Tips on raising bilingual multilingual children in a multilingual family
by Alicja Pyszka-Franceschini I just came back from the hospital with my small and beautiful little boy. He was an easy-going newborn who settled himself into a nice routine very quickly. I loved holding him in my arms late at night and absorbing his peace. Blissful, wonderful peace. I felt enormously happy. I felt rewarded, blessed and enriched; but my fortune was not made of money, but of affection and attachment that strengthened and deepened with every day, unconditionally, unremittingly, and peacefully. It was in this peace of a quietly breathing newborn baby, in a room that smelled of baby shampoo, just after midnight, that I realised that I want to bring up my son as a trilingual child, that the biggest gift my husband and I can give to him is the gift of languages, an opportunity to enter and explore his parents and grandparents' cultures and to draw strength from them. But there are other reasons too. That night when I was looking at my son, I saw generations of people in our genealogical lines that came before us. My son wasn't made of me or my husband only... those genes that made him where not ours only. I understood then that my son has already got a heritage, a heritage that he won't be able to understand or access without knowing and understanding the languages that my husband and I speak. Raising him up with one language seemed unfair... both towards him and those people before us. So here we are, living in multicultural Britain, bringing up a toddler speaking Italian, Polish and English and doing everyday things just as other families do. We are developing our routines and with those routines our toddler is grasping the languages and learns about the world. Many parents tend to get overwhelmed at this stage of their child's development because it's so easy to think that you need to provide additional language input on top of the usual care. To me it's about using language while exercising daily care, while bathing, while potty training, while putting the shoes on and when collecting toys off the floor. The language comes with care and attention. It's not separate from it. It emerges in its context. Being a good and loving parent is what comes first, languages are the attachments. I feel that time is on our side – every day and every play brings new words and creates new routes of comprehension and it's so important to be aware of this as the whole process of acquiring three languages is very slow. We just try to spend our days well and to have fun. The more delight, the less doubt. For him and for us. That's our recipe for now and we hope it will take our family where we wish to be. Alicja is a mum and a researcher with interests in multilingualism, diversity and child development. She is originally from Poland but is now living in the UK working on her research. In her free time she is a writer and photographer for Postcards Without Stamps , a personal blog that deals with questions related to motherhood, consumerism and lifestyle choices. You might also like: Teaching the letter sounds before letter names. Can babies distinguish foreign languages? Life story: A Journey to Multilingualism. Follow my blog with Bloglovin
As a bilingual or trilingual family, you have a unique opportunity to provide your children with the advantage of language proficiency. Language learning at home not only strengthens your children's cognitive abilities but also provides them with social and cultural benefits that can last a lifetime.
Research conducted by the website SwiftKey has led to the production of a fantastic infographic, giving us insight into the the different languages their users are typing in. The work was done in recognition of the importance of languages, and to celebrate the United Nation’s International Mother Language Day. The trilingual combination of Indonesian/Javanese/English has given Indonesia the […]
English Filipino Trilingual von Aida Payton
With three languages in our daily lives, it was a no-brainer that raising multilingual children was the right decision for our family.
Tips on raising bilingual multilingual children in a multilingual family
Raising a trilingual hard is challenging enough. This family moved countries and changed the community language. This is what happened.
Raising a Trilingual Child Is Not Always a Bed of Roses. by Nathalie Vieweger I was raised trilingual from birth. My mother was Dutch, my father - German and the community language was (often) English. I am a TCK - Third Culture Kid. I am now raising a trilingual child myself (English, Dutch and Spanish) as his father is English and we live in Spain. I used to go to international schools, and I’m a teacher at a bilingual school, so I have seen my fair amount of bilingual children. Read my full story: Trilingual mama - trilingual kid. Why would it be any other way? As much as I am a supporter of raising a child multilingual, I also see many parents struggle with their decision to raise their child in more than one language. Generally information and articles one can find on trilingualism are predominantly pro raising a child with more than one language. They seem to just surpass the struggles involved in a trilingual upbringing. I have decided to show both sides of a (in this case) trilingual upbringing. Bearing in mind that what I am writing is based on my experiences and my opinion I invite you to have a look at my perspective on this matter. Looking back as an adult I can not express how grateful I am for having been brought up trilingually. I have learned the languages effortlessly and have had many opportunities other (monolingual) peers did not have. My being “native” in three languages looks fantastic on my CV and it has opened doors that would otherwise have been shut. My personal identity is based on my three languages. The languages of my thoughts and dreams vary in different situations. The languages I speak are linked to the culture they belong to, having broadened my view of the world. I have become more open-minded (I believe) than my peers. My nicest memory of being trilingual must be going to a restaurant in the Netherlands with three of my (multilingual) friends. With four of us at the table mixing French, English, German and Dutch effortlessly, and the conversation making sense to all of us, we noticed being stared at by all the other visitors of the restaurant. I think all four of us realized at that moment, how special our conversation was to others, and we couldn’t help but be filled with pride. Being unique in this way certainly is a beautiful thing. Also, thanks to my upbringing, I have been able to learn a fourth language with less effort than a monolingual person would have. Having said that, and again pointing out how grateful I am, must admit that there have been quite a lot of downsides to my trilingual upbringing. Mainly, the fact that I do not speak any of the three languages completely accent-free or flawlessly. That is to say, I do not have a strong accent, and native speakers of either of the languages say I almost sound like a native… almost… in all three languages !! Because of that, many times people have asked me where I was from (a difficult question anyway for TCKs, and moreover trilingual ones). Apparently I am not a native in any language. Maybe the point of not being completely native has had an effect on the way I see myself as well as the way others see me. At work sometimes I get complimented about the difficult sentence structure I use (any monolingual person would be downright insulted), with friends I often struggle to find the nuances in certain discussions, making me sound tactless or just not very smart. I struggle to separate the languages fully, so I translate proverbs or sayings literally into the other language, or I use complicated long German sentence structures while writing Dutch. Making it look like I don not grasp the concept of a full stop. I personally believe something gets lost along the way, the thing native people just grasp. Many of my friends at the European school struggle with the same issues now they are adults. I would say being a trilingual person has filled me with a sense of pride riddled with a faint feeling of incompetence. Observing my trilingual son So now I am on road to raising my own trilingual child. My son is 2.5 now, and I am proud to say he is in fact becoming pretty trilingual. He is starting to differentiate the languages, speaking to his dad in English, speaking to me in Dutch and to his teachers in Spanish. Am I proud of it? Very much so! But the poor kid does struggle at times. I sometimes wish he would be able to say what he wants to everybody, without having to think what language they understand. He excitedly wants to tell his dad that he has seen something, and then gets a confused look as an answer. He tries to tell his teacher he came to school by bike, she looks at him blankly, asking me to translate. The moment has gone and he goes off to do something else. I feel he is at times missing out on basic social interactions, and with that important connections to the people around him, that monolingual children naturally have. He seems to have to make an extra effort. Obviously in the future he will be much more capable of separating the languages, but for now it is a bit of a downside. Something I just recently noticed that is definitely a down-side of raising a trilingual child is the following: Very often my partner and I spend time together with our little boy. Making jokes, playing or reading books. As Daniël was not speaking a lot, we would usually both speak our own language to him. Recently Daniël has started speaking more…and there the conflict within him started. We were talking about pictures in a book when Daniël excitedly wanted to say something. He looked at Rich, then back at me, then back to Rich until he finally decided to talk in Dutch … to me. He most obviously had a bit of an issue deciding what language to speak, in the end leaving his dad out of the conversation. These loyalty-issues will come up more often until he realizes that we both understand English. I felt bad for him for feeling he had to chose between his mama or his dad. Struggles for us as parents As my partner doesn’t speak Dutch, we speak English together. When I speak to Daniël I generally speak Dutch. But when we are all together it seems a bit strange to first say something in Dutch to my son, and then translate it into English. Obviously, as he is just 2, we don’t really have any interesting, translation-worthy conversations. But it won’t be long before either my partner feels left out, I translate a lot of our conversations, or I speak English to both in family situations. In my opinion following the “trilingual rule-book” is secondary to all members of the family feeling comfortable when we are together. Something else is speaking to your child in public in a minority language, when it sounds like gobbledygook to everybody. The Dutch language sounds like somebody is having a stroke - and a serious one. We get many looks from people when they hear us speak. Obviously that does not stop me from speaking to Daniël in Dutch. But I would be lying if I said it doesn’t make me feel awkward at times. I worry about Daniëls reaction to this in the future, at some point it will be humiliating for him. What really gets me crabby however, are people correcting him. His Dutch and English being treated as if he is making a mistake. In a local bar he shows his car to the staff. He enthusiastically claims: “Car!!”. The staff shake their head and say “No Daniel, es un coche!!” as if he made a mistake. Conclusion Raising a trilingual child is not the easiest route to take. In the modern world full of mixed couples and expats it is, however, a necessary route for many. If your main (or even only) goal is to make your child speak more than one language, it is not very complicated. Speak to your child in your language and expose him/her to it as much as possible. Difficulties arise when the minority language is not spoken by both parents, the minority parent is uncomfortable speaking their language in public, the child finds it difficult to distinguish between the languages, or the child, as an adult feels incompetent in all languages. My advice is ask yourself if you are willing to take the challenges of raising a child with more than one language. Are you willing to be looked at in a strange manner by the community? Are you willing to speak to your child in a language your spouse doesn’t understand? I am, but up to a certain point. The OPOL (one person one language) approach is something I strongly believe in. But I believe that the well being of all of my family members is far more important. I will, therefore, not always speak the minority language with my son. I find it hard to accept the funny looks, when I speak gobbledygook with my child, but know it is the price I have to pay. I would have preferred to raise my little boy in one language, or two at the most, but our situation is what it is, and it being so, I am very proud of my little trilingual monkey/aap/mono. And I know he will be, as I am myself, very grateful for the gift of languages. UPDATE 21/02/2018: By now Daniel is 5 and very trilingual. The struggle stays the same (although my partner has learned some basic Dutch by listening to us speaking to each other. Daniels favourite language is Spanish (community language that we do not speak at home) his Dutch is near native and English is his weakest language. Having said that, he still does not feel embarrassed to speak Dutch to me in public (not thanks to the amount of people rudely staring at us in the bus). We still do a variation of OPOL but very flexible, sometimes using all three the languages in one conversation. I can conclude that it works, and am very happy we were flexible and am still proud of the ease of which this trilingual upbringing works. I think one mainly doubts during the first years, once the child responds to us, we become more secure we are doing the right thing. Wishing you all the best of luck during your journey of the gift of languages. Books on Raising Trilingual Kids Language Strategies for Trilingual Families: Parents' Perspectives (Parents' and Teachers' Guides) by Andreas Braun - E-book - Book Growing up with Three Languages: Birth to Eleven (Parents' and Teachers' Guides) by Xiao-lei Wang - E-book - Book Trilingual by Six: The sane way to raise intelligent, talented children by Lennis Dippel MD - E-book - Book ---- Are you interested to participate in the Life Story series and write about your experience as a bilingual or multilingual child and/or a parent? Would you like to take part in the Multilingual Family Interview series ? You can contact me here. Are you a multilingual family and looking for a playdate in your language or another family to chat with? Click here to find it now! You might also like reading What language should I speak to my child in public? - Multilingual parent dilemma. Raising a Bilingual Child. How to Start So You Don't Feel Giving It Up Halfway Through. One parent speaks two languages. Raising a trilingual child. Life Story: Trilingual mama - trilingual kid. Why would it be any other way? Multilingual Family Interview: When your home languages are different from community language. Plus resources for teaching phonics and reading to children in English. 7 facts that can determine the language spoken between multilingual siblings. Listen to kids radio in your language ! Still undecided what language to speak to your child? Read about possible language strategies. And read my answers to parents questions in Question and Answer series. So excited! My first book was published and available on Amazon! in Russian language (КТО Я?) and in Italian language (CHI SONO IO?) View on AMAZON or visit my author's page.
The best websites and apps with free narrated multilingual books including stories in Chinese, English, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Korean!
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Teaching your children more than one language will help them in the future being global citizens. How mine learn English, Spanish, and even Russian.
(Part-1): Such a quick and delicious meal in under 10 minutes! #cooking #Recipe #korean #koreanfood #mukbang #mom #spanish #trilingual #english #noodles #foodreview. Aylenpark · Original audio
The end of the year / beginning of the year list-making spirit is still with me and so here I go with another typeface list. This one is devoted to typefaces that have been overlooked and/or undera…
Language policy in the Republic of Kazakhstan began in 2007, when in his Address to the Nation New Kazakhstan in the New World the President proposed to gradually implement the cultural project Trinity of Languages. Today, Kazakhstans integration into the world community depends on the understanding and implementation of a simple truth: the world is open to…
Are bilinguals or multilinguals any different from monolinguals when it comes to speaking? Well, yes and no. Bilinguals might start speaking somewhat later; however, the latest research totally rejects a clinical language delays in bilingual or multilingual children as a result of exposure to two or more languages simultaneously. In "Language development in bilingual babies: no delays, just a few adjustments" François Rochon talks about research of Professor Christopher Fennell of the University of Ottawa's School of Psychology: Research has shown [...], that monolingual toddlers learn to distinguish similar-sounding words at around 17 months old. Professor Fennell has found that bilingual infants start to do this at 20 months. Prof. Fennell doesn't at all believe the "delay" in sound distinction is a hindrance. Bilingual babies are simply learning an adaptive strategy because they're facing a more challenging language environment. That strategy sees them unconsciously ignore some of the sound cues they receive so that they can concentrate on matching the word with the object it represents. What does it mean for you as a parent? It means that you should not worry that two or more languages are too much for a child, and that you should focus on how to help your child and ease that task of connecting words with objects. Do not think about it as something not natural and extra work for you. Look at this the same way you look at helping your child keep his balance while he is making his first steps. Come down to your child's level of understanding when you read or talk to him; proving extra explanations. According to the researchers, a 4 month old baby is already learning to connect words with objects. So start early! Point on the objects while talking about them, and do the same on the pictures in the books, following a story as you read it to your child. You need to catch new words and follow on them explaining their meanings. I often use Google to find pictures of words that are not pictured in books we read, or when I'd like to provide some extra explanation and show something in details. Pointing is a powerful tool for creating word-object connection. So make a point to point :) Read also How to read to a baby? Researchers also found that children have difficulties to distinguish one languages from another, if the languages you expose your child to belong to the same rhythm category (such as English and German (stress-timed), French and Spanish (syllable timed), Japanese and Tamil (mora-timed)) . Deborah D.K. Ruuskanen, Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Vaasa, Finland, and mother of three bilingual children says: if there is more than one language in the baby's home environment, then the baby will be learning first to process and separate the different languages, before talking begins. As you probably already experienced yourself, there are natural obstacles in the language learning process. So be ready to face this challenge and simplify the language learning task for your child by being consistent. Speak only the language you choose to speak with your child. If you decided to speak only one language to your child - then do it all the time, without mixing with other languages in direct interactions. If you, as one person, decided to speak to your child two or more languages, think of the best strategy to separate the languages one from another. You could alternate days or even weeks when languages are spoken to your child, for instance, one day / week Italian only and another day / week - Hungarian. You could also assign a language to a certain activity: bathing, family meals, playgroups ... Think of some possible, appropriate to the child's age sign that you can give to your baby, to help him to understand what languages you speak and when. It could be a different color bow in your hair, a scarf, different picture on the wall. Just use your imagination! You also need to be consistent with the language you speak to others at front of your child. If you decided to speak to your spouse other language then to your child, please make an effort and speak only that language. This brings structure to the language recognition and, hopefully, helps the child to sort out the languages fast. Nothing dramatic will happen if you mix the languages. There is a number of parents that does it and they have a bilingual or multilingual child afterwards. However, my position on it: if you dedicate your time to your child, why not just take care of the language consistency part as well to speed up and simplify language learning. I found that naming the languages with their proper name helps in the language separation process. As you see, there are many variables that can affect when your child starts speaking. My children started speaking within the same time frame as monolinguals do. Since my concentration was on speaking Russian language, their first words and sentences were mostly in Russian. Interestingly, both children started speaking full sentences in Italian without usual long practice of words. They simply transferred the knowledge about building the sentences from one language into another by modeling the Italian speakers. If you are pregnant, you might like to know that it is also beneficial to speak the languages you are going to use with your child during the last trimester. Research shows that infants are able to show preferences to and thus, recognition of the languages they were spoken to during the pregnancy after they were born. When did your bilingual, trilingual or multilingual child start speaking? What do you think helped or delayed the child's speaking in your particular case? Share your thoughts to help other parents who read this page. Useful Resources: Language development milestones by ASHA - American Speech-Language-Hearing Association BE AWARE! Your child can have fluid in the middle ear (otitis media) without you noticing it! As it can cause absolutely NO PAIN and your child will not complain. READ MORE HERE: Speech delay due to fluid collection in the middle ear. Books about helping children to talk: Time to Talk: What You Need to Know About Your Child's Speech and Language Development My Toddler Talks: Strategies and Activities to Promote Your Child's Language Development by Kimberly Scanlon The Cow Says Moo: Ten Tips to Teach Toddlers to Talk: An Early Intervention Guide by Vicky McErlean Talking with Your Toddler: 75 Fun Activities and Interactive Games that Teach Your Child to Talk by Teresa Laikko M.S. CCC-SLP and Laura Laikko M.S. CF-SLP Late-Talking Children: A Symptom or a Stage? by Stephen M. Camarata Never miss a new post! Subscribe to receive updates! * indicates required Email Address * First Name * You might also like: Raising a Bilingual Child : Setting Your Priorities From The Start. 9 steps of raising a bilingual child successly Whay to learn the language: A family vacation, multilingual style. Are you in? Can babies distinguish foreign languages? The Best Way to Start Building Your Bilingual Child's Vocabulary.
Audio books are very entertaining for kids. They are a great resource for teaching and learning a language to any age group from kids to adults. You can listen to them in a car or at home while enjoying other activities. My kids like to draw and listen to fairy tales and children's stories when they are broadcasted on children's radio or as audiobooks. Here are links to 19 great websites that are offering kids' audio books for free : 1. Storynory Free audio stories for kids with texts: Original stories Fairy tales Classic Audio books Educational stories Myth and World stories Junior stories Poems and Music Listen to audiobooks on iTunes: 2. Meegenius Free Books Audiobooks are available for children up to 8 years old . You can choose from different titles. You can either read an ebook by yourself or listen to a narrator and follow the words in the text. 3. Loyal Books Free public domain audiobooks & eBook downloads for children and adults. Great kids audio books collection! 4. Storyline online This website is the contribution of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Foundation to the advancement of literacy. It features professional actors and famous people reading children's books aloud. Wonderful book reading videos on Youtube! 5. LibriVox.org Audiobooks are read by volunteers and available for free to anyone to listen to or to download. Browse the catalog of over 15000 free audio books. In order to find the children's books you could browse by Gender / Subject or use their advance search and choose in Category/ Gender either "Children's Fiction" or "Children's non-Fiction" to show all the children's audio books available. 6. Online Audio Stories Great short stories for kids with read-along text. Also available on iTunes. 7. AudioBooksForFree.Com Children's Classics Animal Adventures ( including books about Dinosaurs !) Train Tails Fairy Tails Serials Folklore Stories Grown up books for kids Cristian Books Jokes for children Poetry ( Nursery rhymes and playground counts) 8. Kiz Club read along books with words highlighting future or books to print in PDF Level 1 stories Level 2 Stories Level 3 Stories 9. Kiddie Records Weekly Golden collection of vinyl records ready to be streamed or downloadble as mp3. Wonderful classics from the golden age! There are also stories and songs for kids on youtube! 10. Lit2Go Collection of children's literature sorted by author, book titles, genres, collections and readability level. You can either listen to mp3 format audiobooks and read the text online or download audio and books in PDF. 11. Audio Stories for Kids More than 200 stories in mp3 format for you to download and listen to. No text is provided. 12. The Children's Story books online Free children ebooks website. Some books are with audio narration. 13. A Story Before Bed This is a particular website. Children's books are narrated by their authors (with video!). You can also record an audio and video of you reading a book, so your children / grandchildren would watch YOU reading it instead. This is a paid option, but you can try it for free and see, if you like it. 14. Learn English Kids by British Council Really great website for little English language learners with short kids stories to watch. The website has other great language learning material: nursery rhymes, kids songs, tongue twisters, spelling and grammar videos and games. Learn English Kids ON YOUTUBE 15. Story Place The children's digital library, where children can listen to interactive stories and play. Choose from Preschool Library or Elementary Library 16. Books written and read by Robert Munsch Robert Munsch is the author of many great books. Listen to them or read his poetry and stories. He also shares with readers how his books were written. 17. International Children's Digital Library (ICDL) Extensive digital library of children's ebooks from around the world. Many books are available in more than one language. I found 5 audio books at the moment that are available in two languages - English and Spanish. Use this Keyword search to check if there are more audiobooks and to find ebooks you'd like. ICDL digital books for children are available on iPhone & iPad: 18. Hoopla (for USA library card holders only) Great website where you can instantly borrow free audio books with your USA library card. You can also borrow and stream on your mobile or computer movies, television shows, music albums. It is like taking them for a short period from your local library. 19. Over Drive ( for USA library card holders only) You can borrow audiobooks, ebooks, videos using your local library card. RESOURCES IN OTHER LANGUAGES : Multilingual Kid's radio stations from around the world Russian: List of kids' books in Russian language. List of Russian Children's Cartoons and Movies. Polish: List of children's books in Polish language - Lista książek po Polsku dla dzieci You might also like reading: 7 principles to keep in mind while teaching your child to read. Can babies distinguish foreign languages? Does passive language learning work? 9 steps of Raising a Bilingual Child successfully.
My daughter loves to speak, sing, and read Chinese, and here are the details on how I taught her >1000 characters despite my lack of fluency.
Long time before my first child spoke his first word, I asked myself: What language should I speak to him in public, when I am surrounded by other people who do not speak my language? Should I switch the languages and speak to my child the community language so everyone understands? There should not be any harm if I do it (right?), since I am bringing up my child trilingual anyway. However, after giving this matter a thought, I decided to always speak the minority language to my child and this is why: Consistency. When a child surrounded by more than one language, a non-community language speakers' best strategy is to ALWAYS speak the language of his choice in order to help a child separate the languages and start speaking, (See more on this in Bilingualism and speech delay. How can you help?) and to avoid the situation when your child suddenly refuses to speak your language and starts speaking the community language. Love. Pride. Embarrassment. Children are very sensitive creatures. They can read what we feel just by looking at us. They might interpret your preference to speak majority language in a wrong way or they will read what you feel deeply inside and will follow your example. This little story made me think and might make you think too: When I was looking for an apartment to rent at a university town in the states, I went to an open house and met with a bunch of students from all over the world. We chatted and then the landlord asked us where we were from. Everyone named their home country except for one boy. He spoke with a heavy foreign accent but still said he is an American. I remember there was a long silence pause, we looked at each other and then someone asked him about his heritage. The boy repeated again: "I am an American". We just let it go. I do not know his story, he obviously did not want to share it with us. What I know is that I don't want my children feel inferior or different just because their parents came from a different country. On contrary, I want them to have pride in it and see it as an added value. Politeness and Respect. I respect people around me and I would like them to respect me. I am passing my mother tongue on to my children and this is important to me. When I come to a playground, I greet people I do not even know. I greet people who live on my street. I greet people who work at local stores, even if I go there once in a blue moon. I speak my mother tongue with my children outside and translate or make a brief outline of what my conversation was about to others. I explain them that I have to speak Russian, because this is the only way for me to pass on my language. Many are happy for my achievements and say: Wow! Your children are bilingual! and speak words of encouragement. Others express concerns that my kids may not integrate well or study well at school, but they stop the moment I tell them that the kids should be fine, as they already know how to read in Russian and that is a transferable skill. I do respect the people around me and I am more than happy to translate relevant parts of my conversation with kids if they are interested. I do not have language limitations, I speak the community language - Italian. To those who need an encouragement to speak their mother tongue to their kids in public: Do not think about what other would think about you or about the country you came from. An educated person will take a hat off to you, and as for others ... why should you think about them? If you work and there is no other language support, every minute you spend with your child speaking your mother tongue is precious. Just do it! Speak it everywhere and set yourself free from judgments! Why do I encourage you to speak your mother tongue in public? If you consistently speak your mother tongue with your child, you have a better success rate for your child not only understand the language you speak, but to actually speak it. Also translating back and forth is not easy. Just start early and you will get used to it and will even feel comfortable speaking to your older child and to his friend in two languages at the same time. What is your experience and feelings about speaking non-community language to your child in public? Are you a multilingual family and looking for a playdate in your language? Click here to find it now! You might also like: How much time do we have to influence a child's minority language development? 7 principles to keep in mind while teaching your child to read. Does PASSIVE language LEARNING work?
I already wrote an article in regards of a parent, who stopped speaking the minority language to her son: "No English! Motivation is the key". Recently I read another article published in The New Republic - "For Three Years, I Spoke Only Hebrew to My Daughter. I Just Gave It Up. Here's Why". The author, who is a father and a senior editor at The New Republic, stopped speaking the minority language ( Hebrew) to his three years old daughter. He lists many reasons why he decided to stop speaking his heritage language to his child - Different personality in heritage language vs country language. (He find himself not as funny in Hebrew as in English.) - Parental competition for attention. - Parent identity issues. But if you read the article, you can also find OTHER REASONS , the author prefers not to talk about them as much. - Bilingual child's resistance to speaking minority language. As he says, at age of 3, 5 years his "...daughter understands Hebrew and will even speak it under duress." Under duress means under pressure or force. - Lack of vocabulary for communication on different topics. "But the older my daughter got, the less plausible the whole routine felt. Last fall, she started going to pre-school five days a week. Like any parent, I was keen to know what she’d been up to all day."... It also occurred to me that I was getting nowhere—my daughter was clamming up." She was not saying things just because she did not know the words in Hebrew. Her life at preschool is all in English. Someone needed to tell her how to say in minority language all what she was experiencing. Would you ever stop speaking your heritage language, if the child is responsive and eager to do so? Probably not. In most of the cases a child does not want to speak the parents language just because s/he does not know the words. This is the initial stage and later more reasons grow on this one. Parents, who live outside of their language home country, can not just speak to their child and expect that the child will pick up the language the same way other children, who live in the country and learn their country language, do. You need to start early with activities related to language development , such as reading aloud and direct interaction with your child, and be persistent in your efforts. If your goal is to have a child who speaks your heritage language fluently, you or someone else ( nanny, school, tutors) has to work on it. And work hard. Sorry, there is no other way, if you are the only parent who tries to pass on your mother tongue and your goal is to have a child who speaks the language and not just understands it. Here are the steps of successfully raising a bilingual child, the way I see them: 0. Set your priorities from the day 1. How do you prioritize the language learning? How do you figure out what’s important? This article will help you setting your priorities. 1. Start speaking to your child early and use any opportunity to do so. The early you start the better. As I already mentioned in the language strategies for parents, your child can hear you speaking even when he is in the womb. Ok. I was not speaking to my child my heritage language so early, but for some of you it might be a useful piece of information. You can start preparing yourself and your child :) The best way to start building your child's vocabulary and maximize the language learning is by taking your bilingual baby on a stroll. It is also a good idea to keep speaking your language to your child in public. 2. Start reading to your child early. Read a lot. Everyday. Several times a day. For tips read: Bilingual child: when to start reading to your baby? Bilingual children: How to read to a baby? Child rips books apart ? Alicia found a way to keep books safe and to read to her child. 3. Start preparing your child for reading and teach your child to read in minority language early. While your child is still small, letter learning will be just like another game for him. Do not miss this unique opportunity! Read these articles on the topic: How to develop early phonemic awareness and reading readiness by using language play with kids from birth to preschool. Teaching the letter sounds before letter names. 7 principles to keep in mind while teaching your child to read. 4. Be proactive in introducing new vocabulary. If you see your child is interested in playing , let's say, with boats, try to provide the needed vocabulary in the language you are exposing your child to. Play, talk, read books about boats, show cartoons and documentaries on the topic. He will absorb the words faster as he uses them in his games over and over again. If you see your child learned something new in the community language, rush to introduce the same in minority language. 5. Draw together with your child. This is time when you can talk, learn new words, practice writing letters and words. Experiment: Mixing art, material objects and imagination - a recipe for language development 6. Sing to your child and with your child. Small children love music and songs. They are able to learn so many words just from this fun activity. Looking for nursery songs in Russian? Русские колыбельные песни. Колыбельная песня для двойняшек. 7. Be creative. You would need to come up with new activities for extending your child's vocabulary on different variety of subjects. Experiment and look for things that can trigger new words learning and/ or a conversation. 8. Use media. Differentiating the ways a child receive the language input is always good. However, you should try to avoid using media before your child turns 2 years old. Researchers tell us it is not good for a child to watch television at this age. Plus small children learn best from direct interactions with them. However, after this age, media in minority language (such as games, cartoons and movies ...) can provide a lot of language support. Children learn more about your culture and remember many words and expressions from the new digital world you open to them. But remember, your child still needs you! I like the way Maria puts it in her life story: “Life Story of one family. Educational Apps – How they affect multilingual development of small children?” Also do not forget about radio! Your children can listen to it while they play. Here is the list of children's radio stations from around the world. 9. ? What would you add? Leave a comment bellow! I wish you best of luck on your multilingual journey! It is such a joy to see your child speaking your language, especially when you don’t live in your home country! What does help YOU successfully pass your mother tongue onto your bilingual child? Contact me to be interviewed or join others in the Life story series by sharing your own or your multilingual family story. You might also like: Plan to raise a bilingual or multilingual child, but not sure where to start? - Click to read Get inspired by reading bilinguals and multilinguals Life Stories Can babies distinguish foreign languages? How to prepare yourself to be a speaking model for your child. Should I correct my child speaking? Inspirational Quotes about Language for Bilinguals and Language Learners Bilingualism and speech delay. How can you help? Fun way to learn letters and start writing: What should I order? Mortadella alphabet! Naming languages with their proper name. Language learning resources: Children's radio from around the world. Let me know, if I am missing a radio station in your language. Kids Books in Russian Best Russian Children's Cartoons and Movies. - Лучшие Руссие Детские Мультфильмы и Фильмы. List of children's books in Polish language - Lista książek po Polsku dla dzieci Are you a multilingual family and looking for a playdate in your language? Click here to find it now!
Learn Comparison of Adjectives in English with Pictures and Examples.
The best and first dictionary of its kind in the Arab world, with three language: Arabic, English and French, plus phonetic spelling method. The most advanced English/Arabic/French dictionary. Contains more than 100,000 words with many related appendices and phonetic transcriptions. This dictionary makes easy and quick references for students of the Arabic language. Whether traveling or at home or school, this reference with 100's of words is sure to become one of your best companions. Words are listed in Arabic order (alef, baa, thaa, and so on), then with 2nd column having English translation, and third column having French translation. After word in Arabic comes the phonetic (or 'Roman') transcription. أول قاموس يجمع اللغات العربية والإنجليزية والفرنسية بأسلوب منهجي واضح ويقدم شروحاً وافية وأمثلة عصرية. يلبي حاجة التمازج اللغوي المعاصر، ويغطي متطلبات البحث الفوري والمقارن لمختلف المعاني والمصطلحات والاستعمالات الشائعة باللغات الثلاث
Being bilingual can seriously boost your job prospects. All you have to do is add some new small habits every day.
كلمه أحبك بكل اللغات بالافريكانس...Ek het jou liefe بالبافاري...I mog di narrisch gern بالبنغالي...Ami tomAy bhAlobAshi بالبربري...Lakh tirikh بالبوليفي...qant
Sofia, my three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, can carry out long, detailed conversations in Italian, Spanish, and English.
Tips on raising bilingual multilingual children in a multilingual family
So what’s the best way to learn a language, How can you learn language, how long does it take to learn a language. Language is a very diverse and fun thing.
