9 months trilingual update

mjmichaels

New member
I have always loved coming here for advice and reading all your experiences. Here is ours so far.

We are living in Australia, Mum native English speaker, Dad native Spanish speaker, German is a family heritage language and we are both trilingual in all 3, though German is the weakest language for us both.

Before our baby was born we decided to go with Minority language at home strategy to boost Spanish as much as possible. Spanish is now our default language with baby and we used it right from birth. English we are leaving to the community to teach - she has recently started attending daycare in English.

One thing I really wasn't sure about was how and when to introduce German. Originally I had hoped to travel to see family when she was around 8 months and introduce it then. Well covid happened so no international travel for us. During lockdown I decided to implement a daily "German hour" of fun, games, singing and nursery rhymes in German. I open the session every day by singing a "hello" song and when we are finished I sing a "goodbye" song. So that is one way I try to separate the languages. I never thought we would have to be her primary source of both Spanish and German. We have also recently started doing Saturday as a "German day" which has been great, the longer time period means we use even more varied vocab. Both of us speak German to her and to each other when we are having German time. We have some special toys that only "speak" German which we play with together during German time.

Fortunately with covid cases under control our daughter will soon be able to attend a German playgroup once a week and will get input from native speakers. This has been one of my concerns since we are advanced speakers but do still make mistakes. We want to keep using German together as a family because there is a chance we will abruptly move back to a German speaking environment. It is also culturally important for us to keep alive.

I'm curious to hear about similar experiences. I've read about the 30% rule of exposure or around 25 hours a week minimum. Our daughter is currently getting around 35 hours English, 40 in Spanish and 18 in German per week. So it follows our priorities currently that Spanish and English are more important to us as a family. I can see calculating it that she may not end up fluent in German, but I'd be really happy if she has a strong foundation that will be easy to build on. We are also using baby signs with her (same signs for each concept, whichever language we're speaking at the time).

It's been very exciting because she is using two signs and is saying 4 words in Spanish. I was expecting her to take a while to sort everything out, but she's really shocked me with 6 words at 9 months. It feels so natural to speak Spanish to her that I keep accidentally talking to other kids (and dogs!) in Spanish at the park 😂 As a non-native speaker of both Spanish and German I put plenty of time in learning nursery rhymes and baby vocab. If your level isn't quite there for full time language it's easy to make it into a fun hour daily. Ideally she would see more family and friends who speak the languages natively but right now we have to make do with video calls. I'm working on improving my own skills and making as many fun situations with the languages as possible.
 
@mjmichaels I'm American leaving in germany with a Spanish husband. my daughter is just over 2. It's mainly English at home because we speak together in English though I speak Spanish too. but after 15 years of English it's hard to swap. Then she goes to a fully German ) but international) KiTa. She's just finally repeating wordsnknce we ask though she had a good 30 words across all language and fully understands all 3 which i find amazing. Especially with spainsh being her weakest language.

Good luck and keep at it!
 
@tiavina That's so cool! Yes my husband and I spoke more English than Spanish to each other before she was born (it was close to 50/50 but maybe slightly more English) so it was an adjustment to switch to mostly Spanish. We try to speak Spanish to each other when she's with us though we do code switch.
 
@aldredian What's your situation? I'm sure any time you start is fine! I'm still thinking of playing games with her in another language when she's older. I sing a lot to her in all my languages too, I highly recommend music.
 
@mjmichaels My son's 10.5 months old at the moment. Been speaking to him in Mandarin and English since day one. English is the community language and husband doesn't speak Mandarin at all. I speak to my son exclusively in Mandarin though I can slip if I'm with people speaking English to me.

My family also speaks a separate dialect (Taiwanese Hokkien). My parents never bothered teaching us this dialect but because we've heard it enough, we understand it. My parents will code switch between Mandarin and Taiwanese constantly. I should add, Chinese dialects are basically like a different language a lot of the times depending which major "dialect" branch it's from. I won't go into detail but someone who only speaks Mandarin won't be able to understand us when we speak Taiwanese/Hokkien.

My main focus is making sure he at the very least can speak Mandarin so that's been my focus. I want my parents to speak to him in Taiwanese but they haven't been as diligent. My mum helps me most days of the week and she mainly speaks to him in Mandarin but again, will litter Taiwanese here and there.

I've bought plenty of books from Taiwan and read to him daily. We also have nursery rhyme books that sings. He has one in Mandarin and one in Taiwanese and loves them. I've also bought books where you can press on pictures and it will tell you what it is and you can switch it between Mandarin, Taiwanese and English (I don't use the English setting).

So far, I can tell he understands both languages and is saying one or two words though mostly English words. He can say one word in Mandarin. We've noticed if we ask him "Which ring is blue?", he will point to the right one and this works both in English and Mandarin so so far so good.

I do want to amp up the Taiwanese more. It's hard when I can't speak it. I can start practicing with my mum though. I'm just wondering whether to wait till he's speaking a bit more clearly in the 2 main languages before I push more languages.

The other language I'm thinking of teaching, though not a priority as it's not our cultural background, is Japanese since I can speak it but I'm not fluent and it's gotten rusty as well. I once read a story to him in Japanese and he stared at me like some crazy person cause I've never spoken to him in Japanese. Hence why I'm wondering if it's better to wait till he's speaking more before pushing more languages - particularly since these won't be ones I'm fluent in.

Sorry for the wall of text.
 
@aldredian I loved reading your story! It's always helpful to read about what others are doing. It sounds like you're giving your son a wonderful foundation. Yes perhaps you could try my method and have some dedicated Hokkien time every day, when your mum is there. Do you think she'd be receptive to the idea? I'm sure it's natural for her to use Mandarin (is that what she used with you?) But with luck she and your family might get excited about special Taiwanese time :) especially if you are there to join in. One advantage I've found about starting young is that it gives you some time to build up your vocab and skills before your baby can outpace you.

Haha that crazy person look is so funny. A few times when I'm being silly I talk to my baby in French and she laughs so much. I don't think it harms them to read stories, sing songs, play games etc in languages that you won't necessarily use together. I thought it might be good for them to hear other languages. Good luck!
 
Back
Top