multilingual parenting

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...

We had friends over this weekend and their (non-bilingual) child (15 months) is communicating using signs, following baby sign language (see e.g. here: ). The parents are not fluent in actual sign language (i.e. the local version of ASL), but tought their child selected signs like "milk"...

I’ve been reading through different posts in this sub, and I have learned so much from this community! I am first-time mom, expecting our baby boy this coming summer, and I would love any advice and feedback on how to raise our son in a bilingual environment. Here is some background information...

Hi multilingual parents! For context, I am trilingual (Filipino/English/French), English being my strongest and my favored language. My SO is French-speaking and about a B2 level in English. We live in French-speaking Switzerland. I take care of my now 16 month old baby 100% and I‘ve been...

We live in the US so the child will pick up English in daily life. We speak Spanish at home. My mother tongue is Polish though I have now lived outside of Poland the majority of my life and I no longer consider myself “fluent” (I only use it when I speak to my family on average once a week for a...

Hi all, I’ve read a lot of helpful things in this sub and I am now looking for some advice. We have a daughter who is just turning 6 weeks old this week. I speak both German and English and my wife speaks only English and no German. We live in the US. I was planning on using OPOL in German...

New here so apologies if this has been answered before, but I’d love to get opinions. I’m expecting my first child and am English, but speak German fluently (studied at school + university and lived in Germany for 4.5years before moving back to the UK in 2020). I speak accent-free and understand...