multilingual parenting

Hi all! We have an almost 1-year-old baby and we are doing OPOL. My husband and I have basic knowledge of each other’s language but not enough to be conversational. We speak English to each other. We noticed that when we say words or phrases in the other parent’s language, baby finds it...

Mom of 2 here in a cross cultural marriage (I’m Jordanian and the hubby is American). We live in the US now and learning Arabic has been a challenge for my family. I’m a former teacher so I started building these for them. You guys it’s been working!!!!!! They’re daily lessons, and I can hear...

So, I am a childcare teacher living in/from Australia. First off I want to say I think it’s awesome to be raising kids multilingual and honestly I sometimes wish either of my parents knew a second language to pass to me now that I have an interest in linguistics and languages as an adult. At...

Hello! Background: I have a 6 months old with my partner who also has a 4,5 year old. I have been in her life since she was 2 years old and we all live together full time. At home, we speak language A (community language) and language B (we are both native speakers and have been practicing and...

We are a binational couple (Dutch, Israeli) currently living in the US. Before our child was born we planned to raise him with all languages - Dutch from me, Hebrew from Dad and English is the language between us and also the community language. While it sounded good in theory, practice...

We do OPOL at home. We have currently 2 kids (3,5 / 1,5) Myself I speak minority language w/ my kids and the oldest can speak it and communicate. I am actually looking for what needs to be taught and at which time. I understand is not a one size fits all but since I am not a language teacher - I...

I teach English in Budapest, Hungary. In the mornings, I'm in a public kindergarten with 3-4 year olds. We recently had parent-teacher meetings and reported to the parents on students' English progress since the start of the year. Some of these kids have a native English-speaking parent at home...

My kiddo is 5 and we have done OPOL since birth. It’s worked out shockingly well, and my kiddo is fluent in both English and Spanish (better in English…but so am I). I’m noticing, though, that her r’s sound like l in Spanish, but not English. She can say “red” correctly, but it’s “lojo” instead...

We're a trilingual family. I (the father) speak French, nanny (live-in) speak English, mother speaks Cantonese. Our son goes to pre-nursery 2 hours a day with currently 20% of the time in Mandarin, 40% of the time in English, 40% in Cantonese. I spend 2 hours a day dedicated time playing in...

Hi all newbie here, I have some question regarding reading material in the minority language I understand that even before birth and to very young infants, it can be beneficial to read in the target language. So my questions: what to read when the baby cannot follow on the page yet? (either...

Hi, we have an almost 1 y/o daughter and my husband and I plan to use our native language at home so she can be fluent in it when she grows up. Husband and I both speak the same native language as well as English (community language). I’m not deep into my research/readings yet but I learned...

What do non fluent parents do when they "run out" of language and cannot learn fast enough to match their child's pace of language acquisition? I'm a non fluent heritage speaker of Mandarin. I can speak about daily life things like cooking, eating, playing, and casual/shallow chats with...

I'm curious about other people's personal experiences with this. And how did it go for your kid(s) -- did they slowly start adding "extra" words in the other language one at a time (so one day they were saying only "dog", then the next they were saying "perro" and "dog" interchangeably)? Or was...

I'm hoping for some advice on how to raise our child with 2/3 languages, in the following circumstances. My partner and I are both from country X and speak language X with each other and our extended families. We currently live in country Y, where we may or may not stay for the long term. We...

Hi all! For context, my 2 year 2 month old‘s minority language is English. We live in a French speaking country. She goes to a French daycare 1 and a half days a week. Our family language is English, but my partner and I speak french to each other. Our social circle is primarily francophone...

My baby is 1 and so far we have been trying to do OPOL. I speak the community language and am ay home with her 3 days per week, the other two days she goes to daycare. I speak English and we live in an English speaking country. My partner speaks Italian but we speak English as a family. I know...

My partner and I are both fluent in each others mother language, Norwegian and Dutch (my language). Our 2 year old is exposed to the minority language Dutch when we’re at home together (usually only on weekends and 2-3 hours during work days). I guess it’s a OPOL / Minority language at home...

My grandparents were born and raised in Guatemala before moving to New York in the 60s. My family has lived here ever since and growing up, I heard Spanish all the time, to the point I understand it very well. I almost never spoke it growing up, however, and now that I have a four-month old, I...

Hello! We are a Mandarin & English household living in Texas, USA. My child is already 2-1/2 years old. We have always wanted our child to learn Spanish, and I regrettably hadn't thought about introducing it earlier via media/passive learning. I can speak Spanish conversationally and would...

TL,DR: OPOL (native English and heritage language), Spanish school, should we add French (mostly for parent's sake)? My 3.5 year old has been attending a bilingual (Spanish -English) school for 13 months. I am skeptical about how much Spanish input she is getting though. Only one of her two...