“You should raise your child bilingually”, my heavily pregnant French friend suggested to me a few week’s ago as she adjusted position on a remarkably soft sofa.
She described her own plans to bring up a bilingual baby. “I want my child to grow up knowing about my culture and my home language”, she told me. “And it doesn’t involve too much hard work. Whenever I speak to my little girl, it will be in my native French and Daddy will talk to her in English.” She slid further into the yawning gap between the cushions and I resisted the temptation to haul her out.
The thought of teaching my firstborn a second language still seemed like a lot of hard work. “You only need to speak to your baby in French for a few hours each week at home”, she added. “Before you know it, the little he or she will be well on the road to fluency in two languages and will be set up for a great future career.”
Really? I thought. Could I honestly grow my child into a highly sought-after globetrotting professional from this early age? Did I even want to?
On reflection, it wasn’t such a bad idea.
My child would be fluent in two languages, they’d be well ahead of the development curve from an early age, and at the front of the queue when job hunting later on in life. In a global economy continuing to falter, having that second language on their CV could be handy. I’d need to start early, pull together a game plan, and set clear goals on what I wanted ‘Junior’ to achieve.
My own bilingual journey
For me, the road to bilingualism and speaking a second language ground to a halt the moment I moved to Australia.
I learned French during my school years in England, went on exchanges to France as a teenager, and spoke the language fluently while working for the Federal Government in Canada during my late twenties. Having a second language under my belt helped me on my merry way up the career ladder and then I came to the land down under. There wasn’t much need to speak a second language so I simply stopped and I’ve regretted it ever since, perceiving a grinding halt to my job prospects and a long life of wishful thinking ahead.
In an attempt to retrieve the lost language that in some small part defined me as a younger man, I recently started private tuition with my French friend and the years of learned vocabulary and grammar have slowly winged their way back to me.
Now my wife is about to have our first child.
Assuming all goes to plan, we’ll be welcoming our baby boy or girl into the world in three week’s time and I’m quickly warming to the idea of raising our child in two languages. I’m keen to buy French kid’s books with colourful characters and charming turns of phrase, excited to tune in to an array of foreign language stations on the radio and television, and yearning to whisk our newborn off to France le plus tôt possible.
The pros and cons
Raising a bilingual baby is a big effort when there’s potentially not a lot of point here. We live in a country where only English is generally spoken and we’re located far from our neighbours where foreign languages are predominant so should I give up before I’ve started? And let’s not forget we’re talking about a baby here, not an older child. Isn’t it better to let it have its time as a newborn and leave it to develop in peace?
The leading books on raising bilingual children describe huge advantages to bilingualism such as providing a better understanding of other countries and cultures, significantly improving brain development at an early age, and ensuring an ability to compete and succeed in the job market in an ever-shrinking world.
Yet for every person who supports the idea of their child being fluent in two or more languages, there is another that says it’s not a good thing to do.
Teaching your child to learn two ways of saying every word will confuse them and may even cause language learning delays. They’ll have to be a superstar to learn not one but two quite different languages and it’s a lot of work to succeed in this endeavour, particularly if neither of you are native foreign language speakers. And all this to achieve something that may not even be useful in a career here in Australia.
My gut feeling is that many of these negativities are myths.
A hopeful future
Children are capable of almost anything at a young age so why not put in the hard yards early on with the prospect of a brighter future for them, however distant or unnecessary it might currently seem.
Imagine listening to your developing child parle a little francais with ses amies over Skype, feeling supremely confident that this tiny person has an opportunity-laden life ahead of them because you put in the homework early on and set them on their way. Your teeny tiny ankle biter may develop greater intelligence as a result of your combined early efforts – and their job prospects and career aspirations should flourish
For me, to bring up a bilingual baby is to prepare my newborn for an uncertain global future while giving them every available tool for increased confidence and a deeper awareness of other cultures. An added bonus is that I get to learn something along the way.
And what could be better than that.
What do you think? Is there any point in raising a bilingual baby or child? Have you tried to? Is it all about future career prospects?
Interesting. We plan to raise our future children to be bilingual, despite living in Australia, as hubby is German and all of his family live in Germany. They will be entitled to German citizenship if they want it, so we want them to have that as an option and make sure they are comfortable using the language. Unfortunately, I am not fluent in German, so I’ve been working on improving my skills so that when the time comes, I can speak to our children in German. I don’t think living in a country where only one language is spoken predominantly (isn’t that the case in most countries?) is a good excuse not to be bilingual, as people travel more than they ever did in the past and knowing other languages can always open doors for you. At the very least, there is no harm in it. So I muddle through the my German lessons and I hope some day my future children will appreciate it.
I’m sure they will come to appreciate it, particularly when they develop that wanderlust as they grow older, which inevitably they’ll do. As you say, it’s about options and keeping doors open for them. If you have an excuse to teach them, then why not make the effort.
I take your point about living in a one-language country – I was coming at it as someone who lived and worked in Europe where different languages were thrust in your face on a regular basis. Here it’s less so but that shouldn’t serve as an excuse. We must touch base in a few year’s time and see who has had more success in teaching the little one(s). It could be a long but enjoyable road ahead 🙂
Russell, my advice would be DEFINITELY speak French with your baby, and stick at it even if others around you only speak English. My husband is a Finnish speaker, and my first daughter was born in Japan and spoke fluent Japanese when we left (when she was 4 and a half). I have also read a lot about bringing up children bilingually, and I’m inclined to disregard the nay-sayers. My own experience is that children have an infinite capacity to learn, especially when it comes to language, and I honestly don’t think my children’s speech was delayed because they were being exposed to other languages. These days my older daughter (who is 7) speaks correct and idiomatic English despite having never lived in an English-speaking country; she also speaks fluent Finnish; and although she has largely forgotten her Japanese, I believe that having learned the language once gave her benefits beyond just the actual language itself – the experience of dealing with the patterns and structures of a different language and linguistic concepts, and the resulting benefits in terms of brain development. If you haven’t already read Raising a Bilingual Child by Barbara Zurer Pearson, I would highly recommend it. She talks about all the brain-development-related benefits that bilingualism brings. GOOD LUCK!
I think it’s a terrific idea, Russell! Learning French together, at whatever pace you both choose, will be a special bond that you two share. As for the ‘it’s too confusing’ crowd, you’re right to be skeptical. I did an article for the Telegraph on a recent study showing the overwhelming benefits of bilingualism (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/expateducation/9267252/Can-being-bilingual-make-you-smarter.html) and the Guardian had a good article on another study. It’s pretty simple: more = better, some > none for a whole host of reasons. EVEN if they don’t get a chance to speak it on a regular basis or use it in daily life. Isn’t it nice knowing that your little one will grow up aware of the bigger world out there? C’est magnifique!
Oh my goodness!! You’re going to be a daddy soon! I didn’t realise! Congrats in advance 🙂 And yes, I completely agree with your French friend about the dual language. Any of my friends who have done that have had great success–and yes, every one of those kids are in the top sets in their school so I think it does help with intellectual development. The only negative they have all found (and it’s not a true negative) is that their kids were slower to speak either language fluently, but whats a bit of delay when they have a lifetime of benefit? Good luck with it!
It’s a terrific idea. I know an Anglo-Spanish couple in London. Their little boy was taught to speak Spanish at home even though he spoke only English at school. He’s now fluent in both. We Brits are dreadful at learning foreign tongues (me included) which really holds us back despite the fact that English is so widely spoken.
Do it! It isn’t easy, not at all. We’ve just started the journey, and our 2.5 year old is speaking only Latvian for now. He understands a lot of French (from when we lived in France) but hadn’t started speaking yet (a “side-effect” if you will of being surrounded by three languages), and we know the English will come. The thing is, if a language isn’t being used, it is slowly lost. I have many friends that spoke Latvian growing up, only to marry and American/Canadian, and although they speak ONLY Latvian to their kids, the kids speak ONLY English… they realize that by communicating in English everyone understands them. It takes dedicated effort, I believe more than just a few hours a week… But this is why despite him only speaking Latvian at this point I am more worried about the Latvian than the English. Very interesting post, and I wish you luck in the coming weeks, with all your big decisions!
Faites le! If for no other reasons than to make sure all those years toiling for the Feds don’t go to waste.
I think it’s a great idea! It is so much easier to learn languages when you are a little child than when an adult. Your baby will pick it up quickly! Along with learning a musical instrument, it helps the brain grow new nerve endings.
It’s hard to imagine many negatives from having a bilingual family – I have watched friends do it, one one of them an American who has similar french language experience to you – and she just had fun with it, She sang them french songs, invited their friends (of which my child was one) to little french classes, read them french stories and inserted french words into every day conversation. I do think though ( and this is almost impossible with your first child, but hey), go easy on yourself and the child, relax, and have fun! I wouldn’t be doing it with their future education or employment prospects in mind, or you’ll freak yourself out 🙂 Only 3 weeks to go! wow, your wife must be well and truly over it by now…
Exactement! And toiling is the word. They milked me for every single loonie and toonie 😉 Feel free to send French books, bilingual Canadian products, and other language learning aids my way, Maria…
Hi Russell, I contemplated doing this with our children, until I had them! If you are not a native speaker then it’s really, really hard to do unless you’re living in the country of the 2nd language you want them to speak + if you are not a native fluent speaker they’re unlikely to be truly fluent unless they are attending school in French – is there a lycee in Sydney? I might have done it if we’d’ve been living in London, but as it is we’re in Yorkshire and there’s no prospect of them attending French schools or even having a French lesson in primary school here. When our first was born we were in New Zealand and I certainly wouldn’t have contemplated it there since they’d never have encountered French anywhere other than at home where I’d’ve been the only person talking to them in French and would’ve been unnaturally speaking it when it’s not my native tongue. (an hour or two a week is very unlikely to cut it, you’ll have to speak to your child in French and nothing else if you want him/her to be bilingual)
I’ve seen two British friends raise their daughters bilingually in France and it worked (though listening to Kevin speaking really bad French (and nothing else) to the kids was really strange), and I’ve also seen a couple of friends have real problems with it too – one British friend married to a Frenchman whose daughter was severely dyslexic and another friend married to an Englishman who lived in Corfu and sent their two kids to Greek schools – both of the kids have had huge problems and have turned out to be dyslexic – they have returned to the UK to try help the kids learn to read (aged 9 and 6). Clearly in Corfu you’re looking at a very different language though.
The other thing is that should we decide to go an live in France (possible) then the kids will pick up French in about two terms and be more fluent than me and IMO that’s a much better way to get them speaking French than to force something a bit bizarre in the home. It took me about 6 months to be speaking French fluently having done o’level….. I learnt by immersion and from the TV.
Thanks Marcia. I didn’t know that about the brain but that’s another positive. Thanks.
We Brits are so very bad at this, Jack. We’re too reliant (or lazy?) on the fact that English is so widely spoken, then it holds us back. I plan to change all that in the Ward household (he says far too confidently)…
Hey Sara – I think you hit on something I missed in the post above: the ‘having fun with it’ part. I’m with you that if it’s not fun for the two of you, what’s the point? I love the idea of French classes for the little ones too. Yes, November 5th is her (revised) due date so my wife is hanging on in there but reaching that point where she’s ready for D(elivery)-Day. And we sat down to watch TV last night and guess what flashed up? One Born Every Minute and a forceps delivery on a 10lb10oz baby… nice 😉
Lol. Where have you been, Michelle?! Yes, on November 5th! Thanks for the advance congrats. I’ll be sure to provide an update on this site when the time comes 🙂
I’ve read in several books on bilingualism that children can be slower to speak either language fluently but all seem to agree that it’s not an indication of slower brain development, simply that they’re doing double the work so it might take time or they might mix words up but ultimately they’ll figure it all out. I think it’s a small risk worth taking.
It is definitely magnifique and good to know that even if I don’t succeed with the full-blown fluency, they might still benefit from the time I do put in, plus both I and my better half get to improve our own skills along the way. How have your efforts at learning Dutch in your own family worked out? Any roadblocks or issues?
Merci beaucoup for the link to your article – I’d forgotten about it and it resonates well with my thoughts on this planned pursuit. Who said that eating your greens at the dinner table was the one true path to developing a bigger brain? It seems like learning another language can be just as useful!…
So you think that I need to spend more than a few hours each week doing this and, in time, also encourage our little one to speak the language him or herself rather than just listen to me speaking it? It makes sense but is useful to know how it would work in practice. How does it work for you – reading books, playing games with them? Any tips on the kinds of things I should do?
I work with colleagues who are originally from countries outside Australia and who struggle to retain their own language because they speak English all the time so I can imagine how easy it would be for the child to lose it.
The capacity of children to learn just amazes me, especially when I read your comment about your daughter. My own experience of language learning when I was younger was the same as for your daughter – it taught me the patterns and structures that applied to most foreign languages. At one point, I was speaking French, Italian, German and English – and I loved it. But, as a grew older, I found a language would drop away, then another, and so on. One of the key things is to ‘live’ in that country so herein lies the difficulty of life in Australia – trying to teach my child French when we don’t live in or near France. It will be tough but not impossible.
I should have added that, yes, I’m reading the book you mention. It was recommended to me by my French friend 🙂 Thanks!
Thanks for your comments, Fiona. Really interesting stuff. One thing I will miss from our time in Canada is the number and popularity of French immersion schools across the countries. If we had stayed, we would have put any and all of our children into these schools as they seem the perfect way to achieve bilingualism (and with a purpose, living in a bilingual country). Here, there are several schools but you have to weigh up the benefits when living in a country far from Europe. It’s something to think about but I agree that nothing beats actually living in the country where that language is spoken. I think this will very much be a work-in-progress 🙂
We speak only Latvian at home, so Lauris doesn’t have any doubts about which language to use to communicate with us. My husband’s sister struggles, her husband doesn’t speak Latvian, so her three kids tend to speak English to one another. I think the only reason they speak as well as they do is that they attend summer immersion programs, and often visit the grandparents, where English isn’t spoken. I’ve heard of households that have language rooms- when in a certain room, only a particular language is spoken. Similar tactics, language time. It’s definitely going to take more than a few hours a week, but I’m sorry I can’t give you better advice – Latvian is the language spoken in our home and we are just trusting he’ll pick up English somewhere, eventually.
Thanks, Liene. That’s still good advice. English will always be the default language in our household. The question is whether I have the time and patience to really drive the French aspect. At this point, I do. Ask me again in five years, no, five months and I’ll see where I’ve got to 🙂
Russell, in my view, the important thing is not where you live, but rather whether you can maintain the necessary language influence – one or more people (parent/teacher/someone else) who will speak a particular language with your child on a frequent basis. Despite having lived her whole life in Japan and Finland, my older daughter still learned English because I always spoke it with her. However, she lost her Japanese because once we left Japan, there was no longer someone around to be a Japanese-speaking presence with her, since although my husband and I both speak Japanese, we already had roles speaking other languages to her…
Very interesting article and comments. Having dreamt of it my
whole life, I totally agree with bilingualism at an early age. One of the occupations that is missing from the graph is interpreter. One can only become an interpreter
if bilingual, or extremely intelligent!
Being a French translator and having
permanently moved to Sydney 5 years ago, I am asking myself the question of
bilingualism for my future children. One consideration that I have though is
how to teach your children the proper way of speaking a language, whether it is
your mother tongue or a language that you can speak? My partner and I are both
French so French will be the predominant language spoken at home, but how do
one go about teaching kids our own language. They will surely ask why do we say
this or that, and we sometimes cannot find a better answer than “because it’s
the way it is”. Having taught English to French kids, I find it easier to
explain English than French! I think that it’s really hard to know that you won’t be teaching your kids something wrong, because speaking a language is not just about speaking,
it’s also writing without spelling mistakes, understanding the grammar, learning
to conjugate verbs, and so on.
I guess if there was an answer to all these questions we would all be bilingual. In the meantime, we can only share our
experiences and learn from each other so thanks for the interesting insight.
Thanks, Katriina. So I guess there’s hope for me and mine yet, as long as I keep up the French conversation and influence around the little him or her, regardless of where we are in the world? Sounds like the issue will be how much/how often I speak but I’m still keen…
Hi Sarah and thanks for sharing your views. Really appreciate it.
Having studied with my French friend/tutor over the past few weeks, I understand where you’re coming from in that there’s so many nuances and other things to consider when teaching and learning a language. I find French a tough language because of the verb conjugation which isn’t as complex with English. It’s been a case of practice, remember, practice some more, memorise further… etc., etc. You’re right though. If there was an easy answer, we’d all be bilingual.
If you know of any decent French language resources, please feel free to share with me here 🙂
Hi Russell! I loved this post, especially the Infographic (what can I say I’m a sucker for Infographics!) I’ve found speaking French to be an asset to my job. And my husband and I plan on moving back to France for a few years when our future children are school age, so they become fluent.
I didn’t realise you spoke French! Tres bien!
Erin x
http://www.quintessentially-english.blogspot.com
And there are always cool blogs to keep up with that help with the languages/culture sharing. One I’ve recently started following has a monthly “culture swap” – you might find it interesting. (http://kidworldcitizen.org/2012/10/10/october-culture-swap-is-live/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=october-culture-swap-is-live) Oh, and Tallulah at http://bilingualbabes.blogspot.com/ tackles many of the main issues of raising bilingual kids.
Hi Russell – this topic is dear to my heart as I have four bilingual children. Though it’s been easier for me because I grew up German and have always lived in an English speaking country with my kids. So for them to learn English hasn’t been a problem. The problem is more to insist that they speak German at home, because English (especially in the U.S.) is such a dominant language. I actually wrote an article about bilingualism for Kansas City Parent Magazine some time back and think it has some good points in it should you consider a second language for your baby (and yes, the earlier you start the better), here is the link if you care to read it: http://www.kcparent.com/June-2009/Raising-Bilingual-Children/
Hi Russell, I came to your site via the Britmums Expat round-up, so firstly good luck with your forthcoming arrival.
I’m British and married to a Dutchman; we have 2 boys and are currently living in Moscow. Ironically, we had to move to Russia for our boys to start speaking Dutch, despite the fact that my husband has only ever spoken to the children in that language from birth. Why? Because we lived in the UK, and and bearing in mind that he spends more time away from the boys than I do, they heard and were immersed in far more English than Dutch (And yes, they DID speak later than their peers – it wasn’t until they reached around 3 years old that they really started motoring. Don’t worry though – now they have excellent vocabularies and rarely shut up…). Until we moved here they had an ok ‘passive’ vocabulary, and could understand much of what was said to them in Dutch, but they were not able to access enough words to have a decent ‘active’ vocabulary. They also knew that my husband spoke English because that is the language in which he and I communicate with each other. Consequently, although he always speaks to them in Dutch, until recently they would always answer in English – and the same with friends and family from the Netherlands who visited us.
What changed all that was arriving in Moscow and finding that there was a Dutch ‘mother tongue’ program at the international school our sons go to here. They now attend Dutch school one afternoon a week (and for a morning every 3 weekends or so), and after two years we’re finally making headway with Dutch. You might ask why I don’t speak Dutch to the children too, to counterbalance all the English (and now Russian – which they also learn in school) that they hear. There is a good reason for that; whilst I understand it, my own spoken Dutch is awful. My husband is very concerned that the Dutch the children learn is correct, and I am equally concerned that the English they learn is, too.
So, good luck with raising your bilingual child; I think it’s a great goal to have, which is why we’ve persevered with it, but it’s not necessarily as simple as we hoped or thought when we set out on this road!
Hey Erin, thanks. I thought the infographic was kind of neat too. Great idea re. you and yours moving with future kids to France and a big advantage if you happen to currently live next door to the country. Yes, I am a rusty French speaker but trying my best to get it back. Maybe we should only converse in French from now (well, I’ll speak in a kind of franglais perhaps!).
Thanks for these, Liene. I’ll have a read of them today. Always appreciate a good recommendation!
Hey Sine – four bilingual children? Wow… and impressive! Thanks for sharing the article – will have a read of it right now. Will you keep trying to teach them German through to adulthood or let them find their own way as they get older? Unless you return to Germany, I imagine that would be hard to maintain but you’ve succeeded so far by the sounds of it 🙂
Btw, great article, Sine. Particularly when you cover the immersion school aspect. That, and starting early at home, seems key to all of this.
Thanks, Potty Mummy, and welcome to the blog. Hope you enjoy reading some of the posts 🙂 And thanks for sharing your experiences in teaching your children more than one language. It sounds like you’re well on the way to achieving bilingualism although, as you say, not without a lot of hard work.
A common theme cropping up in the conversations here seems to be that the native speakers want (and rightly so) their children the learn the language ‘correctly’ rather than making it up as they go. The immersion schools sound like they fix that to a large degree. I wonder if you may end up with trilingual children, given your current Moscow home? 😉
Lots can change in life and our future location is by no means guaranteed so I intend to set out with the bilingual goal and, like you, might find myself in a situation where the ability for our future kids to speak both French and English is improved, although I can still persevere from early on here in Australia. I just need to get my own French language ability up to scratch first!
Hi Russell … I’m really excited to hear about your plans! As a non-native french speaking parent, I have been in your shoes, weighing up the pros and cons..and I just wanted to stop by and say that ‘where there’s a will, there’s a way’. It’s not always easy, but it certainly beats not taking the plunge.
I wrote a really long comment on her for you earlier today and lost it all right at the last minute 🙁 so, I have just come back to introduce myself and to say good luck, I shall be following your adventure. I have been blogging about our family’s bilingual adventure since we started out and have a fair few resources and tips/ideas that could be useful for you and your family. Also, please feel free to get in touch via email if you have any questions you think I could help with. I know that back in the beginning, the help and advice I received from other non-native parents really helped get me going.
Good luck
http://www.non-nativebilingualadventure.blogspot.co.uk
Email [email protected]
Hi Bonne Maman! Thank you so much for stopping by and for the words of encouragement. Lovely to meet you 🙂 I’m realising now how much of an effort I need to make (and an idea of the support I will also need to seek out) so it’s great to have you nearby so-to-speak. I will certainly be in touch and, yes, resources and tips and ideas that I can use as I start out would be great. I have some books and a few websites bookmarked but no real plan as yet. Anything you think might prove useful early on would be ideal. Thanks again!
We spent five years in Australia and my Italian husband didn’t speak a word of Italian to our kids Russell. It took moving to Italy for them to become bilingual. We lived there for six years between 2006 and 2012 and they had a handful of words when we arrived. They were thrown in at the deep end and managed to gain a second language. Who knows what the future holds. My children may sit Italian for their GCSEs now, and they have to start their secondary school with both Spanish and French (perhaps they will show a flair for foreign languages!). Only time will tell.
It sounds like they have a definite flair, Cathy. I take it you’re living in the UK now? At the very least, you’ve given them options and that’s one of the most important things in my mind. Open doors that they can choose to go through if they like. Lovely story. Thanks 🙂
C’est une bonne idea!
Erin x
D’accord!
Hi,
It’s a great, romantic idea, and somehow seems to be very much dreamed of by British people. I am from The Netherlands, as is my husband. We live in the UK, and speak Dutch at home. For us it’s easy, both of us are Dutch, so it would just be unnatural to speak another language at home. Our son has grown up speaking English, as we had a British nanny from the start. He is 7 now and speaks (and reads) both languages fluently.
However, when he turned 6 he stopped speaking Dutch at home to me, as he felt it took him too much effort. I then made a rule: only Dutch to mummy. And had to enforce it (which took quite a lot of emotional effort), but it did work. He is back to fluent Dutch again.
I find it a hugely interesting topic, the 2 languages. I have seen him master both, and it seems to have given him a great love and feel for languages, and certainly hasn’t slowed his development down. I guess we are lucky. I have also seen many expat-children struggle, especially dyslexic ones for instance.
A family friend (native english speaker) speaks only French to his children. He is a french teacher, and they have a house in France where they live 2 months each summer. He also sends his children to French school every Saturday morning. His wife speaks some French only. It worked, his children do speak French fluently. But it certainly is a huge effort that way. And you have to really know why you are doing it, have a strong motivation (e.g. you want to go and live in France at some stage, or you are really keen to impart French nursery rhymes and stories), otherwise there’s no point even starting.
After all, you can always learn a language later. I am a native Dutch speaker, only started learning English at the age of 12, in high school. I am not an exceptional talented languages-person, but I do now speak English fluently, write research papers in English and work in English.
I think it’s a great idea, but you do have to be very committed. A friend of mine, English speaker, spoke only in Spanish to her baby until she was 18 months old. Then she had another baby, and with two on the go, she found she just couldn’t keep it up. She’s just hoping that there’ll be some residual memory for the older one, and that it wasn’t a wasted effort.
My three children are bilingual, speaking English and French. I have it easier than you, however, as my husband is French. Once I discovered research that suggested that a baby has heard every sound of their native language by four months old, and then begins to tune out sounds from other languages, I pushed for him to speak only French to our first-born. After that, it was natural for him to speak French to the children and English with me.
In my experience over the past 7-years, there is no language delay. In fact, my daughters were well ahead of the language curve by the time they were 18-months, with HUGE vocabularies. My son took a little longer, but by 2 1/2 he was speaking clear, full sentences with quite a good grasp on the English language. He doesn’t speak French very often, but he understands every word.
My daughters do speak it well, with massive improvements anytime French relatives come to visit. They understand 99% (like any child) and they usually respond back in English to my husband, but the key is that they understand French and can speak it when they want to (I’m ready to get them into language classes to get them reading and writing French).
Regardless of whether it make sense for your current place in life (who knows where you may be living 10 years from now), starting your child off with a second language is a gift you are giving to him or her. Every new experience, sound and sensation provokes new neural pathways to form in a child’s brain… at least until they near their third birthday. The more neural connections, the more open their brains are to new learning and the more those experiences are repeated, the stronger the pathways become. So, if you start speaking French to your baby, but decide after six months it just isn’t worth it anymore, the neural pathways that had been formed will die off and be lost.
I’ll stop now!! I could go on forever because as a mother of three bilingual kids I see the benefit first-hand. As a former Kindermusik educator, I’ve studied the benefits that new and repeated experiences in language (even sign language), movement, music, etc. have on early brain development.
In a nutshell (too late, I know!), go for it!
I bet. I think the hard work is just about to begin. One thing we’re considering as an alternative to day care is to get an au pair on board. I’m thinking that if she’s French, this might help us no end in teaching our little one. What do you think?
Thanks for your comment, Inge. The more I hear from people like yourself with real-life experience in learning (and teaching your children) second languages, the more fascinating the subject becomes. As I mentioned in a previous comment, I’d like to employ a French nanny to give that extra impetus to the language training but you’re absolutely right that there has to be a driving motivation for this otherwise a) what’s the point, and b) we won’t stick with it in the long run. It’s a very romantic idea right now but, the more I learn about the process and the benefits, the keener I become to give this a proper try.
And I’d agree that speaking a second language is very much a dream of most Brits, possibly because we are typically not great at it and look to some of our European neighbours with admiration and a little jealously at their own diverse language skills. I remember sitting on the train home from London when I was younger and a businesswoman in her late twenties sat opposite me talking on her mobile phone to work colleagues. In one call, she spoke fluent French to her counterparts in Paris before reverting to well-spoken, clipped English on a subsequent call. I was in awe of her language skills and ability to switch between the two with relative ease. At that point, I knew what I wanted to do but still had a very long way to go!
How could I not start this journey towards baby bilingualism after such a great and positive comment?! 😉 Thanks so much.
Increased (and early) brain development… check. Ability to converse with different nationalities… check. Will be interesting to see how your daughters get on with the language classes in due course although it sounds as if they’ll be up and running with little or no problems. You’ve certainly given them a great base to work from and I agree that, regardless of where we think we may end up, who knows what the future will bring and we’d be kicking ourselves if we didn’t at least try… Thanks again 🙂
As a bilingual person who got given a lot of lessons since when I was very little, I have to say its best to put kids through these things when they are little. Everything to learn is a struggle in the beginning when you are not good. You start to enjoy it when you are good and find it challenging…be it sports, music, languages, any sorts of extra skills.
I did not enjoy a lot of things my mom wanted me to learn in the beginning… I could have quieted but she didn’t let me… Now I am very thankful for what she has done to me. Now I can speak English, Thai, and a bit of German…I can play the piano, guitar, drums, and a few other Thai instruments. These things don’t just become useful on the CV. These things develop your brains… The more you learn, the more your brain gets developed…. The brain grows and develops at its optimised level in the first 5-8 years or life. I learned that in Developmental psychology. Your kid will be very thankful for it. Just give him/her as many lessons as possible 🙂
Hi Mo, agree with you there. Even my own experience of learning languages at a young age was much easier than it is to go back now and re-learn everything. It seemed much more natural in those early years. I plan to start the lessons as soon as possible and as often as possible. Thanks for your comment 🙂
Hello and thank you for an interesting post! I found your blog through Blog Expat today. I’m also an expat living in Sydney, I’m French and have been here for just over 3 years! My fiance is Australian and I’m planning on raising our children bilingual. The challenge is that my partner doesn’t speak French fluently and I’m worried he will get frustrated if the kids and I speak French and he can’t understand….
Hi Cyndie – good to meet you! I hope your partner doesn’t get too frustrated because it’s such a great idea but but it might be a good way to get him involved in improving his French too. My wife is in the same situation in that she doesn’t speak much French at all. I think she’s going to use the process as a means of getting herself up to speed too. Plus she plans to go to night school and sign up for some basic classes so at least she doesn’t feel too left out. Maybe you need to ensure that some English is spoken by you around the kids but it will be a (good) challenge for sure!
Thank you for the lovely comment, Sonia. I very much enjoyed learning about your family and your (and their) efforts in bilingualism. I’ve chosen to reply in English so my readers may get a sense of your comment in which you describe your four very different children and varying attempts at becoming proficient in English and French, given you now live in California yet you and your husband are both French natives. It seems that language delay hasn’t been a major issue but is apparent early on. I was most interested in your husband’s son who is American born and had to learn French – and you succeeded! It sounds to me that you simply mix both languages into their lives – from TV to books and music – and this immersion has helped them to where they are today. So interesting to learn about. And you’re right in that you’ve given them the ability to study, travel or work wherever they please. It really is a heartwarming story as I hopefully begin on my own journey in this. Thank you again.