Bilingual Infant

Earleybird

Would anyone have any advice on the best methods for my 1 year daughter to learn both English and Romanian. I am only fluent in English but have a reasonable level of Romanian built up, while my wife will sometimes speak Romanian when on the phone to her parents, while our daughter listens. She has many words in English but only a few in Romanian, due to the lack or exposure. My concern is that overly introducing a second language will slow down her English development. Any advice?

Loveinapril

My nieces are 3 and both parents exclusively speak their native language to them. I have heard that raising a child with two languages can delay their speech but I haven't seen that with my nieces. They intuitively know to speak each language with each seperate parent. Their childminder is South American and mostly speaks Portugese with them and I have heard them speak Portugese to her, it's amazing.

catrionanic

My 2 year old is bilingual, and my 5 month old will follow. Their dad only speaks Welsh to them, never ever English. And I speak English.

His speech has always been ahead of his peers in terms of how early he spoke, how many words he puts in a sentence, etc. He just intuitively switches from English with me to Welsh with his dad, and doesn't even seem to have to think about it.

It is truly amazing to watch and listen to him and his daddy jabbering away in Welsh. I love it.

Giving your child a second language is a really incredible gift. Do it!

Macha

Do it. My son is 3 and speaks three languages. He is incredibly lucky. Your wife needs to start talking to her in Romanian ASAP.

Kintarō Hattori

My partner is Polish and I'm Irish. Our 22 month old already knows more Polish than I ever will. We went about it by my only speaking English and my partner mostly speaking Polish. You'll confuse them if you add in words that you know in Romanian so stick to English.

She gets a mix of songs in English/Polish and it's the same with videos. We let her watch a very limited amount of YouTube (while with her) and she has a mix of both languages. She reads and we read a lot of books to her and they are a mixture of English and Polish.

shesty

I have a few friends where one parent speaks Irish and the other speaks English to the kids.Works just fine.Also remember that they will be in an english speaking school system (I assume?).I think it's where you have both parents speaking another language to the child and they are in an English (or other) school system that you really run into the trouble.I think it's a great skill to have.

mvl

I am no specialist, but my daughter was growing up exposed to 3 languages before going to school (English being one of the three);
Each of us were using one/same language when talking to her in private, then longer holidays overseas would benefit the third language.
The three have always been of different levels, but that's ok.
- now seeing how she's making good progress with Irish as fourth language from school, I think any language would be easy to her.

fyi, there is also this book my SO bought in past - https://www.amazon.com/Growing-Three-Languages-Parents-Teachers/dp/1847691064

Dravokivich

Its something I asked a neighbour about previously as their household had 3 languages, so keep conversing and adding context. Ease dropping on the mothers calls wont help with Romanian. This is the language you should be concerned with developing. Not her English.

mvl

Dravokivich wrote: »

Its something I asked a neighbour about previously as their household had 3 languages, so keep conversing and adding context. Ease dropping on the mothers calls wont help with Romanian. This is the language you should be concerned with developing. Not her English.

Remember this toddler is 1 yo, some barely talk just the one language at that stage - don't think big damage is done now.
I'd suggest this is more for the Romanian native parent to push, needing to start speaking to the child Romanian only, reading Romanian bed time stories, while the father uses English.

In our case, not having extended family that speaks the other language was compensated with frequent skype conversations during the year, and these summer holidays spent with the family overseas: can see that my daughter was improving her conversation levels after each of these holidays.
Now (but this is for another forum) I would just need to look into how to introduce reading in these other languages for my pre-teen child ...

Dravokivich

Ah, didn't see the age. At one, they shouldn't be pushed to respond. But if the parents want both the languages to develop, Romanian shouldn't be just heard occasionally.

is_that_so

Earleybird wrote: »

Would anyone have any advice on the best methods for my 1 year daughter to learn both English and Romanian. I am only fluent in English but have a reasonable level of Romanian built up, while my wife will sometimes speak Romanian when on the phone to her parents, while our daughter listens. She has many words in English but only a few in Romanian, due to the lack or exposure. My concern is that overly introducing a second language will slow down her English development. Any advice?

It depends on the child and the language. Romanian shouldn't pose too much of a problem, with some common roots. If your wife is a native speaker she should do the talking or most of it. At home is probably the handiest. Chatting as you would to a child in English will help her get used to the sounds and the grammar. As for speaking well that may never happen. Plenty of cases of kids understanding their parent's native tongue only to respond in English. I know couples who send their kids to specific classes for children in such families, to boost levels and confidence.

Earleybird

Really appreciate all your responses, thanks so much, I'm completely convinced that we need to put the effort in. Sounds like parental discipline is the key, so hopefully we can both stick with it and our little girl will have a foot in each camp.

MonsieK

Hi Earleybird,
Please ask your wife to speak exclusively Romanian to your daughter. The earlier she starts the better. There's no evidence that speaking two languages will slow down their speech - in fact it will help them develop language skills and help if they want to learn more languages in the future! I have two boys - 2 and 4 years old. I try to speak Polish only two them (daddy speaks only English). It did not slow them down in anyway. It's very hard. I find it hard especially with the older one because he only responds in English. I prefer to speak English but me speaking Polish is the only exposure they'll get to the language. They understand pretty much everything but the older one doesn't want to speak it. He did until he started pre-school and now refuses to speak Polish. I guess he doesn't want to be different to the other children.
They will not speak or understand Romanian unless your wife speaks to them. It's hard, it's frustrating but if we want them to be bilingual we need to put that extra work. I've recently attended a workshop on raising bilingual children given by mothertongues.ie
It was brilliant, very educational. They have stressed how important it is to speak to them your native language. They are like sponges and learn so quick. Have a look at their website, it might be helpful.
Best of luck with it!