How We Raise Our Trilingual Children
Vložit
- čas přidán 6. 09. 2019
- Some people have been asking me how we raise our trilingual children and how well they are doing until now. Sign up to get FREE games and activities that help you raise your multilingual children successfully here: multilingual.family/sign-up
♡ ♡ ♡
Subscribe to my EMAIL list to get videos and free material to develop your child's language skills (no matter what language) here: www.multilingual.family/sign-up
♡ ♡ ♡
ON THIS VIDEO:
I share with you some very personal clips and all the strategies that we have been using the past four years.
→ Plenty of practical ideas
→ Clips with examples
♡ ♡ ♡
OTHER VIDEOS FOR YOU:
→ IS IT A GOOD IDEA TO RAISE MULTILINGUAL KIDS?
bit.ly/2wwvM1F
→ HOW WE RAISE OUR TRILINGUAL CHILDREN
bit.ly/2SVVDYq
→ HOW MANY LANGUAGES CAN A CHILD LEARN?
bit.ly/37FaqMg
→ FIVE REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD SING WITH YOUR MULTILINGUAL CHILD
bit.ly/39Y4Oyv
→ SPEECH AND VOCABULARY ACTIVITIES FOR
MULTILINGUAL TODDLERS
bit.ly/38KvDpm
→ MULTILINGUAL BABIES - SPEECH ACTIVITIES
bit.ly/328PWdD
→ HOW TO SPEAK MORE THAN ONE LANGUAGE WITH YOUR CHILD
bit.ly/2P8GRwb
→ PASSIVE LANGUAGE LEARNING
bit.ly/2P7WCn2
→ CODE-SWITCHING
bit.ly/2vK0VOE
→ SHOULD I CORRECT MY CHILD'S SPEECH?
bit.ly/2V6RH9Q
→ TRAVEL WITH YOUR BILINGUAL CHILD
bit.ly/37Dh4T9
♡ ♡ ♡
ABOUT ME:
Welcome to Multilingual Family, your space to discover how to raise multilingual kids successfully.
My name is Andrea Breitenmoser and I'm a teacher, specialized in languages. I was raised bilingual and now I'm raising my children trilingual. Let me share my experiences and know-how with you!
♡ ♡ ♡
DISCLOSURE
This video is not sponsored.
Newsletter sign-up:
⭐ www.multilingual.family/sign-up
Get a one-on-one consultation with me:
⭐ www.multilingual.family/coaching-call-60-min
Your Daughter is vey beautiful but she looks more when she smiles, MashaAllah
Me, a barely bilingual person with no kids: "Yep, let's watch this!"
Same.
lol, I only speak English, and have no kids ... but I'm a teacher, so this is fascinating to me. I would like to be able to speak Spanish fluently.
@@GlaneciaXCat I'm also a teacher and I'm learning Spanish slowly on Duolingo.
me, a literal child who speaks 5 languages: sure
me monolingual dunce with no kids and totally single trying to learn spanish..yeah lets watch this!
I misread the title as “how we raise our triangular children” 😂🤣😂
😂😂😂😂 my fault for putting the triangle there...
Me too 😂😂😂
Sounds like a clickhole video
Same 😂😂😂😂
Yup - me too - came to learn what triangle children were lol - I stayed to watch because multilingual is amazing :)
Most important part, don't give up. My son stopped speaking Spanish after I got divorced. Then he told me he didn't want to learn French even though I used it with him often since birth. When he hit high school, he surprised me by doing four years of French. Then got a double major; one being French. Then he reaquired Spanish. And he is building on Hebrew. So proud of him!
Yes, the efforts are never in vain.
@@MultilingualFamily Hello~ may I please get your email to ask you some personal questions?
We were raised trilingual and it was such a gift that has served us so well throughout life. I can’t thank my parents enough! As a result we love languages, have gone on to learn more 😂 You can never speak too many languages! Best way to immediately connect with another human being is to be able to speak their language 🙏🌈
Lola, what are the chances of bumping into the same person on CZcams on a totally different subject. I commented on your comment yesterday regarding veganism. So funny 😂. I too am trilingual, I speak English, Italian and French. How about you?
So true! I wish I knew even more...
@@pattydonna8549 omg it’s you, that’s incredible, CZcams is definitely sending us in the same direction 😂 or great minds think alike 😉 I was raised speaking Portuguese, Spanish and English 🥰
@@MultilingualFamily the beautiful thing about languages is it is never too late to learn a new one! 🥰
@@lolacookie453 I'll go with great minds think alike 😉 It's great being trilingual. So nice bumping into you again. Take care my friend 🥰
Me, a 21 year old German, not even thinking about having kids and only being bilingual:
“YES. let’s watch a video about teaching my kids 3 languages”
Same here. You've gotta do something during lockdown
The best thing you can do is getting some know-how BEFORE having kids! :)
Same and I was expecting everything but not Swiss German 😂
Time to man up lol
I’m multi-lingual. I will do everything in my power to make my kids at least be bilingual. Kids are so smart! Amazing job!
You can do it!
Same here
your kids are so lucky, i wish my parents were multilingual.
Omg same
Thank god you're lucky enough to have parents
My husband and I speak English to each other. I speak Russian to the kids, he speaks with them Swedish and they speak Hebrew at daycare and school... a salad of languages haha It’s a lot of fun actually ❤️ And we also sing a lot, it helps with speech development and learning languages more efficiently
Thanks for sharing!!
Sophie's World your name is a good book haha
wow family goals 💖
Wow! Amazing 😍
Sophie, nice, Im trying to figure out how this works. Curious to know, do you understand what your husband is saying to the kids and vice versa? How does that dynamic work. And Do they ever respond to you in another language?
I grew up in Africa speaking 4 languages and our children are now fluent in 3 (Finnish, Swedish and English) as well as having a very strong knowledge of French and Spanish. It is the best feeling to travel and to be able to speak the language of the country you travel to🙏
Please mention the country you grew up in. Too many people think that Africa is a country.
@@Missreepee thank you!!!
Can you speak Cape Malay?
melkonen kielellinen sekamelska :D
I was raised trilingual. Married into a 4th language (husband is bilingual). Kids are now bilingual as I didn’t know how to introduce a third language. We are about to move to Spain. so I’m excited for the kids to learn a 3rd language!
Thoughts. Each parent along with grandparents speak a heritage language to the kids. Nanny speaks a different language to the kids. School immersion. Social environment (Depending on the country). Holidays/ Vacation in the target language country being learned.
Possibility of at least five, depending if the circumstances allow it.
Edit: Future possibilities, the children can choose to learn other languages as school subjects when older.
The other is choosing to speak only specific languages in particular rooms in the house.
@@alanguages thanks for this. They speak one European language and English. I do hope after Spain we can move back to my country so they can pick up the more obscure languages I speak. Some ‘major’ languages for ease and some obscure ones for my own sentimental reasons :)
oh I'm spanish, I really hope you and your family have a good time living here, I'm sure they are going to learn real soon!
im moving to spain in the next few years! to barcelona! im learning spanish and my sisters will start learning soon too
Hello dear, thanks for your video it is really great. I personally had never heard of such strategies and methods designed by to raise trilingual children untill I came across your video. The awkward fact is that I think I've succeeded to raise 2 'quadrilingual' kids, I dare to say, spontaneously. My native language in mandarin chinese and my husband's native language is persian, we live in Dubai and only speak english to one another because we can't speak each other's languages. I had never thought about this multilingual education idea, though my husband and I only speak to our kids in our respective languages because it's more comfortable for us. In the first year of my kids (they're twins), I was only a stay at home mom, so, at first, mandarin chinese was their strongest language, moreover many of my husband's relatives live here, and guess, they have children too! As we frequently gathered together, I started noticing that my both kids were also developing persian speaking skills, this is also because their father also only spoke to then in persian. Furthermore, as my husband and I only speak english to each other, I started noticing that my both kids were over and over more likely to grasp english words and sentences, as we spend a lot of time together as a family on our days off, but I think that's also due to their exposure to english media such as children's TV shows and cartoons. When they were 3 y/o I enrolled them in a local kindergarten, and one day, when I went to pick them up, one of the teachers asked me how come they could speak english and arabic relatively well once these are none of their backgrounds, I was really shocked to know that my kids could speak arabic at that point, then I realised it was because when they were 1 y/o, I started to work again, then we hired a Syrian lady as a nanny to take care of them, as she spoke very little english, I am absolutely sure that she only had spoken to them in arabic. As Dubai is a very multicultural city, english is by far the most spoken language here despite not being official, nevertheless all government services are provided in both arabic and english. As my children started attending school, we enrolled them in a bilingual (english and arabic), so it would benefit their lives here. A few years ago, after my father died, my mother (who only speaks chinese) moved to live with us here in Dubai, thus she can take care of my kids whilst we're working, as she only speaks chinese and is also a retired chinese language elementary school teacher, she taught my kids to write and read chinese, which is definitely the trickiest part of learning mandarin.
Now my kids are 8 y/o and I can say that they're able to speak chinese, persian, english and arabic fluently, with some flaws here and there but nothing to worry about. Perhaps I can say that persian may has become their weakest language with the passing of the time, because as they're growing up they have been spending over and over less time with their Iranaian family, although they still only speak persian to their father.
I know my story took long, but I felt I definitely had to share it with you!
Best wishes with your kids education 🙂
Thank you so much for sharing your story. Your intuition lead you to choose wisely! Unfortunately, not everybody has such a "natural multilingual situation" in their lives and so it is not always so easy for some to raise their kids multilingual. Lucky you! Keep on doing a great job.
Wow. That‘s impressive!
Amazing! A former teacher had something very similar evolve with her kids. She grew up in Alsace speaking German & French. Husband was bilingual Gaelic/Irish & English. Each grandparents would only engage with the kids in 1 language. It’s was amazing to babysit them & see how effortlessly they transitioned languages.
Wow that's a great mix of languages. Mandarin and arabic are really hard languages to learn from a western point of view! And I imagine Persian is aswell.
Impressive！ 我也准备给我刚出生的孩子进行双语教育，使用 OPOL method。然后一岁左右再引入第三种语言。
Your children are extremely lucky to be given so many 'languages' from their early years.... they are learning the languages in the very best way! Bravo!
When i was growing up, my parents only spoke to me in one language (Latvian), even though they both were fluent in Russian, and my mum knew German very well. I really wish that they had also spoken to me in Russian (possibly even German), as it is very difficult for me to learn it now that I'm older. Moral of the story, if you are multilingual and are having kids- TEACH THEM MORE THAN ONE LANGUAGE
Exactly!
I knowhow you feel. I grew up with Lebanese parents, but they only spoke to me In English so while I am learning now Arabic and French in aEnglishFrench
I feel you :[, I am German and my mum can speak Croatia but she was afraid that would have had problems learning the German language.. now I am sad that I barely know Croatia :[
i was raised multilingual I speak 9 languages today- my mom speaks 13. I am kinda worried that I won't be able to teach my children so I really appreciate these types of videos
Well, I guess if you managed to learn 9 languages, you will do things intuitively right 😉.
@@MultilingualFamily I can only hope haha :)
woow! Which ones do you speak? And are you on a high level in ALL of them? :O
@@janineevers2913 Hi! I speak - 1. swedish (mother tongue from my mom) 2.3.4.serbian/bosnian/croatian ( I count as separate languages mother tongue from my dad but I'm not 100% confident but I understand and speak and study in bosnia), 5.english fluently, 6.french i used to be fluent but I forgot a lot, 7.german I have A2 level now at uni but im probably an actual C level, 8. norwegian probably fluent 9. polish basics
@@bellaandnemo I speak German fluently. C level is really high it's native. My German was between c1 and c2. For french I am a starting b1 student. For Dutch c1 and for English I don't know, I think it could be b2.
I am considering raising my children bilingual but I do not know how to choose the language I want them to have as a second one. I am hesitating between German and English but as I learned German by myself I would think French could be done as well😳
I don't even have kids but I appreciated this recommendation
child's brain is so elastic and adaptive in an impressive way. i lost my English language fluency when i started to learn Spanish ,my brain said enough is enough.
You baby is super adorable and sweet! She is also lucky to have the opportunity to speak different languages from such an early age
Where I'm from we are required to learn 3 languages through school (Faroese, Danish and English), so most people from a certain age speak 3 languages pretty fluently. It just happens naturally there. It's interesting seeing how people have to actively choose and work so hard with getting their children to be multilingual in other countries. :)
Yes, that depends on whether the environment is multilingual or not. If you want your child to learn a language that is not spoken in the place you live, it requires a lot of effort and dedication to expose the child to that language regularly.
My daughter in 5 and she can speak English, Portuguese and some Japanese. I've been talking to her in theses languages since she was born. It's amazing!!
My boyfriend is italian and I am portuguese. Before I learned italian we spoke in english with each other for months, and often still do! We are planning on teaching the 3 languages to our future kids and this video was super helpful, a big thank you from italy! :)
I speak 5 languages: Arabic, Swedish, English, French and Spanish.. I understand few more.. at home, we speak 4 languages with my 17 months old son. .. he understands everything but he's still not speaking. of course he says few words from every language. I don't know if the variety of languages spoken at home has anything to do with delaying the speech ability. But i know for the long run, he will benefit from learning all these languages.
In my opinion, it does delay speech ability. How it is in the long run, I have no clue. I grew up speaking 3 languages and hence I suppose it should be fine.
I am Indian and speak Tamil to my daughter while my wife is Austrian and speaks German to her. Me and my wife talk in English to each other. This ended up in my daughter understanding and responding to most stuff but for some reason could not speak either language. However, just 3 days after going into a Krabbelstube (daycare) at the age of 22 months, she started speaking German at the rate of around 5 words a day. Now she responds to Tamil words only if there is no equivalent German word. For eg only I tell her to come back from the TV and hence she understands and responds to that when I say in Tamil. However, my wife tells her to sit down in front of a TV and hence if I say the same, she does not understand. The only thing she can understand in 3 languages is 'No' :-D
Yes, he benefits from being exposed at an early age to various languages. Just make sure that you pick a main language to build up a relationship to your child. That is really important.
There is some research which says that being exposed to multiple languages can delay speech.
However, our experience has been different. I'm from India speaking Marathi, Hindi and English at native level, Spanish at B2 and French at A2 and my Peruvian wife speaks Spanish at native level and English, at B2. I always speak with my soon to be 3 y.o. son in Marathi, my mother tongue and my wife speaks to him in Spanish. We thought that he had difficulty in producing languages early on. But ever since he turned 2, he's been on a roll. He not only immediately picks up new words and pronounces them perfectly in both the languages, he seems to experiment within each language, trying to put together words he knows, albeit at times without any meaning.
17 months is too young to be worried about your son's speech. Give him time and he'll make you proud in no time.
Don’t worry too much. Children when beginning to learn language have a large increase in vocabulary as time goes on, but research also shows there is a almost like a “limit” to the number of words they roughly know at certain stages/ages. And in bilingual or multilingual children, if let’s say the limit is 100 words, that is the total words in all languages. So if they were exposed to 4 languages equally, they would roughly know 25 words in each language. If you’re interested, look up child development psychology and language online and you can read up on some more of the specifics regarding the research 😊 hope that helps!
I am German, my husband is from the US. We do live in the US, and raise our four children trilingually. We mainly use English, and German during conversations. We use three languages for homeschooling though. (English, German and French) My husband mainly speaks English to the kids, but sometimes German. I speak mainly German to them, or if it is needed English in public. However, during school time I also speak French for certain subjects, and when reading favorite French books. The boys attend a French online class for native speakers once a week, and take Maths with a French distance school (CNED). My husband and I talk a lot in English, but when around the kids I also talk German to him. We are hoping to visit my family in Germany again soon, and to be able to visit more French speaking countries. We use media in all three languages. (books, music, DVDs, youtube videos, games) The boys mainly answer me in German, sometimes in English, and during class time in French. They mainly talk English to my husband, his family, our neighbors and amongst each other, but also mix in some German once in a while with their dad or brothers. They use French with their French teacher, too, and when talking to other French speakers. Before I forget, our kids are between 3 and 11 years old.
It sounds like its going well! Keep up the good work :)
I got a grade G in languages at school. Now I speak Russian, English,Swedish,French, Spanish, Vietnamese and German pretty well just by choosing to live in each country for 800 days each. Like any goal if it has a finish line you will learn faster in my opinion. Also the worst thing to do is tell yourself "I'm bad at languages" this closes the brain off to trying to learn.
What sort of grade is “G”? I used to have a grading system with the letter G but it meant good for me
@@umakarunakaran4626 G is the worst in UK education A is the best
@@dadbod7510 ah gotcha, I understand now. My grading scale was ABCDF from seventh grade (year 8) onwards, but from grades K-3 it was O (outstanding), G (good), S (satisfactory), and N (needs improvement). You can imagine I'd be pretty pleased with a G
Very interesting video. We also did the OPOL method without actually knowing it was called like that :) Our twins grew up with my wife speaking Korean, and me Swiss German in a Swiss German environment. That was until Kindergarten. Then they went to the French Kindergarten and picked up French (with which I am bilingual) very fast (like 3 months). From then on, their primary language was French, they used it to talk together and to me, but I continued speaking Swiss German to them.
Now they are 16 yrs old and they recently switched to Korean as their main language. They go to a bilingual high-school (German and French) where the students are either of German or French mother tongue. Their weakest language is Swiss German, as I was less present than my wife, and we were not actively making play dates with Swiss German speaking kids, most of the time they would play with their schoolmates.
English was no problem to learn at all. They already heard it from time to time at home when my wife and me discussed more complicated matters (otherwise my wife speaks Korean and German to me, and I speak German to her). Having an internet pen-pal in English helped them a lot and while not at a native level, they master English fluently.
Wonderful multilingual journey. Thank you for sharing!
May I ask you why you don't teach them German instead of Swiss German? Wouldn't it be much more useful for them?
@@Wawruto It's very easy: because it is my mother tongue and it is the language used in everyday life here in the German speaking part of Switzerland. They do learn German (high German at school anyway).
@@eiseli99 Thank you, I heard it's only a dialect, not a real language, and that people who use dialects look uneducated in Switzerland (at least in French).
@@Wawruto In the German part of Switzerland, not speaking the dialect makes you sound like a foreigner. Nobody would think of you as uneducated when speaking Swiss German. In the French part, French dialects (patois) have almost completely disappeared.
Enjoyed listening. My husband is fluent in 3-4 languages but I speak only one (sadly), giving multilingualism to our children (when we have them) is a goal very important to us both. I love watching stories about how people do this. Thank you for sharing with us!
I have to congratulate you, your husband and your very intellectual children for this very insightful video. My 1st language is Spanish, and my second and stronger is English. I was born in Michoacán, Mexico & was 4 when we migrated to East Los Angeles. My mother raised 5 by herself and insisted that we never forget our humble beginnings and our Mexican traditions!! We had to speak only Spanish and within 6 months I was fluent in both Spanish and English. I want to learn Italian, Portuguese and French. Muchas gracias por sus excelentes consejos y que Dios bendiga su hermosa familia.🙏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼💜🇺🇸🇲🇽
I love this! I was raised Bilingual Polish and English but living in the USA, with such a wide variety of cultures, I always wondered what would I do if I met someone who is bilingual in another language. I would never want our languages and cultures to disappear with us. And this gives me hope that it is possible! All the best to you and your family! 💙💙💙
Wonderful! YES, it is possible to pass on everything you have to your kids. I´m just working on a free video series for cosmopolitan people like you. Check them out here: www.multilingual.family/training-video-1
Cheers!
I am Latvian, my husband is Danish and we speak English together. Our daughter is only one year, but we are already exposing her to all three languages. People around us might think it is crazy, but I am sure that child's brain is more that capable of learning three languages simultaneously. Will try OPOL method, because now we kinda switch them, even mid-sentence. English is so easy, that sometimes I speak it to my daughter even if we are alone, and when I catch myself, I switch to Latvian. We are also singing some songs, but to be honest we are also very lazy and don't think too much about different ways to teach her purposely 😁
It is the same in my case, I am Panamanian (Spanish speaker) my husband Icelandic and we speak English together. Mine has been exposed to the 3 languages since day 1. Also happen the same thing to me, I catch myself sometimes speaking English but I always switch back to Spanish.
Just found this video on my recommended, and thought i'd take a look, as my husband and i will be teaching our kids 3 languages aswell (Danish, Swiss German and English) and we're planning on doing the OPOL method. me speaking only danish with them and my husband only swiss german. Other languages like italian, french and german will then come from family members and kindergarden/school later on aswell. but im really happy i found your video, im sure it'll help give us some tips and tricks for the future :)
What are the chances? Last week I was telling my friend that I would like my future children to speak at least 3 languages and now CZcams recommended this video. This is truly amazing and super beneficial to the children. God bless this family!
Join my Live Course that is starting next week. We will cover the most important point that every parent raising multilingual children should know about. Registrations are only open until Sunday! You will come in with lots of questions and come out with clear thoughts and a strong vision. The course only takes place once a year!
Go here: www.multilingual.family/sp
It's so nice that you've given it alot of thought. I've thought about how it will be for me if I ever have kids. I only had arabic at home, german and english in school, and hebrew when visiting grandparents in Israel twice a year for 2 months. It was definately not intentionally or thought out like yours and just happened for me to grow up fluent in 4 languages. I do notice how ever that this might decrease with further generations of immigrant kids and I don't see myself really using arabic/hebrew alot which would probably get lost on my children if I don't use it intentionally.
8:13 I mean, I'm super passionate about languages but honestly, a gesture like that is all I could ask for
hi! i grew up in st.gallen, switzerland. my mum is australian so always spoke english to us, however my dad is swiss french and always spoke french with us, so we also grew up trilingual and they also used the opol method. thanks for sharing!
This was fun to see! Thanks!
The pompom and visiting others seems to work well! :)
When I studied to be a preschool teacher, we once ha a lecture with a multi lingual person. He/she said that everyone in the household spoke one language (several generations too) so it took years before he/she understood that many people can speak the same language and didn't understand what language they'd speak. The terror described wasn't fun to hear about.
Wow this is amazing. I'm blown away with how good they are at such a young age
Hola, soy un estudiante de lingüística de Argentina. Tus hijos son adorables y creo que estás haciendo un gran trabajo. Yo planeo en un futuro tener hijos y enseñarles español, inglés y francés o chino. Y si cuando crecen tienen interés, poder ir enseñándoles otros. ¡Un saludo!
Thank you so much for sharing. My kids speak French, English, Chinese. We are trying to introduce Spanish as well. It’s not an easy journey for parents. Personally I feel like learning the language is not only about speak like a native speaker, but also know the culture and the history. Expose the kids to a good language environment. Keep it up!
My wife and I do speak three languages. We have no kids and won't any time soon, but this has certainly been on my mind for a while! Thank you for the video and I look forward to checking out this channel some more
Subscribe to be notified when courses and other cool content comes out "www.multilingual.family/sign-up"
When I have kids, my plan is to speak to them only in Chinese, as English will be their schooling language and so no matter how much Chinese we use at home, they're bound to speak English better eventually - that's usually what happens to immigrant kids, even those who come to the U.S. later on. The good thing is that my husband is also fluent in Chinese, though he's less comfortable with it than I am. Unfortunately, I'm better than my husband at Chinese and I also happen to be the only one to know more languages apart from English and Chinese (and I care more), so our children's language education will inevitably fall on me. I hope to be able to teach them one of my other languages as well!
Nice! We are a bilingual family. At home our three kids speak exclusively Chinese, but since we reside in the US, they speak English at school. Let me know if you want any resources to teach your kids Chinese.
@@anlingitalia Hi Allison, I'm interested in resources to teach my kids Chinese! My husband and I are both Chinese living in USA, we are having our first baby soon
@@cmjaclarissa That is so exciting! I will make a video with this information and post it here.
@@cmjaclarissa Here is a link to the video I made especially for you! I will be making more videos with other ideas and resources! czcams.com/video/6SRIAaQQle0/video.html Good luck and Happy Mother's Day!
As a Swiss German person, it's really weird hearing Swiss German online. It always feels like the world doesn't speak Swiss German, I honestly just can't get used to it. Your daughter is so talented!
Your videos have a huge value for my family from now on! I am Spanish and I was living as well in Switzerland, in Geneva, but now I am living with my German husband in Germany. We switched our main language like you guys, as well. We switched from English to German like our main languages . I speak Spanish to our 17-month-baby-boy, my husband speaks German, and we also speak fluent English. We expose Spanish in a long travel like you guys, using the Ferienwohnung for weeks in summer but as well in Autumn or/ and Spring. I would like to speak to them again some English. will listen your tips carefully and I thank you in advance Andrea. Liebe Grüße!!
So cool! So ein Zufall. Would love you to stick around and tell me how thigs go :0)
This is helpful, thank you!
I am also raised Trilingual. I live in Australia so so outside of the home like at school and with my friends I speak English. My mum French and my dad is polish so we used the OPOL method when I was younger and it was really helpful.
Madre Mia! Incredible! Genial. Intentamos hacer lo mismo con mi hija.
Hello! I'm from Spain but in my region we speak Spanish and Basque. Apart from that I speak English and a little German and French. From my experience with my 8 year old niece (whom I mostly speak English and Basque with), I can tell you we switch languages depending on the situation. She speaks Basque at school so whenever we're talkng about something school related, she speaks Basque but when we're playing or talking about other things, she speaks English. She prefers English but I'm sure it's because English is much more easier than Basque and unluckily she considers it a "language for school". Being born bilingual is a great advantage because it allows you to learn more language in a more organic way. In my niece's case, she speaks Spanish with her grandparents and parents, Basque at school (and for some of her parents' friends, we're mostly language teachers) and then English with some of her family. I think it's a great opportunity for them. Thanks.
Great input. We also use the opol method. I agree, singing is so important, and reading. No such thing as too many books. I had to smile though when you said your countries are not that close. Japanese-German family here. Difficult for anybody at the moment to travel though.
Your children are beautiful! Lovely video :)
Thank you so much!
My swiss husband's family is from the french canton. They speak french at home, Schwiizerdütsch outside, Hochdeutsch and English at work
I got one and a half languages (semi fluent in Spanish) aha Bilingualism or more should be compulsory as far as I'm concerned, the mental development it provides is phenomenal.
My dad is trilingual, my mum only bilingual (same mothertongue)
Out of nowhere i speak 5, my brother just 1 🤷🏼♀️🤷🏼♀️
But def intent to do this when i have children
Are you the first child?
Thanks a lot for sharing your personal experience! Seeing the process helps people realize it's not rocket science.
I grew up somewhat between tri and quadrilingual (we moved a lot). Or 5, since one of my languages is also German/Swiss German, and some people count it double. Now we also live in Switzerland but speak English natively at home. I'm torn between also using one of my other languages or not. We also do the daycare thing, so Swiss German is "taken care of", sort of, and we can always start it up at home as well, and English is obviously useful, but so would be one of the other languages. So I don't know :)
I really like your hat/pompom idea! I might do that for the other language, which is also what one of our baby's grandmas speaks to him. So I could wear a grandma's language hat. Thanks for sharing your situation and ideas!
Glad i found your channel. Im looking to solve a few issues. We grew up tri lingual but our household was only 1 language and we spoke other 2 languages outside home(including parents) and school only. What ended up happening was we weren't comfortable talking in our 1st language outside home even if we met people who spoke it. It just became a language i speak to with family and no one else. I would like my kids to be more fluent switchers in language. And Opol seems like wont fix it. But im having very hard time now learning my partners language 😅 it would be 5th language im learning 😪
Strory from my experience: I know a girl, 4 yo, speaking Italian with dad, Spanish with mom, Polish with nanny and English in kindergarten. She's never confused and adapts perfectly!
Exactly, that is because they had a working strategy which they applied consistently.
I grew up in The Netherlands, since my mom is from there but my dad is Canadian. I grew up speaking only Dutch, but English was my parents' secret language for when they needed to discuss adult stuff. Just from listening to them when they were speaking English I was able to pick up some words. They didn't want to teach me English because my dad was at risk for being deported, but when that risk wasn't there anymore and he was allowed to stay in The Netherlands I was allowed to watch Canadian tv. Especially on the weekends I watched a lot of tv and this was my main resource for learning English. Now I'm fluent enough that when I go visit my family in Canada, strangers are not able to tell that I didn't grow up there. Whenever I've had a conversation with a stranger and my cousin asks if that person could guess where I'm from (/where my accent is from) they always guess cities in the same region. It's amazing how kids can pick up language like that even without anyone formally trying to teach them that language.
Hi Andrea!
I came across your videos from my Bilingual class. Your method is so impressive, and your commitment amazing! I aspire to do the same with my kids some day!
Wonderful! Thank you so much. You can sign up if you want to get more free material and stay posted for when you build your own multilingual family here: www.multilingual.family/sign-up
Nice!! I grew up in a bilingual country so I had my mothertongue(Swedish) and then I learned Finnish outside in the playground as most children around me spoke only Finnish. My parents also put me in a Finnish school to make sure I'd learn it properly, not only street-language. At about 10years old I was quite good at English too, mostly from watching Little house on the prairie every single week, and other American family-series. And listening to English songs and learning them by heart! As a teenager it was quite easy for me to learn more languages, but I didn't learn them as good as my first three languages. I can manage in German and Hebrew and a little bit of French but I am fluent in Swedish, Finnish and English. My children grew up with Swedish and Finnish as well but they learned English much earlier than me, thanks to all the games on the computer! They could actually speak English by the age of 5.
Wow, pero que inteligencia!
Wonderful job with this little child! 👏
First video in my quest to learn more about how to raise a trilingual child as I’m currently expecting my first -and most probably - only child. My husband is Brazilian, I am Peruvian, and we’re both fluent in English as we’re both ESL teachers. We live in Peru. We’d love for our child to learn the three languages we speak.
Wonderful! You just found me at the right time! I'm about to release some training videos exactly about that . Make sure you subscribe to get them here: www.multilingual.family/sign-up
Hi, I enjoyed watching your video and your efforts in raising your kids multilingual. I think that you and your husband are doing an excellent job in valuing all the family languages. I don't have kids but I went to many seminars and talks on bilingualism in the United States (but I'm Italian y hablo y enseño español). Based on my academic experience, I want to give you an advice: for now Swiss German is the weakest German for your kids but, as they start going to school, they will perceive that Swiss German is "more important" to them, and because of this, they might start refusing to speak in the family languages even though they would understand everything that is being said. That will be the moment of their lives when you, the parents, really need to insist on the family languages. You would want to consider sending your kids to bilingual/multilingual schools so that they become literate in the family languages and get familiar with the formal register of those languages. Lastly (my comment is becoming long now) as soon as both your sons go to school, they very likely will start to speak Swiss German among them: you would want to consider limiting to the very minimum the amount of Swiss German in the house since school and the societal environment will be enough to let your sons become fully native/proficient in German.
GOOD LUCK! And excellent job :)
Yea, you are totally right. I just wanted my child to have a smooth start in kindergarden and be able to speak enough Swiss German from the start. That is why I helped her a bit, but as you saw, I was very careful when switching to CH. That helped a lot and now that she is fluent, I don't practice with her CH anymore. Now I'm practicing Highgerman to prepare her for school (but only once a week or so).
Thanks for your comment and please share this channel with your multilingual friends!
We spoke our native languages to our children (me German, husband English) for the simple reason that I wanted them to be able to speak to their German relatives. All around spoke English. Didn't know it was called OPOL. In school they both learned French. Had exchanges with French, German and Italian schools. Now they live in Thailand and speak fluent Thai. The eldest has added Spanish to her mix on the way. Languages are a wonderful thing which enrich your emotional language and your thinking
Wonderful!
I know an Ecua accent when I hear one 🇪🇨. Great video 👍🏽
Its great when a child can speak 3 languages. I live in Switzeland and this is very common as a lot of families, the parents are both from different countries. however I find that once they get older, even though people say they speak 3 or 4 langages it is never perfect. An example is when I first moved here I lived with a guy, born in Switzerland to a English father and a Slovak mother. He told he me grew up in a tri-lingle household. He spoke English well, but his reading and writing skills where not very good. He only learnt the grammer in school, I guess over the years this was easily forgotten as his job he only uses German. A lot of my Swiss/Italian colleagues told me their parents would put them through Italian school, they hated it at the time but it really paid off for them as they are fully fluent in both languages.
Han mich gad richtig gfreut dass eini vode Sprache Schwiizerduetsch is isch! Hani noed erwarted. :)
Me encantó el vídeo! Yo si uso el mismo método. Hablo en español con mi hijo y mi marido en alemán con el. Yo crecí bilingüe también y me gustaría introducirle el catalán y me has hado una buena idea con lo del pompón! Gracias 😊
I'm portuguese and I'm dating a dutch-filipino and we plan to set in the netherlands. We nostly speak english to each other. My parents only speak portuguese so if I get kids I would like then to be able to talk to my parents 😢. I was worried that speaking multiple languages in front a baby could make them confused. Thank you for the video😊 Now I feel more confident.
I can help you! Subscribe to my newsletter to get guidance with raising your baby in various languages (www.multilingual.family/sign-up).
Qué gran trabajo hacen! Me parece admirable. Se requiere de mucha disciplina de parte de los padres para criar niños que hablen varios idiomas. A mis sobrinas les hablo sólo en español para que crezcan bilingües, pero a veces les da pereza responder en español y me responden en inglés.
Muchas gracias. Si, como tú dices, requiere de mucha disciplina y dedicación, pero es posible. Saludos!
Que interesante! Estoy esperando mi primer bebé y también somos una pareja multicultural. Mi lengua nativa es español y la de mi esposo es danés, vivimos en Alemania y el idioma de nosotros como pareja es inglés y español. He leído algo sobre el método que tu mencionaste en tu video y es el método que planeamos implementar cuando el pequeño o pequeña ya esté con nosotros. Siempre tenía la inquietud sobre como manejar el idioma de pareja, la verdad nosotros nunca hemos intentado comunicarnos en alemán entre nosotros...
Interesante contenido :)
From what I've learned and read about it, it's very smart that you focus on the languages that they are less surounded with. They will pick up on German fast enough when they will go to daycare/kindergarten. But still a good thing that you prepare them aswell. I've still a question about a tri or more lingual household with the opol method though. What do you do when you're all together? The parents of most of the bilingual families I know would speak 1 of the 2 languages when they're speaking to eachother, so it's the parent that speaks the language that the other parent doesn't speak at all that needs to put in the most work. But I noticed in the video that you were speaking spanish with your daughter and your husband Danish like you said, when you were together aswell. I wonder, in a natural situation you would speak to eachother in between speaking to your daughter aswell right? Would you guys switch to German or do you guys know eachothers languages aswell? Won't they hear all three language together most of the time because of this?
I wish I have more wisdom and know more on how to support my girls. It’s kinda complicated.
I have a 3 and and 4 year old. My husband speak to them in Portuguese and I speak Spanish now my mom stays at home and she speaks Quechua and we live in USA.
Thank you for sharing.
Keep on going, don´t give up. Just try to stick to your languages.
my wife do this: one week chinese the following week cantonese It works really well . I speak just english with the baby but i regret not doing language rotation. we live in a spanish speaking country so she is learning spanish too
Thank you for sharing how you do it. I have a 3 year old who speaks English since we live in the US. I have started to speak only Spanish but sometimes it's hard for me since I am 2nd generation and born and raised in the US. However, I have been brushing up and I have seen my DD absorb Spanish! I also put videos on CZcams for kids and that has been helpful.
My husband has the same background, but he refuses to speak Spanish to her, just here and there (his Spanish is not as great, LOL) So, he speaks English , and we speak it to each other in the house.
However, since a year ago, she started to have a huge interest in Chinese from a bilingual video she saw and enjoyed. Ever since , I have been playing those videos b/c nobody speaks Chinese in our home and even in our community! So, I have used flash cards and even signed her up to several beginning Chinese online classes and apps. My concern is too much screen time. I am having a hard time with learning it too and I don't want to deprive her from learning. It'll be different if one of us kmew it but what do you recommend?
Hi Iris, make sure to craft a plan for your multilingual family where you carefully choose which proven language learning methods to use. If you need help with that, make sure you join us here: www.multilingual.family/sign-up to be the first to know when the next course airs.
Exposing your child to Chinese is good, just don't overdo the screen time. Don't talk to her in Chinese. If your Spanish is a bit rusty, use English as your main language and use Spanish using the OSOL method.
Watch my other videos to get more infos about raising multilingual children.
@@MultilingualFamily My Spanish is not perfect but I think better than rusty. I talk to her in Spanish daily. The Chinese, is my concern. What is OSLO method? I tried a search and it gave me something else.
@@spiderlashful please watch my other videos about methods, I explain it there.
We also raising a tri-lingual child: Spanish, Russian and English. We live in Ireland, our daddy is Spanish and I am Russian, we also use OPOL method and it seems to be working very well. She speaks Spanish mostly and Russian at home (Russian is a weakest language at the moment, but it is also the hardest to learn). And she goes to creche where she speaks English, she can switch languages very well and knows what language to use with certain people, like she would never speak Russian to her dada and she speaks English to our neighbors. The main problem at the moment is that she might mix languages where she can't express herself fully in Russian, she uses Spanish words here and there and its becoming a habit, especially in complex sentences she is using Spanish for reasoning, like she inserts purque a lot. Do you have a similar problem and how do you deal with it? Thank you
Hello Mila, thank you for sharing your story!
Code-Switching in multilingual kids is actually pretty normal. It is part of their development. If you are using the OPOL method consistently, you have nothing to worry about. On time she will develop enough vocabulary in each language so that she doesn´t have the need to borrow words form her strongest language. It is important that her role models (meaning you and your husband) don´t switch.
What you can do is tell her the word that she is missing when she borrows a specific word. For example, if she says: "We can´t go outside, PORQUE its raining". You would then say: "That´s right, we can´t go out just now, BECAUSE it´s raining". If she keeps on doing the same mistake, make her repeat after you. You can also turn it into a game and say: "Let´s play the because-game. I´m going to eat because I´m hungry. Now its´s your turn." Once you use the word a few times, there is a chance that she internalizes it.
Check out my video "Code-Switching" for more information about this topic: czcams.com/video/ONvAMmcxXaw/video.html
Hi Mila, which language do you speak with your partner at home? Russian, Spanish or English? Thanks
@@burcukirmizigul hi, we speak English to each other
It has been 4 months of quarantine and we now have brilliant Russian, I mean really good, advanced level for 3 years old, quite weaker Spanish and started losing Englsh without creche. Back to creche just couple days ago and hoping to pick it up again pretty soon, it just shows how quick they progress or regress and its hard every day work to keep it up
@@burcukirmizigul we speak English to each other
Hi Andrea, I'm so happy for finding your channel. We are raising my daughter multilingual in Spanish, English and Russian. She just turned 2 years old and she says some words in the three languages. Sometimes I wonder if she's experiencing speech delay or if the number of words she says is normal. I'm curious to know at what age did your daughter start combining words?
Hi Marcela, I remember that my daughter spoke some words and used short sentences when she was around 2.5. She rrally started talking a lot once she turned 3.
If you notice that your daughter is progressing, she is probably doing just fine. However, if you feel more and more worried, try and find a speech therapist that can tell you quickly if there is anything abnormal going on.
Have a great day!
In many parts of the world this situation is quite normal and honestly not thought about/planned for. In India, for example, it's quite common for children to speak one language at home, another language outside the home, and English at school. Similarly in much of Sub-Saharan Africa there is a tribal language, a local "lingua franca" and then the European language used in school.
Would be amazing grow up being bilingual. Amazing video.
Great video. Cheers from Lausanne 😊
Danke für das informative Video. Ich stehe in 2-3 Jahren auch vor der Herausforderung meine Kinder mit meiner Frau zweisprachig zu erziehen. Das wäre dann Deutsch und Hindi.
Was mir bisher Sorgen bereitet hat ist, dass ich Menschen kenne, die z.B. Hindi oder Bengalisch als Muttersprache haben sollten, aber die Sprache der Eltern nicht können. Obwohl beide Elternteile die Sprache sprechen. Ich bekomme oft zu hören "Man kann alles verstehen, aber nicht wirklich sprechen". Das ist ziemlich irritierend, weil ich andererseits Fälle von Spaniern kenne, bei dem die Mutter den Kindern Spanisch beigebracht hat.
Aber ich denke im Falle der Mutter ist es leichter, da sie in der Regel mehr Zeit mit den Kindern verbringt und diese somit mehr Exposition mit der Sprache haben. Aber ich hörte auch von einer Russischsprecherin, die alleinerziehend war, dass ihre Tochter als in den Kindergarten kam, nicht mehr Russisch sprechen wollte und es vorher fließend konnte.
Ich fand es aber sehr eindrucksvoll, wie eure Tochter am Tisch 2 Sprachen aus dem Stehgreif sprechen konnte bzw. 3 Sprachen kann.
Nosotros somos tres en casa, vivimos en Italia. Mi marido (italiano) y yo hablamos castellano, mi marido con Pau habla italiano y yo con Pau hablo catalan. Nunca se lo he ENSEÑADO realmente , pero desde siempre le he leído mucho en castellano y en catalan y SIEMPRE le he hablado catalan, incluso cuando estábamos en medio de otra gente. Yo temía que si él se daba cuenta de que yo hablaba perfectamente italiano, hubiera llegado un momento en que por simbiosis con el ambiente, habría empezado a hablar solo italiano. A partir de sus 10 anos mas o menos empecé a hablar con él en inglés también. El resultado es que desde siempre se ha manejado muy bien con los tres idiomas sin confundirse jamás, y el inglés lo habla bastante bien a pesar de no haber estado nunca en un país anglófono. Creo que cuántas más lenguas sabes, más facilidad tienes para añadir otras. Tu de donde eres? Hablas igual que mi amiga Adriana (que es de Perú, pero vivió en EEUU muchos anos).
Asi es, se les hace mas facil cuando ya saben algunos idiomas. Yo soy ecuatoriana-suiza.
I find it fascinating because me and my fiancé want to move to Scandinavia and we want to raise em speaking German and English but once we move to Scandiavia they would also have to learn that language too😅
As a child I learned English with cartoons.
By the time I had to go to preschool I could speak English alright.
I never had to take ESOL classes.
I'm fluent in both my parent language and English.
My mom started me on the cartoons at around age 3 or 4?
I had no English speakers at home.
Although my dad spoke it at work.
I want my future kids to speak both my parent language and English, maybe even a third, who knows! I also speak conversational french with a very good accent.
So I wanted to learn more about how it's done.
I had previously thought about speaking to my kids a lot in English so that they could develop a better vocabulary like I have.
But unless I raise my kids with my parents being a constant presence I guess I'll have to be the Spanish speaker in the house and just speak Spanish.
If I did have the option of my parents being a greater presence and teach the Spanish, then I could speak English? Or maybe try for trilingualism and speak French to them?
Where do you live? USA? From what you tell me I think you should speak consistently in Spanish, support English (and eventually French, but only if you are proficient in that language) using the OSOL.
Stay posted because a course is coming that will be of great help for parents like you. Join me here to get a notification when it s out: www.multilingual.family/sign-up
My fiancé is from Saudi Arabia so he speaks Arabic, and I speak Spanish🇪🇨 and we are going to live in Saudi Arabia, but we speak English to each other since we don’t speak the other’s native language! Also we are planing to send our kids to an American school so they will mostly speak English at school, but outside the house and school they will have to speak Arabic. What do you recommend? Btw I love your channel👏🏼
Hi Josley, thank you! Well, I would suggest to use the OPOL, let the kids learn English at school and that's it. Do that consistently and it will work very well. Check out my other videos where I give lots of tips on how to do that.
I really enjoyed your video. Very impressive. My now adult daughter was raised in a quadrilingual environment. I'm just curious as I apparently missed any mention of my primary tool: reading aloud. The Polish side of my family believed that if the baby was out of the womb, it was old enough to be read to. Full stop. My cousins sent me stacks and stacks of Polish baby books which I read to my daughter almost constantly. The Italian speaking relatives read to her in Italian. I found the books provided endless opportunities for language practice and wondered why you didn't mention that. Or have I missed something?
Yes, reading aloud is crucial. It seemed obvious to me that one should do that as a parent of any child. You are right, it might not be that obvious to some, so I should have mentioned it in this video too.
I shot another video only about reading aloud a while ago. You can find it in my channel.
Que chevere! Soy de Irlanda y hablo ingles pero estoy aprendiendo espanol y practicando casi todo el tiempo. Cuando tenga ninos yo los quiero hablar hiberno ingles y espanol perfectamente. Creo chevere que sus ninos hablen tres idiomas.
Your spanish is very good!
Cool video. How did you start to teach them? Did both of you take the same time to teach them their language or are they better at one of the languages?
They have been developing the languages pretty evenly until now. But my daughter is starting school in a few days and I suppose that the majority language will become more dominant as the years go by.... let's see.
Just found your channel and what a gem it is! We have an 18 months old and we're trying to stick to the OPOL method but we find it difficult when we're together as a family. My husband speaks to our LO Greek, I speak Hungarian. I speak a little Greek and my husband speaks no Hungarian. The common language between us is English, We often switch to English to LO when all three of us together because otherwise one parent has no clue what's happening. Do you have any advice on how to stick to OPOL / operate as a family when we're all together? Thank you so much
Hi
Thank you for your feedback. What you are doing is not wrong but there are some things to consider. I need to know where you live to know if that strategy is good or not. But I have a course where I explain how to deal with this issue and other common hurdles multilingual parents have. Here is the link: www.multilingual.family/multilingual-family-success
Here you can find more information and support:
Webpage: www.multilingual.family
Subscribe for free tools: www.multilingual.family/sign-up
Consultation: www.multilingual.family/coaching-call-60-min
Other Services: www.multilingual.family/services
CZcams Videos:
czcams.com/users/multilingualfamily
Kind regards,
Andrea
Hi, I'm a new subscriber and have one q. In OPOL method, what language do you speak TO YOUR HUSBAND in front of your children? Anw thanks for the video, really helpful ❤️
Hi, we speak Swiss German together .
Thanks a lot for the video. I'm myself french but unfortunately my kids don't speak french fluently,they understand basic things and can say basic sentences,numbers,colours. We have been focusing more on English as my husband is British and doesn't speak french. Arabic is my kids second language ,they learn at school. I now want to include more French in our routine. Hopefully it works for us all. But consistency is the hardest part for me.
It will, you just need to align your expectations with reality so you don't get frustrated, but exposing them to your strongest language is definitely a good idea! Craft a plan and let me know if you need more help with that.
Hi thank you so much for your videos!
I was wondering how do we deal with the family language.
We also live in switzerland (french speaking part).
My wife's native language is french,
Mine is catalan although I'm more proficient in french (I grew up here).
Until now we spoke french between us. But since our kid's birth we have been talking in english between us.
We thought that if we spoke french between us the kid would just end speaking french since it will be the dominant language so we switched to english.
I only speak catalan to him and my wife speaks french with him.
My concern is:
How do we manage our discussions at home? Now he's just 3 weeks old but in some years how should we deal with family discussions?
If I want to tell them something (to both my wife and my kid) do I use english or catalan?
If i want to ask them a question what language should i use for that? (Group discussions)
Thank you so much!
Take care
Hello Chris, pleased to meet you. I think your strategy is well set up. You are going the right way, definitely! Actually, I just released a video answering that question, which another family asked me as well. Watch the video down bellow first and please sign up to my email list so that I can keel you posted. I´m planning a video where I only talk about how to deal with the FAMILY LANGUAGE. I invite you to sign up so you can also get from me a lot of free material to support your multilingual baby (free games, activities, printables, tips, and tricks). I would love to have you on board!
Take care too!
Sign up here: www.multilingual.family/sign-up
Video: czcams.com/video/zoeuRxqQnGg/video.html
Hi Andrea,
Thanks for the informative video (I know it's been a few years, but hope you're still reading comments). I've been looking for more resources because I'm trying to raise my (now 13 month old) baby with Russian, English and Korean. I'm Russian, my husband is Korean, we speak to each other in English but we live in Korea. It's very hard on me, as I'm the one with her 99% of the time; my husband works 12hrs a day, so OPOL doesn't work as he is absent most of the time. So I'm speaking Russian only Mon-Thu, and English only Fri-Sun. I signal that I'm speaking English by wearing a bright yellow wristband. I'm not good at Korean, so I'm hoping that the dominant language of the country, as well as my in-laws, will be sufficient in teaching her Korean. The toughest thing for me though is how little support I'm getting. Everyone is like, "poor kid," "you're torturing her," "howcome she doesn't say any words yet?", etc. Koreans also tend to give you a side eye when they hear you speak another language in public, and treat you differently when you do (especially since I look Asian). I want to give her the opportunity to learn languages of her families from the beginning, but it's coming very difficult. I don't even know if I'm looking for any advice, just wanted to vent my frustration a bit. Thanks again for the great content!
I am bilingual from birth: Czech and Slovak (similar languages I know), I am dating a South African girl, she speaks like 4 languages from there, and we live in Denmark. If we have kids my plan is: I would speak to them in Slovak, she would speak to them in her best South African language, together we would speak English, and the kids would learn Danish in kindergarten.
Thank you for your channel and your useful tips! We are waiting for our first child, my language is Greek, my wife's is Japanese and we speak German and English. We think to use opol, and to speak English when we are all together. My concern is that our level in English is not the best, our pronunciation is not so good and we make a lot of mistakes (nevertheless this doesn't disturb our communication!) Do you think this is ok or it would be better not to bring the third language (English) to the kid? Thank you!
Thanks for your questions. You could use EN as a family language but make sure that your kids learn it primarily from native speakers. If your wife and you speak in EN, that is fine. Focus first on building a solid relationship to your child in your strongest languages. After that you can decide which next step to take.
Please consider these options to help you further. www.multilingual.family/services
Have a nice day!
Your daughter is so cuteeee!
My parents didn’t teach us kids Finnish but I wish they did. But it was back in the late 80s early 90s maybe they thought it wasn’t a good idea. I know Swedish and English and trying to learn other languages!
I have heard many stories of adults who's parents somehow thought it wasn't good to teach multiple languages in the home and I think perhaps it was the belief of the time, and when I was studying (am a speech therapist) one of our lecturers made a passing comment that it "used to be said" that children should just focus on one language first etc (and people thought it would have better outcomes). More up to date and thorough research however has of course shown the enormous benefits of bi-lingualism and multilingualism in cognitive development for typically developing children but I guess that information was not so available in that era. I only grew up speaking one language but that was largely due to environment (regional Australia), none of the adults in my life spoke anything else and we had very limited exposure in school. But I married a multilingual guy - so now am trying to catch up and learn languages - but so much harder when you're older though!
I am jealous. My parents never tried pool with me, despite both of them being from an Arab-Francophone country, they only spoke in English with me and my siblings. I am learning now and can speak and understand arabi fairly well, and read and write in French decently, but how easy it would have been to lear the languages young
hi im so glad you posted this, i have always wanted to raise my children to be multilingual. my husband speaks french, and i speak english, german and greek. i have heard of the opol method and using specific locations to denote the usage of different languages but i have a few questions:
1. is there a uniform language both you and your husband speak? for instance, both my husband and myself speak french and would both of us speaking french confuse our child?
2. we live in France and my husband's family is french, but mine is english. i want my child to communicate well with my parents so i should speak primarily english?
3. my child goes to a multilingual school where they speak french and english so should i speak primarily in german or greek?
4. and last question, should i speak one language in the house and another out of the house? i think this would be a good way to differentiate the languages but i don't wan to confuse my child with four different languages
I have a similar circumstance. I´m American and my husband is Slovak and we speak English together. However we live in Germany and both speak German at work and with friends. I´m planning to put my child into the German daycare and speak only English to him and my husband will only speak Slovak to him. But my question is about the books, tv, and music. Should I start with them all in German, since our child may not hear much German until he´s two and in day care. Or should I try to focus more on Slovak, since he will have German everywhere else and English also in school and Slovak may become the weakest language. Thanks for your advice :)
Hi Alice, thank you for your comment. I see you have already thought about a strategy for your multilingual family. Congratulations! That's the first most important step in this journey.
Since your child is going to be in a German day care when he is two, he will probably have a good level in German once he starts school. That is also going to be eventually his strongest language, since it is the majority language. I wouldn't worry at the moment too much about German and focus in his first years intensively on Slovak and English using the OPOL method. It is important that your child builds up a solid foundation in English with you and in Slovak with your husband. If not, the risk is higher that he might drop a language once German becomes dominant and he realizes that both you and your husband can speak German too. Kids are very pragmatic - they'll always choose the path of least resistance. Back to your question: I would at least for the first two years only read books, sing and talk in your languages. You consistently in English, your husband in Slovak. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't expose him to songs and audiobooks in German. Please do, if you can and want. If you wish to expose him more to German already, find a German native speaking Nanny or put him one or two days in a German day care already. Just remember that during the first years of your childs life you have the opportunity to give him as much exposure as possible in English and Slovak, after that, school takes up a lot of your childs time, which will be probably most of the time in German.
I hope I could answer some of your questions. 🙂
Watch my other videos for more answers.
Hi i don't have kids yet, but I'm multilingual. I have a question: my husband and I have the same mother tongues, i want to teach my future children english and 3 indian languages. But we live in Germany, would it be okay if i rely on the kita and education system to teach them german ? I never spoke english with my parents, but we learnt it in school. I can teach German but its not perfect and i dont want my child to learn the wrong way.
2. How should i teach my child 4 languages? Do movies help?
@@melitamiranda4123 Hi Melita, speak with your kids in the Indian languages. Choose one of them as your main relationship language and build up the other two using the OSOL or OAOL method (watch the vidoes that I linked bellow to learn more about that). Maybe you could choose a different one than your husband and use the OPOL method with them.
Don't teach them German, look for a playing group (Spuelgruppe or Kita) to exopse your kids early to German. Read books in English as well, if you feel confident enough in that language.
Sign up here if you want to get regular support, ideas and free material: www.multilingual.family/sign-up
Hope that helped a bit. Take care and talk to you soon!
Check out these videos to get more answers to your questions: czcams.com/play/PLSw3gTxu7NsJcesrY74Z3tRIB8OeP7wVE.html
Thank you so much for your great videos! My wife and I want to raise our son as a multilingual, however I don´t know what you´d recommend in our case? I´m Danish but having lived all my adult life (20 years) in the UK, all of my work and most of my thought processes are now in English. I´m currently living in Spain with my Spanish wife and we speak Spanish together, although she does understand English pretty well. Our question is, if we use the OPOL method, should I speak to the child in English or Danish? I consider English more useful in the future world but would like for him to also understand the language of my family in Denmark. My wife will obviously speak to our son in Spanish, but what should her and I speak between us in order to not confuse him with breaking the OPOL method? Any advice appreciated and thanks again for your great work.
Hello Jakob!
We have a quite similar situation :). Thank you so much for your feedback.
The growth of this channel has led to lots of people seeking for personal advice. I would really like to help you but supplying this channel with valuable content consumes all of my spare time. In addition, it requires often more than just a few lines to answer your questions thoroughly.
This is what I can offer you:
- A personal consultation. We would arrange a date where I analyze your family situation and together, we find the best strategy for your multilingual family. This option gives you the possibility to ask follow-up questions.
- A paid Q&A video. I would take your personal situation and shoot a video answering your questions. The difference to the consultation is that it is not interactive, and it gets published.
- Continue to profit from the free content I offer to my subscribers. Sign-up here www.multilingual.family/sign-up to be notified when new courses and free material come out and/or watch my other videos, as they contain plenty of free helpful tips.
- I will be offering a step by step online workshop for multilingual families in approximately one year.
I hope that one of these options suits you. Send me an email to info@multilingual.family with your choice of preference.
Thank you for your understanding and all the best to you and your family!
Andrea
@@MultilingualFamily Thanks for the reply! How much for the 2 different options?
@@jakobkristensen9956 Hello Jakob. Go to www.multilingual.family/services and you will see the full description and the prices for both options. Have a nice day!
Hi Andrea; very impressive skills your children have! I am very interested in the game your daughter was playing with when speaking German. Can you share a link?
Google LÜK, they have very good learning material for children.