Raising your baby bi-lingual

Hello! I realize this is an old thread, but I couldn't resist posting! One person mentioned that it's harder for a person with a language impairment to learn a second or multiple languages, so I just wanted to give another opinion on that here. It may be harder, but it is not impossible. I think it all depends on your expectations for the child. I have met many successfully bilingual deaf adults who can read and write in English while also communicating fluently in their first language, ASL (American Sign Language). I am adopting a seven-year-old from Guatemala who is deaf. She already speaks some Spanish, but on visit trips I'm using ASL with her as well as spoken Spanish when she needs that to reinforce the ASL (I'm trilingual English, Spanish, ASL). When she gets home to the States, we will read books together in both English and Spanish, as she has older siblings in Guatemala who speak only Spanish, so I don't want her to lose her birth country language. However, our primary language at home with me and her primary language for communication at school will be ASL (which is completely different from English and has its own grammatical system). Eventually, when she is in college, I would love for her also to learn Lensegua, which is the sign language of Guatemala, so that she can go back to Guatamala and socialize/provide community service to other Guatemalan Deaf. At a minimum, I expect her to be completely literate in both English and Spanish for reading and writing (e-mail, etc.)... I'm not worried about her being able to SPEAK those languages, as she will use ASL to communicate in face-to-face communication.

I just wanted to re-post with an update! We are a bilingual family (Spanish-ENglish) who adopted a beautiful 3.5 year old son from China. He is being raised bilingually and is learning SPanish and English really well! We also just started Mandarin classes ("Chinese school") on the weekends so at least he can have conversational Chinese. We are loving it! My daughter goes as well. If you have any questions let me know! I am an ESL teacher;).

I think you have to choose what you are comfortable with because you are going to get criticism or "helpful advice" if you choose either route. We have chosen to surround our kids with many different languages. I believe the research that says that kids will learn the langauge better if they have been exposed to it at a young age. So, instead of time-out we put our son in count down where he had to count to 10 to calm down and then listen. When english was too easy, we switched to spanish, then german, then Italian, Serbo-croat, then Russian, then French, Ukrainian, Indonesian, and now Polish. He gets an allowance point if he practices his language (other than english) each day. When my husband and I took Russian language classes he came with us and learned a decent amount (at age 4). In Italy he loved asking for ice cream in Italian and LOVED speaking with his hands. We met a Spanish couple in Croatia and he showed off the little bit of Spanish he knew. The same trip someone was speaking German so he just said Thank you to them in German. They were flabbergasted. He doesn't speak any language fluently other than English, but he appreciates that everyone has their own language, that you should attempt to learn it to go to their country, and they give you much more ice cream if you ask for it in their language. We often get comments in the US that we are confusing him. I just ask them how do they think that Europeans know 4 or 5 languages and ignore the comments. We actually had his preschool teachers tell us he was behind when he was 2 in speaking because we spoke to him both in English and Spanish alternating. They wanted us to stop. (He wasn't really behind in language he was just choosing not to talk to them.) We kept on. Sometimes, my husband will get confused and say a sentence combining Russian and German into the same setence, and our son will just break out laughing and tell his dad he messed up. Or when we are asking our son what the name for water is in Spanish (to get him more with dinner) he will answer in Indonesian (because he loves the word for water (air) in Indonesian). Then he just laughs. I recently took a business trip to Minneapolis and he wanted to know what language they spoke there and if I had learned any of it yet. I guess our theory is to create an interest in different languages so that it will be easier for him to pick them up as he gets older. Once we adopt our daughter from Poland I don't know if we will be able to keep up her fluent Polish, but we will continue exposing them to all languages. But regardless of where the child is adopted from, I increasingly feel like you will need to know Spanish and English in the US. For the business world, I think that Mandarin, Russian, or German, is going to be key. I also think that I will encouarge a semester abroad when they are in college (or HS I guess). Good luck and have fun. :earth:

It's amazing the linguistic ignorance and fear among so many Americans, especially when the country is full of linguistic diversity! When people hear us speak another language to our son, they ask if we are also planning to teach him English, as if the worst thing would be for him not to speak English. (Of course, this is a ridiculous conclusion on their part since mommy and daddy speak to each other in English and just about every other person they know....)We definitely don't want our child to be monolingual. Learning another language (or more) can only be a benefit, and while there may be some language confusion in the very early years of language acquisition, the brain soon distinguishes the different sound patterns, syntax, etc. and the child will know the difference of the languages he is acquiring.Btw, there are plenty of Europeans who are monolingual (I've lived in several European countries), but the close proximity of the languages makes learning them more of a necessity than for most Americans, who can travel for hundreds, if not thousands, of miles and only encounter one major language--English. However, we know this will be changing over the next few decades, and knowing a second language helps to learn a third or fourth, no matter what the second language is.

Hi, we are in the process of adopting from Bulgaria, we are English speakers that live in Greece. I speak Greek also. We shall speak Greek to the child and have found a Bulgarian living here who will teach the child Greek so they can keep their own language whilst learning a new one. In the schools here they teach English from an early age so for us the Greek is more important. Most Europeans teach their children at least one or two other languages. I think it is important that the children being adopted , when ever possible, keep their own language as that is part of who they are. We are not concerned about the transition to Greek or English, children have the ability that adults have lost to learn new langauges. Take Russia for example, i have friends from Russia who speak Russian and then their own regional language within Russia. They come to Greece and after a few months speak very good Greek. It is often far easier for people whose first language is not English to pick up another language quickly. Really you should no worry, for an older child which is our desire to adopt there are many computer disc language games available, Eurotalk covers every language in the world i believe so our child will be able to have the disc set to Bulgarian to learn Greek and another disc to learn English. The games are fun which is important. Hope this helps.

I am an English-speaker raising two adopted children in the Czech Republic. My daughter was adopted at 3-months old. My husband speaks Czech to her and I speak English. She is now 2 and a half and she speaks Czech very very well and English a bit. I am the primary caregiver but we are in a Czech speaking environment. I'm wondering if anyone knows how this tends to play out later on. Am I somehow neglecting her and not speaking enough to her. I seriously do not mess up and accidentally speak Czech to her. I do speak Czech to my husband though and to other people around us. There are occasionally other people around who speak English but mostly the people around us speak Czech. I am hoping that her English will eventually catch up with her Czech but I have a troubling memory of a 10-year-old boy I met as a child in Mexico, whose mother was an English-speaker and spoke English to him and his English was understandable to children but completely unusable in terms of literacy. I read to my daughter every day in English and she watches only a few minutes of videos and almost always in English. I am simply slightly concerned that her English is so far behind her Czech fluency and wondering if this will tend to even out.

I have a Chinese daughter, and I am a Caucasian Jewish woman of Eastern European Jewish heritage. We speak English at home, because I don't speak Chinese. I wish I did, as Becca has had many schoolmates and neighborhood acquaintances who speak Chinese at home. The neighborhood we used to live in was majority Asian, and she is currently in an International Baccalaureate program that is majority Asian, with most of the Asians being Chinese. However, Becca had eight years of immersion Hebrew taught by Israelis in a Jewish day school, listens to rock music in Hebrew, understands what Israelis are talking about in the drugstore, etc. (When she was about 12, she was cracking up because she heard two Israeli teens talking in Hebrew about a movie magazine they were reading in the drugstore, and expressing suspicion that a certain star had "butt enhancement" surgery.) Becca also has had four years of French, and is entering her fifth year. She corresponds in French with a penpal and has to read a book in French this summer. She would have loved to spend a summer in France, perfecting her language skills, but I found the cost of a good program, like Experiment in International Living, too high. It is my hope that she will continue both languages, and also learn Chinese someday. Since we have a close family friend who is Japanese, and who has served as her favorite male role model for about 13 years, Becca also hopes to learn Japanese. No, she is not bilingual Chinese-English, but she does a surprisingly good job of picking up languages, and I hope she achieves fluency in at least one besides English -- Chinese, Japanese, French, Hebrew, or whatever. And no, I didn't raise her bilingual, because I couldn't. But I have met plenty of kids who WERE raised bilingual. or who picked up a second language at an early age -- or even a bit later. One of Becca's friends, adopted from China at age one, has a Mom trained in international public health. After several years in the U.S., her Mom took her to live in Francophone Africa, where she was involved in a research project. Within a couple of years, she was fluent in French and learning Dutch in school. The experience was difficult for many reasons, including the fact that she was probably the only Asian kid in the country, but she was jabbering away in idiomatic French and English by the time she returned. While kids have different intellectual abilities, it is amazing how resilient most of them are, and how much their brains can handle. Sharon

I replied to this thread pre adoption. My daughter has been home for 9 months and she has speaks good Greek and basic English. I speak Greek to her all the time and my husband English, it works well and she has no problems with this. As for her own language of Bulgarian, we did try the lessons with a Bulgarian speaker but stopped for a number of reasons. One being that her Bulgarian was so poor, grammar dismal and vocabulary minimal that it was easier to just teach Greek by pictures and Tv and books. Otherwise she was having to learn new Bulgarian and Greek words and it was too much for her. She has poor concepts and it took her many months to realise she was not speaking Bulgarian anymore.

Having been raised bilingual from early childhood made it really easy for me to become a multilingual adult. It's not "confusing", only enriching."Multilingual" leads to "multicultural". One's horison keeps getting wider. The new languages keep getting easier to acquire.Read your books in their original languages and nothing will be lost in translation.I immigrated to Israel and picked up Hebrew as an adult. It is typically very difficult for non-multilingual adults to pick up a new language. My backgroung helped me pick up some rudimentary Hebrew instantly. Today, after many years of immersion, I am speaking it with better grammar than 90% of the native speakers (though I am told my Hebrew strikes them as academic and not natural).(By the way, English is not one of my first four languages. But it is mine now and I love it dearly.)The purpose of all this rambling is to encourage everybody to teach their young children as many languages as possible. They will thank you later.

I suggest your Chinese girl take [url=http://www.masterchinese.com/]online mandarin classes[/url]. My friend moved to US and her son was born there. Now her son is 5 years old, she was considering having her son learn Chinese. She chose online courses since it's convenient. She says her son can learn from the very beginning, such as tones, writing, etc. It does nothing to do with age, I think.

my niece is married to an Italian born man. They have 3 bio kids. He speaks only Italian to them and she speaks only English to them, though she is bilingual also. This works wonderfully - their 6 year old is fluent in Italian- which is great since his Italian grandparents speak no English-- and their 1 year old is starting to speak Italian and English and uses both though at 1 her vocabulary is limited. Their third child was born deaf so unfortunately she never had the opportunity to learn either. I don't know if you are the only adult in the house or if you have a partner but if one of you speaks only Italian to the child and the other only English it should work great,

Hi everyone! Oh this is an old thread)) Very interesting to read. My situation: we both are Russians, our parents and extended family live in Russia. We are adopting an infant domestically in USA. We will be raising our child to speak both Russian and English. "One parent - one language" probably wouldn't work for us because we are not used to speak English at home, I'm afraid it wouldn't be natural for us. What about "One place - one language". Has anyone tried that? Also please advise books to read on the topic. I googled quite a few, but want some advise. Thanks.

Don't worry. That's pretty much classic bilingualism. One language at home, the other with friends and at school. The one at home tends to be the weaker language fairly soon but that is often because the parents are immigrants with little access to media in their native language. Just give the kid a very rich linguistic environment in Russian - kids cartoons (which I know you have good ones), stories, books, music. Put them in a good American preschool and English will take care of its self. As much as possible, keep Russian media at age-appropriate levels around and have contact with Russian-speaking family and friends. Yes, the child will have some difficulty in the beginning at preschool with English but many many children have handled it. Try to find a good preschool where the instructors have experience with bilingual children or at least are very kind to children. Eventually you may want to help the child have access to good quality English books and moies, since unguided access to English media can be more of a detriment than a benefit in terms of language development (not to mention moral development).

Update. I now have two children, ages 4.5 and nearly 3. We still have the same situation but we have visited the US for 2 months two years in a row. My children speak both English and Czech at age level and seem to do fine with it. It was a bit uneven as long as we were living in one country with only one parent speaking the second language and the parents speaking the country of residence language together as well. In that case, the language spoken only with one parent ended up being weaker. But now with 2 month visits away and with the fact that I have begun to do a stimulating homeschooling program with the kids in English, their English is up to the level of Czech and in some vocabulary definitely exceeding it.

GrumblersRidge, thank you for your answer and your advice!!!! I found it very helpful. All the best to you and your family!!