Bilingual kids

Meags wrote:

I am english and DH is french. We are expecting our first LO.
We have been told I must only speak english to the baby and he should only speak french and then the child will be fluent in both.

Meags, you are 100% right. This is a very true principle. The trick that the language you speak with your child must be your 1st language. A child can learn any number of languages before the age of 5 years old. My Kids Can speak 3 Languages but are not fluent in the 3rd as yet. I am english, Hubby is Afrikaans and at School they have a Xhosa lady there that only speaks to them in Xhosa. Although our home language is actually Afrikaans I only speak English to my Kids and my Husband only speaks afrikaans to them. My Kids speak to us in our respective languages. My Daughter is 100% fluent in both Eng & Afrikaans and does not mix the two language, she is only 435yrs old and has a very wide vocabulary, always has had from about 18months.

So keep to the principle you mentioned previously and you will see your LO with have no language issues.

Meags, the company pays for any school. You don't have to send them to the french one and quite often there aren't any french schools around.
I sent our little ones to french school because with speaking english with me, she is fluent and french not good at all. Fluent in both now and hoping next year she'll be in the bilingual stream at school for 1 day eng then 1 day french.

Meags I actually blogged about this recently

blog.earthbabies.co.za/two-language-hous...child-to-speak-both/

With baby spending more time with you in the beginning its primary language will be English and the French will catch up later. (This could change once they are in school though but Moms talk alot more than dads anyway lol so they wont lose the english as long as you stick to speaking to them in English.

My choice of Afrikaans schooling was that in SA kids get to hear alot of English in terms of tv as it is (you will find most Afrikaans kids can speak or at least understand english where the reverse does not apply). And of course I am at home with them in the afternoons so they get enough English exposure.

My only frustration with the whole process was that when we were with family the Afrikaans family would speak English to them and the English would speak Afrikaans ... the whole point of the exercise was so that they could communicate with family in their own language. But now that they are older we no longer have to do the moaning at family anymore Kara does it for us lol.

According to Speech and Language development literature, it is better to introduce only one language before 2 years.
Research has shown that children who have been exposed to 2 or more languages before 2 years, take longer to talk or communicate verbally, although they may comprehend or understand in both languages.

This being said, there are many children who grow up bilingually and I know a lot of parents who's children are raised bilingually - and they have no problem what so ever with the two languages, they are talking and comminicating in both languages perfectly!

I think as parents who want to raise their children bilingually we should know what might happen, or what the norm is, but at the end it is still the parents desicion!

I am Afrikaans and my husband is English and we are raising our twins bilingual. I speak to them mostly in English as I don't mind it but my family speak to them in Afrikaans, we watch Afrikaans tv at times and I speak Afrikaans to my family so they are surrounded by both languages. I have heard that the first 3 years are hard on them as they get confused between the 2 languages but in the long term it's very beneficial for a child to be bilingual. I am fully bilingual with a tiny bit of French and Spanish thrown in there somewhere. My husband only speaks English (although he can speak Afrikaans) but he understands Afrikaans 100%. I also think it's great to raise a child with more than one language.

Nayeela, I know many people have different opinions on this and say that speaking 2 languages at a young age will benefit the child, but in our case, it didnt. I also learnt Afrikaans at a later stage and now can speak it perfectly. We only spoke one language at home when we were younger even though my mother was afrikaans and father was english.

We have realised our mistake with Jaydon trying to make him speak both languages and thats why we wont do the same with Kyle. His mother tounge will be Afrikaans and will only learn english later. I must say Jaydons english has improved quite alot since he started Grade R.

I also heard the same thing Justinek. Apparenty some kids get confused and they master the languages much slowly. I dont know whether its true or not but their are different school of thoughts on that.

I only learnt English at a later stage and now spek english fluently. I am doing the same with K except that we started with English and will introduce french at a later stage. For now she is picking up french here and there but English remains her mother tongue.