Learning or speaking more than one (native) language. See also the tags [language] and [language-development].
6
votes
2answers
45 views
Should we put our a child in a preschool with a primary language we do not speak?
We have an almost 2 year old daughter and we are looking around for preschools to put her in. We are in Vancouver, Canada which has a large Chinese population and Mandarin is very common. Neither of ...
3
votes
3answers
135 views
How to read an English story book to the kid when we don't talk in English at home?
I am not a native English speaker nor is the country I live in. However since English is given a higher preference here over the native language I would like my kid to learn English from an early age.
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3
votes
3answers
114 views
How to encourage speech development
I have a three year old boy. At home we speak our native language to him and in nursery he speaks English. He seems to have very good understanding of what we say in our native language and reasonable ...
2
votes
2answers
71 views
Songs for teaching hindi/kannada phonics?
My son is just starting to make a few words, and enjoys songs a lot. I feel that teaching him the letters in hindi/kannada (which we speak at home along with english ) will help him learn the sounds ...
7
votes
1answer
87 views
Will teaching American Sign Language provide the same developmental benefits as a bilingual household?
It has become well documented that raising a child in a bilingual environment has numerous developmental benefits. These seem to largely center on increased vocabulary and situational awareness.
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5
votes
2answers
169 views
Is raising a child bilingually with English worth the effort?
I am half Turkish and German (living in Germany) but did not learn Turkish when I was a boy, because back then it was still discouraged to teach two languages at the same time. Now as an adult it ...
3
votes
2answers
165 views
Should I make my child respond to me in my language?
In my family (including extended family), everybody speaks both German and Danish. It also means that everybody can speak whatever language they happen to prefer, and we even throw in a word from the ...
7
votes
4answers
287 views
What if my kids don't want me to speak my native language?
My children are raised multilingual; we live in Austria and they learn all their German from my wife and from the world around us. I'm Danish and I want my kids to know that language too, so since ...
7
votes
2answers
159 views
Is 3 years old too late to start learning a 2nd language natively?
I'm English and my wife is Portuguese and we are living in Portugal. I'm bilingual in Portuguese and my wife and I have always spoken Portuguese together. When my son was born, I found it somewhat ...
7
votes
4answers
144 views
At what age is it appropriate to start to teach a foreign language / second language - and how to do it?
We are a Brazilian family in Brazil and therefore we speak Portuguese. I can speak English reasonably well but my wife is just learning it now. We want our 9 months old son to learn English, too. ...
8
votes
5answers
418 views
Raising a tri-lingual child, tricky context
I have found many of the topics here very interesting, but would like to share my personal situation, as it is quite specific, to see if you guys have any advice or experiences to share. :)
I am ...
5
votes
4answers
348 views
Kindergarten Teacher teaching in Spanish, should I be concerned?
My 5 year old stepson recently moved to El Paso, TX with me and my wife. He's only been in the U.S. for a little over a month. His primary language is Thai. I would love for him to start picking up ...
1
vote
3answers
333 views
Advice on raising trilingual kids
Arabic is my native language and I am fluent in English, my wife is an English/Urdu bilingual but English is more native to her plus she can read Arabic letters without understanding it but she can’t ...
4
votes
4answers
778 views
Should you talk your toddler only in one language when you are multilingual yourself?
Our toddler is raised in a multilingual environment. I speak only one natively. However, I find awkward and unnatural to speak just one language to him from the argument that this will confuse him.
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3
votes
1answer
87 views
Relation of Multiple languages to (overall) development of child
I have been to most questions related bilingual aspects where whether and how should one introduce more than one language to child. This helps.
I am trying to find a bit broader opinion as to what ...
6
votes
6answers
160 views
Moving with our bilingual child
We are two German parents and we are living in an English speaking country. With our child - who just turned three - we speak German, whereas all other people (our friends, his friends, the kids in ...
5
votes
3answers
112 views
Reading in second language for a bilingual kid - how to approach a phonetic language vs. English phonics?
My kid goes to English public kindergarten and learns there to read and write in English. We live in USA.
At home we speak Czech and Czech words are read as written with different phonetics. How long ...
4
votes
3answers
436 views
Will it confuse my son if I try to teach him 3 languages, two of which are very close to each other (Russian and Ukrainian)?
I know Russian, Ukrainian and English, my husband knows only English. We are going to teach our son Russian besides English (English is a dominant language where we live). But I wonder would it be ...
5
votes
2answers
272 views
How do we raise our child with three languages?
My wife is Italian, I am Swedish. Between us we speak English, neither one of us knows the other language. We are currently living in Sweden and will do so for a while. The baby will be born in May.
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2
votes
4answers
158 views
How can I add English to an already bilingual household?
In this recent question, Matej raises his son English bilingual. I think teaching English very early is a great idea because there's hardly any way around English anyway so you might as well learn it ...
6
votes
4answers
365 views
Should I stop teaching my toddler a second language if his exposure to it will be limited?
I have stared to talk exclusively in English to my son when he was less than 6 months old. However, we have decided not to move to an English speaking country, so I ended up practically alone.
It's ...
12
votes
6answers
1k views
Raising a bilingual child when one parent knows both languages while the other doesn't
I am in the USA, originally from India, and my wife is American. My native language is Hindi. My wife knows only a little bit of Hindi. It hasn't been a problem because we usually talk in English ...
8
votes
3answers
249 views
How can I encourage my baby's first words while keeping up a bilingual distinction?
My wife and I speak to our daughter (13 months old) in Hebrew and in English, respectively; we're careful that each of us speak to her consistently in our own language all the time.
She's on the ...
3
votes
2answers
299 views
Are there any studies about whether learning to read in two languages is slower?
I don't know the details of any studies, but I think the general consensus these days is that bringing up children multilingual from the start is a positive thing to do, even if it can slightly delay ...
12
votes
5answers
431 views
Would it be bad to only speak to a child in a language in which you are not completely fluent?
My husband and I can speak daily conversational Mandarin, probably at the fluency and vocabulary of a native 3rd grade speaker. So decent, but not great. We speak 99% of the time in Mandarin to our ...
45
votes
11answers
2k views
What are some strategies for raising a bilingual child?
We are planning on raising our child bi-lingual. The plan is for my husband to only speak English to her and I would only speak Tagalog (a dialect of the Philippines). I have asked my parents to also ...
23
votes
11answers
918 views
How do you handle bilingual education in a country where you do not speak the language natively?
Our 2 year old son is growing up in a different country (New Zealand) than we did (Brazil).
We try to speak to him in portuguese all times, and we noticed that he is learning english reasonably well ...
