Bring up a bilingual child, how to do it right?

Supercell

My partner is Chinese and she would like our future children to be able to speak Mandarin as well as English so they have an understanding and appreciation of their heritage.

I totally agree and feel apart from anything else this could stand to them later on in life from a professional perspective too.

I've no experience with this, is there an accepted "right way" to do this? I was thinking that at home we would just speak Mandarin and the kids would learn English though TV, school and their pals.

I worry that this might give them learning difficulties early on as they start to pick up English though.
How is this handled in Irish schools?, I doubt very many teachers speak a word of Mandarin here?

Any parents here have experience with this and have any advice?

kiffer

how about...
one parent speak only/mostly mandarin to the child, the other english.

My mother spoke only German to me for the first few years of my life but I always answered in English so she gave up. My two older sisters had no problem learning german off my mom this way... I could understand what she was saying and reacted/responded appropriatlly but always in english... So she stopped which was a shame as I then had to learn german in school.

noby

At the time our eldest was born I remember picking up a booklet on bilingual kids, as we wanted them to have Irish too. I'll try and rack my brains for the name of it.

I doubt if learning difficulties will become an issue. If anything, the consensus is that bilingualism will help the child's language development.
Our kids go to an Irish Gaeltacht school, where they practice total submersion for the first three years; ie there is no English thought for the first three years. There is enough english in their lives that they pick it up anyway.
I would say, as you suggested, that trying to speak mandarin as much as possible at home will give a child a good foundation for the language, and they will not be short of english either.

Purple Gorilla

My friend who was born in Spain, and moved back here when she was 12 is fluent in both Spanish and English. She spoke Spanish in school and out with friends etc. but her parents spoke English to her at home

Deliverance

Supercell wrote: »

My partner is Chinese and she would like our future children to be able to speak Mandarin as well as English so they have an understanding and appreciation of their heritage.

I totally agree and feel apart from anything else this could stand to them later on in life from a professional perspective too.

I've no experience with this, is there an accepted "right way" to do this? I was thinking that at home we would just speak Mandarin and the kids would learn English though TV, school and their pals.

I worry that this might give them learning difficulties early on as they start to pick up English though.
How is this handled in Irish schools?, I doubt very many teachers speak a word of Mandarin here?

Any parents here have experience with this and have any advice?

The gaelscoil that my child is going to teaches as gaeilge as a first language. I have concerns myself about my child learning a language taught in irish primarily. I am concerned that she will underperform. But apparently it is a proven education and kids absorb different languages easily.

MrPudding

We have four kids and two of them are fluent in both english and french. The other two are only babies but can understand both. We have found that one parent per language seems to work well.

MrP

Supercell

MrPudding wrote: »

We have four kids and two of them are fluent in both english and french. The other two are only babies but can understand both. We have found that one parent per language seems to work well.

MrP

Did it take much longer for the kids to start speaking this way, also did they automatically speak English to dad and French to mum for example?

getz

over in the uk many schools have a problem with children going to his/her first school unable to speak english as a first language,the children often suffer and are behind there classmates in education,only because there are not enough teachers equipped in the language skills to understand them,this happend to two of my nephews as their parents would only speak spanish at home. so it is my belief, for the childs sake it should learn the language of its country first.and if you wish the child to learn a second ,give it lessons after school,remember if you are living in the republic the child will be confused enough with teachers expecting it to learn a bit irish as well.

noby

getz wrote: »

over in the uk many schools have a problem with children going to his/her first school unable to speak english as a first language,the children often suffer and are behind there classmates in education,only because there are not enough teachers equipped in the language skills to understand them,this happend to two of my nephews as their parents would only speak spanish at home. so it is my belief, for the childs sake it should learn the language of its country first.and if you wish the child to learn a second ,give it lessons after school,remember if you are living in the republic the child will be confused enough with teachers expecting it to learn a bit irish as well.

That can be a fear, but if the parents make mandarin (or whatever language) the primary language at home, then between friends, grandparents, tvetc. there will be enough english around for them to get a good grasp on both languages. I'm talking from birth, and pre-school here, so after school classes doesn't come in to it yet.

Deliverance wrote: »

The gaelscoil that my child is going to teaches as gaeilge as a first language. I have concerns myself about my child learning a language taught in irish primarily. I am concerned that she will underperform. But apparently it is a proven education and kids absorb different languages easily.

I have read that from the age of about two until twelve, experts agree that this is the best time to learn a new language. There is a bit of division of opinion on whether kids under two get the same benefit.
Not only do they absorb it easier, but it gives them a bit of lateral thinking benefits too, apparently.
Again, sorry for lack of references, but I'll try and source the booklet.

getz

the other thing to consider is ,will the child in question when reaching school age,who has been brought up in another language always have a ,in your case a chinese accent ?.the reason i say this is that my wife who was born in gibraltar only spoke spanish at home but had to learn english when of school age in gib,has never lost her accent,would it worry you that the child may be picked on for it.i know in the uk a lot of british children born from ethnic parents have a accent and kids will always pick on the different.-i know this may sound a little daft ,but it is some thing to think about

senape

getz wrote: »

so it is my belief, for the childs sake it should learn the language of its country first.and if you wish the child to learn a second ,give it lessons after school,remember if you are living in the republic the child will be confused enough with teachers expecting it to learn a bit irish as well.

If the parents are using both english and mandarin there is not need to learn english 'first'. It's easy to think that living in a predominately monolingual society but we must remember we are a small minority. Regarding then learning Irish. A bilingual child who by 4/5 should have good level of both languages spoken at home will more likely to pick up another language being taught to them than a monolingual child.

There are many factors that effect the predominancy of either language. As kiffer showed often what will happen if there is less input from one language or that language is not the predominate language of the home/community a child may develop only a passive ability i.e. will understand but respond in English but this can be helped by involving more people who speak the less predominate language in the child's life.

Mrs.T

The best way to teach both languages is "one parent one language" The best time to teach children languages is between 0 and 8 years old. If a child is being brought up bi lingual you may notice a delay in speach but when they do talk they will speak perfectly.
We are bringing our children up with English and Dutch but we haven't been doing the "OPOL" method and our son isn't as fluent in Dutch as say our friends who do "OPOL" Our son refuses to speak Dutch sometimes but when he does it's perfect.

PinkTulips

do not under any circumstances do 'one language at home, one outside the home'

my parents did that and it failed miserably.. i was born in holland to an irish mother and dutch father. they spoke english at home and i learned dutch outside the home, meaning i was never as good at dutch as english, then we moved to germany and after 2 years there my german was still very poor and i'd lost most of my dutch.

when we moved back here they continued to speak english at home, so now i can barely understand durtch and german at all :mad:

the recognised best practice is 'one prent, one language' and has fantastic results with plenty of people i know, their children are comfortably and confidantly bilingual.

silverharp

my wife speaks German to our kids. No science behind it , if I'm around they speak English. although it helps that she works from home so she normally spends about half the day with them. Also the German inlaws tend to visit quite a bit so that helps too.
I'm amazed how naturally they switch between both languages no inhibitions yet.

hunnymonster

I've also seen the one parent per language working really well. Fiance's son speaks German with Mum and English with Dad. He effortlessly switches between them but definitely has a preference for German, particularly when overtired.

I have friends (mum italian, dad Irish) and when the kids were preschoolers they thought women were all italian speaker and men spoke english. I don't speak any Italian (but am female) so it was pretty funny when they wanted something from me.

My own (adult) experience was that 2 languages are fine (I lived in Germany, spoke French at work and had Irish partner) but when I tried to juggle all three I tended to mix them up. I don't know if that's just me or just adults but is something to consider if you're sending kids to an Irish primary school where they'll have English and Irish and then mandarin at home.

Deliverance

This is turning into a v.interesting thread. I'm looking forward to my child swearing at me when she feels angry, in a language that I don't understand;) I think my best option is to try to learn the second language secretly and catch her out at a later stage.

I think Noby made a great point about lateral thinking as well, I kind of felt that a learning of a second language in this sense is interesting.

nesf

Our kid(s) are being brought up with Irish and English (my wife's a native Irish speaker). Apparently according to studies (or so I've been told) the best way to do it is for each parent to solely speak to the kid(s) in one language.

From experience, the child will be a bit slower starting off talking but by the time they're 3 or 4 they'll be speaking both languages as well as a monolingual child speaks their mother tongue. It's basically bull**** that a child suffers from being bilingual, it's only a temporary slow down at the start and disappears before the child even gets to school and from experience the child will understand both languages very well before they speak both well. There's also the enormous advantage that on average bilingual people pick up extra languages a lot faster than monolingual people (like myself).

It's basically all upside for children to be brought up bilingually so long as it's practical for the parents. I wouldn't try to raise a child in a language if I wasn't fluent in it to be honest, learning a language badly will just leave the child having a bunch of "bad habits" to unlearn when they get older.

Zynks

At home we always spoke English to my father and Spanish to my mother. We moved to Brazil when I was four and we starting speaking Portuguese between the brothers. At meal times the three languages co-existed at the table depending of who we were talking to. For us it was normal, but guests thought we were mad ;-)

I don't recall having any issues or difficulties. According to my mother I could speak the three languages fluently by the time I was five. However, I find that one huge challenge is that if both parents are not bi-lingual, it becomes much harder to establish a solid routine.

nesf

Zynks wrote: »

However, I find that one huge challenge is that if both parents are not bi-lingual, it becomes much harder to establish a solid routine.

You'd be surprised how much of the other language the monolingual parent will pick up simply from being exposed to it daily in household situations. My Irish has improved enormously over the past few years because of this.

NextSteps

nesf wrote: »

You'd be surprised how much of the other language the monolingual parent will pick up simply from being exposed to it daily in household situations. My Irish has improved enormously over the past few years because of this.

Out of interest, what language do you speak when all three of you are together, at the dinner table for instance? Is it not awkward sometimes?

DubDani

How are you doing it trilingual?

Me and my wife are expecting our first child and we are both foreigners. So in our case we would have three languages, i.e. english and our two native languages. At home we are currently only speaking english, as I don't speak my wifes language at all, and she speaks only a bit of my language.

We were thinking about speaking with the baby in our native language when we are on our own with the baby and to speak english when we are all together.

Anybody any experience on this complicated situation?

Zynks

DubDani wrote: »

How are you doing it trilingual?

Me and my wife are expecting our first child and we are both foreigners. So in our case we would have three languages, i.e. english and our two native languages. At home we are currently only speaking english, as I don't speak my wifes language at all, and she speaks only a bit of my language.

We were thinking about speaking with the baby in our native language when we are on our own with the baby and to speak english when we are all together.

Anybody any experience on this complicated situation?

In my case, my mother who is Spanish also spoke English, with a strong accent, but understandible. My father 'thought' he could speak Spanish, but not really... so, the 'rule' was that when speaking to my father we all used English, if speaking to my mother we spoke Spanish and when talking among the kids it was Portuguese. We all understood the three languages, so it worked fine and this switching was made within a conversation with no interruptions... looking back it does sound mad, but it worked perfectly fine.

Zynks

nesf wrote: »

You'd be surprised how much of the other language the monolingual parent will pick up simply from being exposed to it daily in household situations. My Irish has improved enormously over the past few years because of this.

Very true. An Irish friend of mine is married to a Chinese guy and she seems to pick up quite a bit. But I still find it much harder to implement a bilingual setup if one of the parents is 'mono-lingual'

noby

nesf wrote: »

You'd be surprised how much of the other language the monolingual parent will pick up simply from being exposed to it daily in household situations. My Irish has improved enormously over the past few years because of this.

True. I'm in a similar situation, and feel my Irish has come on a long way in the last five years (I was a struggling pass Irish student in school). While I tried to talk to our kids in Irish I certainly made a point of speaking english to them when I wanted to get a specific point across, instead of fumbling through bad irish. Now we all jump from one language to the other. It helps, of course, that they are being schooled through irish, but their english certainly isn't lacking.

MrPudding

Supercell wrote: »

Did it take much longer for the kids to start speaking this way, also did they automatically speak English to dad and French to mum for example?

One of our kids was very late in beginning to speak, compared to the first. He spoke very little until he was almost 2 and a half. The first spoke very early and the two babies seem to have no problem, though obviously cannot speak properly.

There seems to be little or no confusion between the languages.

getz wrote: »

over in the uk many schools have a problem with children going to his/her first school unable to speak english as a first language,the children often suffer and are behind there classmates in education,only because there are not enough teachers equipped in the language skills to understand them,this happend to two of my nephews as their parents would only speak spanish at home. so it is my belief, for the childs sake it should learn the language of its country first.and if you wish the child to learn a second ,give it lessons after school,remember if you are living in the republic the child will be confused enough with teachers expecting it to learn a bit irish as well.

I know of several children in the French school my kids went to that did not speak French when they started. They had no problems. Personally, speaking from experience, I would recommend teaching additional languages as soon as possible.

MrP

FruitLover

Growing up bi/multilingual has several benefits, and as a polyglot myself, I'm glad to see you looking into this carefully. Bear in mind that a language is not just a method of communication to others; it can be a vehicle of communication to oneself, and consequently can shape thought patterns. Just look at the purpose of "Newspeak" in Orwell's 1984 to see an analysis of the effect a language could have on thought itself. There are also theories on the benefits of being raised multilingual with regard to further language learning as an adult.

getz wrote: »

over in the uk many schools have a problem with children going to his/her first school unable to speak english as a first language,the children often suffer and are behind there classmates in education

As noby touches on above, this is only an issue for children who have already been speaking a different base language for several years and start schooling with fluency only in one (foreign) language; it doesn't apply to someone being raised bilingual from birth.

getz wrote: »

if you wish the child to learn a second ,give it lessons after school

This is not a path that will lead to true fluency in the language. The ideal time to get a child to learn a second language completely fluently is in parallel with another primary language, not as an afterthought.

getz wrote: »

if you are living in the republic the child will be confused enough with teachers expecting it to learn a bit irish as well.

A Chinese-Irish child brought up speaking both English and Mandarin will be no more confused by learning Irish than any other Irish kid is.

getz wrote: »

my wife who was born in gibraltar only spoke spanish at home but had to learn english when of school age in gib,has never lost her accent

This sounds very unusual. I'd guess that this is because a) she didn't speak English as a primary base language and b) she probably learned English from parents with an accent.

A child learning English from birth from an Irish father while surrounded by other Irish-accented English (in school, from TV, people outside) is very unlikely to have a Chinese accent when speaking English. Think about how many children born in Ireland to two Chinese parents, who speak nothing but Chinese at home, yet speak English with an Irish accent.

hunnymonster wrote: »

My own (adult) experience was that 2 languages are fine (I lived in Germany, spoke French at work and had Irish partner) but when I tried to juggle all three I tended to mix them up

It's most likely because you used one language as a base, and learned the other two from this base language. When an adult learns more than one language in parallel via the same base language, they can mix the new languages up. When a child is learning two languages simultaneously as their first languages, they both become base languages, and there is no problem with crossover.

The ideal for full native fluency would be that only the parent with native fluency in language A be the main speaker of language A, and the same for language B. When you mix and match, you risk the child learning non-native phrases and accent in both languages.

senape wrote: »

a child may develop only a passive ability i.e. will understand but respond in English

There's no such thing as a passive ability with languages. If you can fluently understand it, you can speak it (might not feel as natural as your primary language, but you can do it all the same).

nesf

UB wrote: »

Out of interest, what language do you speak when all three of you are together, at the dinner table for instance? Is it not awkward sometimes?

English if it's between my wife and I since it's what we all understand, unless my wife is speaking directly to my son then it's through Irish or vice versa. There's no awkwardness really, the discussion switches back and forth between English and Irish without any real problems. My son can switch between the two languages instantly by this point (he'll be three next month), I can't imagine it being much of a problem later on. The ratio of English to Irish depends on who is there, if my parents who are monoglot English speakers are there it's nearly all English and vice versa with my partner's parents who speak Irish as their first language.

You basically just get used to more that one language being spoken in a house and stop noticing it after a short while. To an outsider it'd be odd, but you do just get used to it and you develop and ear for the other languages just by being around them so most of the time you can still understand what is being said even if you're not a fluent speaker in the other language.

Supercell

Wow! some fantastic informed discussion here, am extremely encouraged that this is the right way to bring up our kids.
For the parents that brought up their kids to speak a non native language, by this I mean for example Mandarin in Ireland - almost all their exposure will be through one parent and our vacations back to China of course - is this really enough for them to understand anyone but their mother in this case?

nesf

Supercell wrote: »

For the parents that brought up their kids to speak a non native language, by this I mean for example Mandarin in Ireland - almost all their exposure will be through one parent and our vacations back to China of course - is this really enough for them to understand anyone but their mother in this case?

I imagine it would be. Consider this, the population of native Irish speakers is very small. My son is exposed to a lot of Irish at home, at his grandparents' home and at the Naionra (preschool done through Irish) but nearly all of his interaction with other kids, adults from most of his family outside of my wife's family and her mother's people, television and the world in general is through English. It's not really that different in many ways to bringing a child up through Mandarin here if you think about it, yes there's State support for the language and some Irish media available (though few children's cartoons are dubbed into Irish), but by and large the vast majority of this country is run through English.


What I would do in your situation is get some Mandarin cartoons for your child so they can hear other voices, and perhaps some CDs of the equivalent of nursery rhymes in Mandarin. Just because there aren't going to be loads of native Mandarin speakers around doesn't mean your child won't be able to hear (and when they're older) watch others speaking the language.

PullOutMethod

We have a daughter now 22 months.
Initially each parent spoke their mother tongue (my wife Swedish, mine is English) to our daughter.
At 12 months she spoke a dozen words of each language.
However her Swedish started to suffer as she had started at a creche.
Both of us speak the other language fluently and soon after she hit 1 I started speaking Swedish to her as well and we got Swedish dvds, books and Swedish TV installed and her grandparents skype every day from Sweden.
(You must have a reason to daily use the language)
At 15 months her vocabulary was uncountable in both languages.

Try to create a second language environment and it helps if both partners speak both languages fluently.
You need to respect both cultures and not ignore the other culture as most Irish people do.

PullOutMethod

PullOutMethod wrote: »

Try to create a second language environment

This is a very important point. Whether the "second language environment" is geographical or personal or time-related, it helps if the child can associate a language with that place, person or time.

Another important point is simply not under-estimating the capabilities of a baby/child to learn ... there is no better age to teach languages to a child, starting from now will mean that your child doesn't have a second language but TWO mother-tongues

Supercell wrote: »

For the parents that brought up their kids to speak a non native language, by this I mean for example Mandarin in Ireland - almost all their exposure will be through one parent and our vacations back to China of course - is this really enough for them to understand anyone but their mother in this case?

Our story is similar to this ... we moved to France when Kiddo was 5, she went straight into a local primary school at Senior Infants level. She didn't speak a word for 6/7 months and just at the moment when I was starting to panic, it all came tumbling out. We spoke English at home and she spoke French at school and with her friends. And she is now (at 13) perfectly bi-lingual.

What helps a lot (as they get older) is reading. Kiddo is an avid reader and read from an early age in both languages so has a fantastic vocabulary level.