Although having children is still many years distant, I and Pricegal have been discussing whether to teach them both Swedish and English from the start. It will make both school and life easier for them. On the other hand, there’s always the risk that they’ll be what I’ve heard called “semi-lingual”, where they learn neither language well. I had a classmate like that. He had a huge Spanish vocabulary but his grammar was worse than mine after I’d spent a single semester in Spanish class, and let’s not address his Swedish.
Should we do this? Do any of you have experiences with bilingual upbringing? How should we do this? Should one of us always speak Swedish and the other always English?
Priceguy, I think that this has been discussed before but never mind.
Mrs. Atarian and I will be raising our offspring (when we eventually have them) to speak both Czech and English. Our plan is that we will each speak only our native language to the child; at least until they reach a certain age and/or have developed fluency in both.
I’ve discussed it with one of my relatives (a very experienced educational psychologist) who seems to think it is a good plan with the following caveat:
It only works if you stick to it rigidly, other wise the child becomes confused and won’t get a proper fluency in one or both languages.
I second Atarian. I speak English with our kids, and Mrs. Furd speaks German with them (her native language.)
So far it has worked pretty well with both of them. They both understand English perfectly. They don’t speak it yet, but mostly because they are surrounded by German speaking folks. Furdette can speak English, but she doesn’t want to.
I’m not even sure about the need to stick to it rigidly. I’ve seen kids who are growing up in all kinds of bilingual mish-mashes, and they all seem to get it sorted out in the end. However, it does seem to make it easier if you find a pattern that works for you and stick with it - easier on the parents, too, not just the kids. The pattern doesn’t have to be that each parent speaks a different language; for instance, you can have a family or home language that’s different from what’s spoken in the community.
In our case, I nearly always speak English to the little flods. Fella bilong missus flodnak speaks both languages to them; I think there’s a pattern but it’s complicated! They speak Norwegian at school and pre-school. I suppose it’s not the most organized pattern, but it works for us. Flodjunior is fluent and literate in both languages; totnak, at 3, still mixes sometimes but not often.
I second atarian in both concept and language selection (I have a Czech wife too).
The problem with this plan is when one parent doesn’t speak the second language fluently, only somewhat. If I were to talk to my daughter in Czech, she would get confused because I slaughter the grammar all the time. Not a good thing. So I will only speak English to my daughter and Wifecat will only speak Czech (except for diminuatives and sute idioms, of course).
We have been told that even though my wife spends the most time with our daughter, she will probably speak English first because that is what Wifecat and I speak to each other in. She’ll understand the Czech words and sentences for “Ball” “Good girl!” etc, but will understand complete sentences in English first because that is how the adults speak…
But, then again, maybe not. Uvidime (We will see!)!
FTR, I am (well, was) a linguist so this is slightly more than anecdotal evidence.
A couple of questions first though. Are you in Sweden or the U.S./Canada/Britain? Is there an off-language community in the country you live in (i.e. if you live in Sweden, will the children have access to English speaking daycare, relatives, church, etc. and vice versa)?
The most effective way to instill both languages is, as you mentioned, for each parent to speak only one language consistently. The child will acquire both, will mix for a little while, but will get it all straightened out by the time they go to school. The advantages of being fluent in two languages and at home in two cultures is impossible to quantify. You should absolutely do this if you have the opportunity.
As the kid gets older, access to the “off-language” outside of the parents becomes more essential. Unless there is a necessity to speak both languages, one will become dominant. If you are living in Sweden, it will be Swedish. The child will retain excellent comprehension skills in English but her production will suffer, especially when she figures out that her English-speaking parent also speaks Swedish. But, the foundation will have been set and she will only need a little practice to retain her fluency.
However, regularly putting the kid in situations (with relatives, on trips, etc.) where she is forced to use English will keep her production skills high.
Anyways, good luck. I am sure it will be a challenge and an adventure.
I am in Sweden. I should point out that I was perhaps a little unclear in the original post. Both I and Pricegal are Swedish. The idea behind teaching our kids English is to make school and life easier for them, not to teach them the language of their fathers or anything like that.
As for the rest of your post, thanks. I’m pretty sure I’m going to persuade Pricegal that we should do this.
If you want anecdotes: here’s mine. Born in France. Spoke (well, babbled, I guess) English at home and French at kindergarden. At 3 years, moved to England. Spoke English. Forgot what French a 3 year old in kindergarden might know. At 6, moved to Finland. Spoke English and Finnish at home, went to French immersion and spoke Finnish and French at school. At 11, moved to Sweden. Spoke Finnish and English (in that order by now) at home, Swedish immersion at school. Forgot most of my French, or confused it with Swedish. At 13, moved to Canada. Still spoke Finnish and English at home. Remembered enough French to skip immersion and go to French-for-foreigners school. Forgot most of my Swedish, or confused it with French. Gradually English became dominant at home.
Now, I’ll hold my English grammar, vocabulary, etc. against anyone’s, can muddle through French at need (but that need is rare), occasionally speak Finnish with all the charming idioms and slang of an elementary school kid, ca. 1985, and I’m sure if I ever found myself in Sweden, I’d be up to speed inside 3-4 days
Wow, thanks. On this board I keep feeling that I make subtle mistakes all the time that scream NON-ENGLISH SPEAKER to the world, but that’s probably because of the high level of the denizens here.
Most of my young cousins are being raised, right now, in bilingual households - English/French being the languages spoken at home. One parent exclusively speaks French, the other English (to the kids.) The fathers had limited understanding of French, but we’ve found they’ve been learning with the kids, and now they’re just as fluent as the children are.
One thing that’s important, however, is finding playgroups, friends, schools, whatever… that use the non-local language for kids to get to use it in other contexts. For example, as I’m looking now at moving to the US and will insist on speaking only French to any offspring of mine (dad can speak English to them), I would be hunting french communities, play groups, consulate-employee-networks, and immersion schools.
Nothing replaces the practical use of a language, even outside the home.
This being said, I think it’s wonderful to see children speak two languages or more, right from the get-go. They have all the ability in the world to do it, at such a young age - give them the opportunity… Once they’ve learned two, learning a third is easy as pie.
I grew up learning both english and spanish at home here in the US. Spoke spanish with my mom, english with my dad. My mom was still mastering english when I was little (I can actually remember correcting her english when I was in 1st-2nd grade). My dad, even after over 20 years of living in our bilingual household, still can’t understand spanish, only a few phrases and limited vocabulary.
Most of the time, my mom is the only one with whom I speak spanish. With my brother and ALL my friends, I speak english. This has resulted obviously in english becoming my dominant language. When I was little, I was able to speak spanish with a good degree of fluency, but nothing great as I did not have a real concept of congugation. I just said whatever felt natural to me. I also could barely read spanish, much less write. Taking spanish classes thoughtout middle/high school greatly helped my spanish proficiency, as noted by my grandmother.
I should say, though, that not having anyone outside of my family to converse with in spanish has been a hinderance to my conversational abilities since at home I can get away with not saying everything and being understood, not always the case when talking to strangers.
I remember reading Borges in spanish lit class how he would confuse and intertwine his english and spanish. My brother and I have had no difficulties whatsoever like this. The only trouble I’ve had, actually, was when I took german classes my first two years of college: occasionally, if I ran into trouble, I would start saying things in spanish. To me, it’s understandable why I would do that: since I was learning a new foreign language, my fallback option was the less dominant of the other two languages I knew, spanish. Usually, this would only happen with short quick phrases.
Take any opportunity you have to teach your kids mulitple languages. It does help to keep them separated: one parent, one language. The fact that you can speak others should not be a problem and your kids should grow up feeling that it’s only natural to speak a certain language with one of you. For me, it feels very unnatural to speak english to my mom, though sometimes I have to make sure my dad understands.
My mom was born in India – her father didn’t want to get sent to Korea, so he was teaching math. She learned Tamil from her ayah (basically a nanny) and English from her parents. She’s long since forgotten the Tamil but we’re sure that if she were around it, she’d pick it up again quickly.
Another advantage is that after learning two languages, you can pick up others much more easily. She picks up accents easily, too; living in Japan over one summer a few years ago, she had picked up only a little Japanese, but she SOUNDED so good people assumed she knew more and would start talking to her in full-tilt Japanese.
I lost the opportunity to be a bi-lingual kid because my dad spoke only English (my mom spoke English and Low German) and didn’t want Low German spoke in the house. I love languages and would have loved to be bi-lingual (which apparently makes learning even more languages easier); I deeply regret that the opportunity to learn two as a child was lost to me. And I never could talk properly to my Grandma, either, who spoke mostly Low German.
