swedish.
That's awesome!
Wow that's impressive! Which language do you think was the easiest and which one the hardest to learn?
@@bellv4163 Easiest would be (apart from German and English i grew up with those languages) Slovenian hardest Spanish (It is easy for many people but it was a complete foreign language for me)
@@dinonugget7114 thats surprising ahha i thought you were going to say spanish as the easiest but i get why. I am learning french which is a similar language to spanish so spanish will probably be easy to learn for me.
Thank you for this very informative video. I can totally relate. I have alot of worries about teaching my little one 3 languages. But after watching this video, you gave me confidence to just continue and try my best to teach her what i know is the best.
Bravo Sarah, you’ve done an excellent job with the kids! They are super cute! Greetings from Australia!
Thanks so much! 😊 Greetings from Zagreb!
Great video! Great family! Great job in making your children bilingual!
The more languages the better!👍👍👍 Speaking 🔊 from personal experience ! Yes you two are doing 👏 amazing job !
Thank you!! ❤️
You are extraordinary beautiful, your children and your family 😍 Awesome job 👏👏👏👏👏❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
You're so kind, thank you!
As someone who majored in English and linguistics I find this endlessly fascinating. Also, Olivia's accent is perfect. She's gonna ace English at school. Good job.
Aww, thank you so much Domagoj!
This came up in my recommended videos , found it really interesting . Well done kids . I will subscribe xx
Thanks so much 😊
I am a spanish speaker, mother of a 5 yo toddler living in Croatia fo more than 8 years, husband is Croatian as well. From the day he was born, i spoke to him in Spanish only, same as tv and songs( I don't really know any croatian kids songs) and in my case was the opossie, he would understand Croatian but he wouldnt speak or he will mix it, he will reply only in spanish or 98% in spanish. I was not really worried about the Croatian language because i knew he would speak it as soon as he started kindergarten. It was very important for me that my son comunicates with my family, so i tried to maximize the use of spanish, i got a little bit worried before he started kindergarten, thinking that the teta wouldn't understand him. 2 weeks after he started school he was already speaking croatian. He did stop using spanish, and i was so frustating, so i decided to tell him that i dont understand him when he spoke croatian, so he was forced to talked to me in spanish. We have that struggle but i do see he is using his spanish better, so right know he knows that with tata is croatian and with mama is spanish.
That's great and really cute!! Thanks for sharing, Cynthia!
Great video!!
Thanks!
This is awesome,and your children have 0 accent residue when they speak in English. Good job, I myself speak 3 languages fluently (italian,english and croatian). The secret is in starting very young, I have started to learn english at 6 years old. Italian was an easy transition since I come from Istria + studying aborad in Italy helped a huge deal. Wish you all the best. Ciao
Thank you!! Best wishes to you! :)