Bilingual kids

Joli, hows it going with the Afrikaans?

Loves the Chinese / Afrikaans! Now that's a combination.

We also decided to go the bilingual way. I (and my family) speak Afrikaans to Ethan and DH and his family speaks English. At age 2 Ethan is fully bilingual. The theory is that their speech would be delayed if raised bilingual, but he started to speak at an early age - before he turned one he started saying a few words. He is now fully bilingual, but he does mix up his languages. That is not really a concern, its his way of coping when he cannot find or does not know the word in the language he happens to be using at the time.

What is amazing to me is that I would instruct him (in Afrikaans) to tell his daddy something and he would then tell his daddy in English. So he can actually translates!
Anyway I just think it is so good for their development and cognitive function.

Elaine, how cool is that to have your own personal chinese translator!!!
I'm thinking of putting our little girl in english/mandarin preschool and skipping the french for now!

Kylae, that is so funny :-D

My 4 older kids speak Afr and Eng, though we are Afr. They are in Afr schools, but it just so happened that they speak both languages well. Micayla and Connor, also speaks a tiny bit of Zulu.

Many Zulu people are always shocked that white Afr kids can speak to them in a small matter, and that they can understand when spoken to.

I am amazed everyday at how smart kids are and how easily they learn things.

I am English, but DH is Afrikaans, and our home language is Afrikaans. I had plans of speaking only English to our kids, but it was just easier to speak Afrikaans.

When Amy was 18 months old we came over to Taiwan. At this time she was only used to Afrikaans. We put her into a Chinese daycare. One of the teachers could speak English, but she didn't really know English so they only spoke Chinese to her.

2 years later she speaks Chinese so well, that we have out her into a Chinese preschool. We don't speak Chinese at all though, so her 1st language is still Afrikaans but her 2nd language is Chinese!!

We have a lot of English speaking friends so we also speak English quite a bit, I have actually started taking the time to teach her some English. She is too cute, she will come to me and say "Let's speak English now". I would have to say that at the moment English is her 3rd language.

She definitely knows the difference between the 3 languages, and does translate basic Chinese for us.

Yes, just speak Afrikaans, they will also eventually answer in Afrikaans once they pick up on it. If they speak to you in English, answer in Afrikaans, If you need to tell them something do it in Afrikaans. It's going to be a bit frustrating in the begining because they might not understand but it will get better.