Who else is raising children multilingually in a monolingual environment?

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Re: Who else is raising children multilingually in a monolingual environment?

Postby Ani » Mon Jul 11, 2016 1:40 am

Finny wrote:
A month later, she probably speaks to me in about 80% Spanish spontaneously (i.e., without my repeating things in Spanish or repeating things and asking her to repeat them to me in Spanish), compared to a month ago, when she was probably at around 10%!


That is awesome. I am sure you being home with her in the summer as well is no small contribution. I am becoming increasingly impressed when fathers( or the primary working parent) are able to speak a minority language with their children.

I use the same strategy with my son, but he's only 20 months now and doesn't know the difference between the languages really, or enough vocabulary to really be switching just yet -- but that day is coming quickly :) When he uses assign English word I ask "can you tell me....." in French and have him repeat the French every time and I even pretend not to understand his English sometimes (but I'll suggest the French of what he was asking fairly quickly to avoid frustration). He speaks about 95% French with me and 40% French with his dad. But gosh I am really falling the pressure to get my French to a higher level. I really need to improve over the next year and even the next 6 months will be really important to be able to keep going with this. The pressure is enormous.
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Re: Who else is raising children multilingually in a monolingual environment?

Postby Finny » Mon Jul 11, 2016 6:03 am

PeterMollenburg wrote:I've been doing something similar with my daughter. I am not getting the dramatic results you are Finny (which is excellent btw!), but there has been improvement. While reading to her i will often choose a word a page for her to repeat, the other night i took it further. With a small childrens book of say 2 to 3 lines per page over 10 pages, I had her repeat the whole book to me. I would say 2 to three syllables and she would repeat them. As I don't want her to despise French, I took a very 'optional' approach, telling her she could try and if she didn't like it she could stop at any time. I asked her a couple of times if she wanted to stop. I was quite impressed actually, and ensured plenty of praise followed :)


Your approach sounds great Peter, and thanks : D As with so many other things in life, slow and steady will get us there with our little ones.

gato di ghiaccio wrote:So, for those of you that are raising your children multilingual in a monolingual environment, what kind of reactions do you get from your family members? Is there support from your monolingual family?


We don't see my parents more than a few times a year, but they aren't opposed to it; we see my wife's parents probably every month, and they're supportive, although I think they're still uncomfortable on some level with hearing things they don't understand. That could also be my projection, because I get uncomfortable speaking Spanish in front of them to the kids, but I still keep it up, because I've read that's a key part of teaching kids that the minority language isn't something to be ashamed of.

Ani wrote:That is awesome. I am sure you being home with her in the summer as well is no small contribution. I am becoming increasingly impressed when fathers( or the primary working parent) are able to speak a minority language with their children.

I use the same strategy with my son, but he's only 20 months now and doesn't know the difference between the languages really, or enough vocabulary to really be switching just yet -- but that day is coming quickly :) When he uses assign English word I ask "can you tell me....." in French and have him repeat the French every time and I even pretend not to understand his English sometimes (but I'll suggest the French of what he was asking fairly quickly to avoid frustration). He speaks about 95% French with me and 40% French with his dad. But gosh I am really falling the pressure to get my French to a higher level. I really need to improve over the next year and even the next 6 months will be really important to be able to keep going with this. The pressure is enormous.


Thanks Ani, and I agree that being home is definitely a big part of it. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with how she never seems to stop talking, but on the other hand, it's a good sign that she wants to communicate...

Your situation with your son getting to speak French with both parents is great; everything I've read suggests that the more the minority language is reinforced at home, the better it'll be able to resist being absorbed / wiped out by the community language as the child grows up.

I also hear you on the pressure bit. I don't feel the pressure to improve my Spanish, but I do feel pressure to talk and share the language with my kids, knowing that I'm the source of 99% of it and that for the majority of the year, I spend less time with them. However, I also work to remember that as long as my relationship with them is based in Spanish, they're going to learn the language.
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Re: Who else is raising children multilingually in a monolingual environment?

Postby Ani » Mon Jul 11, 2016 7:03 am

gatto di ghiaccio wrote:So, for those of you that are raising your children multilingual in a monolingual environment, what kind of reactions do you get from your family members? Is there support from your monolingual family?


I live REALLY far away from my family but I spend extended periods of time with them each year. It is harder to maintain the language when they are with us as there is no "down time" from English. I am worried about the next stay but I have a good relationship with my parents so they won't be upset when I put up some boundaries. They are really impressed that the kids are learning French and doubly so that the baby is speaking so much French. My mom has a video of him counting to three in french when he was probably.. 10 months old? Maybe almost a year... so it isn't hardly intelligible. Sounds like "uh du da" basically but she shows it to everyone. The biggest thing I struggle with is her going on an on to my kids about how hard French is and how she could never learn it and I think they pick up bad ideas through that when they may already be having a hard day.

I live in a really close community that is basically monolingual and generally people politely ignore my French to the baby. Many friends have asked questions at some time or another but it isn't much of a big deal. The biggest challenge I have found there is the type of speech that parents do around very small toddlers. "Will you share your toy with her? Look she is coming over to share with you. Oh she offered you a toy can you say thank you?" Because you speak to your child, but the conversation is largely meant for the other parent sitting near you.
Finny wrote:
Thanks Ani, and I agree that being home is definitely a big part of it. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with how she never seems to stop talking, but on the other hand, it's a good sign that she wants to communicate...

Your situation with your son getting to speak French with both parents is great; everything I've read suggests that the more the minority language is reinforced at home, the better it'll be able to resist being absorbed / wiped out by the community language as the child grows up.

I also hear you on the pressure bit. I don't feel the pressure to improve my Spanish, but I do feel pressure to talk and share the language with my kids, knowing that I'm the source of 99% of it and that for the majority of the year, I spend less time with them. However, I also work to remember that as long as my relationship with them is based in Spanish, they're going to learn the language.


Sorry if I was unclear, my husband doesn't speak French. The baby just doesn't have enough words to say what he wants all in English so he says things like "Vite, Papa, vite!" I am trying to coax my husband in to (re) learning French. He had a bunch of years in middle/highschool and spoke enough French 10 years ago to navigate us around France and make most of our transactions in French but doesn't have more than a few phrases now.

It is really great that you feel so comfortable with your Spanish after a relatively short time learning. It isn't really household speech that intimidates me so much but looking at all the nuanced conversations I have with my 8 year old.. talking about all those feelings, right and wrong, decision making.. oh là là. Tell me again how you managed to learn all this? lol
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Re: Who else is raising children multilingually in a monolingual environment?

Postby Finny » Tue Jul 12, 2016 6:48 pm

Ani wrote:
Sorry if I was unclear, my husband doesn't speak French. The baby just doesn't have enough words to say what he wants all in English so he says things like "Vite, Papa, vite!" I am trying to coax my husband in to (re) learning French. He had a bunch of years in middle/highschool and spoke enough French 10 years ago to navigate us around France and make most of our transactions in French but doesn't have more than a few phrases now.

It is really great that you feel so comfortable with your Spanish after a relatively short time learning. It isn't really household speech that intimidates me so much but looking at all the nuanced conversations I have with my 8 year old.. talking about all those feelings, right and wrong, decision making.. oh là là. Tell me again how you managed to learn all this? lol


Ah, no worries--now I get what you're saying. Yes, it would be wonderful if you get him onboard too via recovering his French, although it sounds like you're making great progress already.

Regarding comfort in nuanced conversations...I'd give credit there to lots of listening to radio shows and soap operas. Basically, hearing adults talking to each other about relationships. Reading also always helps for building that background vocabulary, but for me, nothing beats time actually hearing people talk about day to day life issues with emotional stakes.

Also, I still definitely have challenges with my Spanish, in terms of not knowing precisely which preposition to use occasionally, or, most frequently, in lacking the vocabulary for specific discussions. However, I just keep plodding along, and look things up later if I remember to. Just yesterday, we were traveling down the highway talking about dump trucks a lot, and I didn't have a word for the bed / container part behind the truck (not even in English; the closest I could come up with was container, which is what I used in Spanish), so I had to look that up (and a day later, I've already forgotten it). Today, on our way to the library, we came across someone trimming branches with a gas chainsaw-like tool that looked like a sawfish's mouth. I don't know what that tool is in English, never mind in Spanish, so that's something else to look up. There's something like that almost every day. But this occurs no matter how well you know a language, so even though it annoys me, I try not to stress about it.
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Re: Who else is raising children multilingually in a monolingual environment?

Postby Systematiker » Tue Jul 12, 2016 8:50 pm

My wife and I are - we're in a mostly monolingual USA context, she's a native German speaker, and we are doing one parent - one language. She speaks almost exclusively German to our son. Her parents don't speak English (well, her mom does a bit), and mine are monolingual English speakers.

He responds to both languages pretty well, and he only knows a couple of words with any security, but it seems that he's more prone to try out a German word initially. He has probably used ten or so words across both langauges for correct reference, but it's been one-time stuff, so I don't count that.

His first words were fortunately things that are the same in both langauges (I'm papa, not daddy, because Papa; mama is Mama) or similar (sometimes it's cat, sometimes it's catt(s)e, sometimes it's Katze).

It probably helps that we have no issue talking in front of him about whatever while sticking to our native language, so facility on the part of both parents helps.

We plan on homeschooling, and introducing other languages as well - I've read that the accessibility of native media is really important, so I'm glad we live in an age where streaming is a thing, as well as having the ability to just order stuff from Germany. I've read various studies about the exposure needed, etc., and one of the major factors seems to be motivation, so we just have to make sure he has stuff he finds fun in both langauges as he gets older.

I've considered switching my interactions with him to, say, Spanish when he's older and I'm more comfortable in it, but my wife doesn't think that's a great idea. I think I get Latin as a first foreign language in exchange for not doing it, so it's a good trade (she'll be doing most of the homeschooling). :lol:
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Re: Who else is raising children multilingually in a monolingual environment?

Postby Elexi » Wed Jul 13, 2016 12:01 am

We live in a part of London where there are (for the time being at least) a good many German speakers. My wife speaks exclusively German to our son and I speak English. He has been bilingual from early on and at 7 can seamlessly slip between languages.

We have always split books as well as video and audio entertainment down the middle - so he gets as much exposure to German as well as English media.

For some reason he finds reading German harder than reading English - he will read English books for hours, but finds German books aimed at his age group very tiring. He used to go to a German play group, but that went southwards after age 5-6 as most of the children his age began to refuse to speak German. He also went to the local German Saturday school which is aimed at children between 6 and 10 but found it too easy and complained that the children all spoke English anyway.

I would say the key has been ensuring absolute separation of the languages between parents and providing lots of other voices (via family, friends and media) in the non-dominant language.
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Re: Who else is raising children multilingually in a monolingual environment?

Postby galaxyrocker » Wed Jul 13, 2016 4:26 am

I was just reading something about various polyglots and their "eureka" moment when it came to language learning, and saw that one of the people interviewed is going to be presenting a talk titled Pampers to Polyglot: Tetsu’s way to raise multilingual children at the North American Polyglot Symposium next weekend. I'm not sure if they put videos online, but it could provide some interesting information if anyone's going or if video is accessible.
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Re: Who else is raising children multilingually in a monolingual environment?

Postby Finny » Wed Jul 20, 2016 4:55 pm

galaxyrocker wrote:I was just reading something about various polyglots and their "eureka" moment when it came to language learning, and saw that one of the people interviewed is going to be presenting a talk titled Pampers to Polyglot: Tetsu’s way to raise multilingual children at the North American Polyglot Symposium next weekend. I'm not sure if they put videos online, but it could provide some interesting information if anyone's going or if video is accessible.


This is an earlier podcast with Tetsu...going to give it a listen: http://actualfluency.com/afp-s3e15-tets ... -children/
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Re: Who else is raising children multilingually in a monolingual environment?

Postby Finny » Thu Dec 01, 2016 3:41 am

(deleted due to double post)
Last edited by Finny on Thu Dec 01, 2016 4:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Who else is raising children multilingually in a monolingual environment?

Postby outcast » Thu Dec 01, 2016 4:13 am

I see the vast majority if not all the cases here are of "one parent speaks only X, the other only Y" to the child, so that he or she has to use the assigned language for communication.

I wonder if there has ever been a study on how effective different types of multilingual raising are. The above is one scenario. And probably the most typical since usually one parent has a mother tongue the other parent has another and thus by default the child will be encouraged to use the appropriate one for each parent.

But what about if both parents are bilingual, or have an excellent command of a shared 2nd language? In the USA the typical example would be both parents very strong in English and Spanish. What would happen if a language is "scheduled" instead of assigned to a parent? That is "mondays Spanish", "tuesdays English"... or a week Spanish, a week English, with both parents. Would the results or progress be different than in the one parent/one language scenario? This set-up would allow a 3rd language to be rotated in.
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