Will you raise your child bilingual??

So, English is not my native language but it is for my dh.  Today I was looking on the internet through all of the wonderful books I loved as a child in my native language and now I have this strong desire to buy a bunch and start reading them to my dd.  But is it even possible to teach her a second language at home if dh does not speak it??  Should I be confusing her with a second language?  I know that kids who hear two languages at once get confused between the two and may take longer to separate between them and speak English properly.   My cousin’s kid is 5 years old and still mixes languages up.  BUT in the long run they can speak two languages.

Anyone else in the same boat??  What did you do?  

[heatherlynn22]

i've heard some kids are great with being bilingual or even trilingual while others just can't do it. i've read of where the child knows that only the second language (spanish, french, russian or whatever) is spoken at home while english is for school. i wouldn't mind my kids learning german and russian (i'm german and the dh is russian) as well as english but i'm not sure if we're going to do it.

[CYW]

i speak to my son in french and his dad well he speaks english.. and he goes to daycare where they speak french and english and he is doing fine...

[AnnieBrooke]

Mine will be bilingual Spanish and English, because there is a good bilingual immersion program at a nearby school.  (My husband and both have some Spanish as a second language but I'm sure our son will be correcting our Spanish from his first year.)  I've heard other parents say that the kids don't confuse the languages.  Either the kids know one is for school and one for home, or even (for one family we know) one is for talking to one parent and the other is for the other other person.

[tiredbuthappy]

teaching your child another language would be a great gift.

I work with a very diverse population. out of 15 kinds in my class, 14 speak 2 languages. Some speak both english and the native language at home, others speak only the native language at home. Of these 14 kids, I only have one who occasionally mixes the languages. And even then, it's not a big deal, as he has the vocabulary to describe the word he is looking for. These children are all preschoolers.

I am currently finishing up my ESL certification. Everything I have learned is telling me that it would be beneficial to teach my daughter our native language. I am finding that despite this knowledge and all of my first hand experience as a teacher, it is harder than i thought it would be. I am the third generation- my grandparents were born in Europe, my parents and myself in the Americas. As time has passed, my gasp of the language has faded a bit. Since I don't naturally use the language regularly, it is taking a lot of effort for me to switch to it. Of course she is learning basic vocab words, but I have to start actually conversing in the language to help her. I hope to make this mental switch in the next few months when I will be home with her more.  

By the way, don't worry about starting too late. I have one little girl in my class who is perfectly fluent in both English and Spanish. I commented on how well she spoke both to her parents. They told me that for the 1st 2 years, they primarily spoke english before realizing that the kids weren't learning spanish. Then they made the switch. At 4, she is perfectly fluent in both.

[babyalive]

All the research I've read is very positive on teaching your child two languages from day one.  Even if your child only hears you speaking another language than what dh speaks and what is heard in the dominate culture she is growing up in it can greatly enhance her language development in the long term.  I have read some research where adults who grew up learning one language at home and another outside the home never truly master either language.  But, the majority of the research is overwhelming positive and even states children who grow up in bilingual households have higher IQ's than those in monolingual households.  So, I would say it's worth doing some further reading and read, read, read her those beautiful, lovely stories in your native language.  

[magda_s]

Helen, I don't know if I mentioned to you before that a did a degree in psychology. At one point I was studying language development and one thing I remember VERY clearly because it was something that interested me very much too was just this.  Apparently the best way for a child to learn more than one language is to have the languages separated.  In other words, what you're suggesting is perfect: You speak one language, your husband speaks another and bingo, she has two languages.  True, often kids who learn more than 1 language get words confused but that's only because they're too young to know that it matters!!  Once they get older, they'll be fine.  
And I can give you umpteen examples that I know of where this has worked starting with myself and my sister to whom our mum has always spoken in French and dad in English.  I have friends here in Syria... she speaks to the girls  in Russian, he speaks Italian and school is in English.  They speak all three languages just fine. They're even picking up Arabis as that's what they hear around them as the common language in the country!! And my nephew, like us... mum speaks to him in French and dad in English and he's got both languages down pat and he's 12.
I am a firm believer that you couldn't give your child a more valuable gift than another language.

[Mumita]

I intend on teaching my baby both Spanish and Enlgish.  My first language is spanish and my Husband's is English, the way that I will try to approach it is learning Spanish from me and English from Dad.  Or Spanish only at home and English outside.  since the majority of his time he will be learning English outside of the house I think its important for him to have a base of Spanish.
The other thing is that maybe hopefully me and the baby will have a "secret" language around grandma (MIL) >;)
I learned English in School, I was surrounded by Spanish and I can say that I am perfectly fluent in both languages.  So, no matter how you approach it, it is still very important that you try hard to give your child a good solid base in both languages.

[vsentz]

LOL.... This just made me think... HECK! I mix languages myself! lol.... have you ever heard Spanglish? well, that's what I speak! lol

No, in all honesty... I think the best thing to do is speak to your little one in your native language for two reasons: one, obviously exposing her since a very young age to a second language and ALSO! very important... if you speak in YOUR language to your baby, you are speaking from the heart. I am not sure if someone feels the same way as me, but when I speak english to a baby, it just feels (emotionally) very different than when I speak to him/her in spanish. I just can't picture myself talking as lovingly as I do to my girl in other language that is not the one I 'know'.
I am fluent in both languages (of course with a bunch of errors! as you might know), and in front of people, like the sitter, or sometimes daddy, grandpa, I speak to her in english... but right away I say it in spanish.

She is exposed to both languages anyway, daddy and the sitter speak to her in english and the cutest thing is when she points out to a book and says: 'book'.... and then points out at a bear and says: 'oso'... then points out at a baby and goes: 'beebee!' and then points out at her 'milky' and says: 'chita!'.....

You will be VERY surprised (I am!!!) how much of little sponges these babies are! they are amazing learners!

[Michele, Katy, TX]

I would love for my kids to be bilingual.  My husband's native language is spanish but he speaks english very fluently.  I always wanted to learn spanish.  I am half Mexican, but I never had the opportunity.  My dad spoke it and my mom didn't.  So, I never heard it as a child.  Yes, I took some classes in high school and even as an adult, but that is def not the same.  I certainly cannot sit there and have a conversation with someone in spanish and marrying into a family such as my husband's, not knowing spanish has actually caused a lot of problems within our marriage.

My babysitter that my kids are with all day long only speaks spanish, but yet my kids really aren't bilingual and you would think they would be.  I mean, they know some words for sure and maybe they will end up understanding but I doubt they will speak it fluently and that is sad.  My husband wants them to be bilingual of course, but yet had never really put in any effort to the cause.  And in his defense, he is working a lot and not home to work with them.  And of course he only speaks english to me.  So, what I am trying to say is that my kids don't get confused.  They do not associate spanish w/ me at all.  For example, my 4 year old will call eggs eggs to me.  But if she wants my babysitter to fix her eggs, she says huevos to her.  They associate spanish w/ my babysitter and english w/ me and my husband.

Good luck w/ it though!  Like I said, I really wished I would have learned spanish as a little girl!  It would have made my marriage much smoother and people just have more opportunities when they can speak another language.

[Helen72]

Thank you all for your advice!

Magda,
my best friend is a linguist and she said basically the same thing that you learned:
***
"My personal point of view is that the kids are quite capable of separating different languages if they can consistently identify the sources of these different languages and associate these languages with these sources. For example, if you start speaking Russian to Anna, you must always (always is crucial here) speak Russian to her, so she will recognize the language as different because you are different from Erich in look and smell and, yes, in the language you speak. Erich must do the same in English or German. Her kindergarten teacher will always be associated with English, for example. And so on... You will have to also devise a system when you will not react when she says something to you in English and insist that she say the same thing to you in Russian. She'll get used to it rather quickly because she would try to please you (this is from children's psychology course).

Try not to panic when she does mix a little--think of it as an adult who is trying to speak another language, knows the words, but has difficulty getting the words out quickly enough to sound fluent (kinda our first years of living in America, lol!). Give her input, input and input to teach her words, structures, and always encourage her for the job well done. The same with another language she learns."
***

Separating 2 languages is a huge commitment!

vsentz,
I know what you mean about speaking from the heart.  When I am overflowing with emotion I start saying stuff in Russian to dd w/o even realizing it.

[melimeli]

I have raised all 3 of my kids bilingually spanish english..

they are 12, 6 and 10 months...

my dh speaks all spanish to them and I speak a mix.. they are all fine and didn't have a delay and never mixed up the languages...

they are very advanced in vocabulary I think because that part of there brain was very stimulated.. the olders go to a dual immersion school

good luck and it is great for them

In europe all the countries learn 3 to 4 languages we in the united states are behind the times

[colorado_g]

i heard that if possible to learn second langueage. the kids will get better on test and they brain wil work harder plus i think its great to know more languages:
)

[Helen72]

melimeli,

Thank you for your advice and sharing your experience!  I wish I could speak Spanish!  Unfortunately, Russian is not as often used here and there will be no immersion program for dd  :(  Besides myself and her grandparents who live in another state she will have noone to communicate with.  My parents are very enthusiastic to speak another language with dd although they speak English at home right now.  I guess this will require an effort from everyone in the family.

[VicUser]

Both of my boys are multi lingual. I guess they get it from me. Besides English we know Fortran, Basic, C, C++ and Visual Basic.(these are all computer languages)  Lol, not the languages you were thinking of but we can communicate with people worldwide.

[melimeli]

ah too bad...  there are a couple russian immersion schools here in Oregon where I live.  It does take an effort on the parts of all to maintain a native language in a country where it is not the primary language but it is well worth it.  Studies show that kids that speak two languages often test TAG (talented and gifted) when they enter school, it helps them to find a job as they get older, and it teaches them important lessons about their culture and empathy for others.  Also brain research has taught us that people that do not learn a language by age 11 will NEVER be able to speak it with a native accent.  So if you learn russian after age 11 you will never be able to speak it without an English accent.  I hope that you give your child the gift of two languages and also the gift of know one of her languages of origin.  My father speaks Croatian and did not teach us, it makes me so sad to know that I was robbed out of knowing a language that could be part of me.  When I went to Croatia I was unable to communicate with family that lives there.  Good luck and there is a lot of research out there about second language aquisition and how it is so good for out children.

[Me2mommy2b]

Our kids are definitely growing up to be bilinguals.  I think it's great!  The more, the merrier.  Helen, are you first generation American or were you born in Russia??

[Trialanderror]

This is a great thread. I made the mistake to speak English to my son which is not my first language and now he has a bit of an accent in English and also no clue of my first language. The reason was that I do not use my native language with anyone at all anymore. I found it too confusing to switch languages within a few sentences when talking to my son and others. It comes more naturally when your speak the native language with your husband anyway but I didn`t.
When I look around, I do find that bilingual children sometimes take a bit longer to start talking at all and those who are exposed to English for the first time only when starting school struggle longer with grammar. However, by around grade 4 many seem rather advanced because they have been more aware of expression of language to begin with.
So yes, next time I would definitly go the bilingual route.