Do you use other language book to teach your kid? For e.g. Apple (English book) but can you read him as manzana (Spanish)?

[dontgiveup230]

We are doing OPOL (I speak A, my husband B, our common language is B; grandparents speak C with my LO) at home. However, as I am basically the one who spend most of the time for my LO and read to my LO, I sometimes confused if I should only read book in language A to my LO, because others won’t have time to do so.

As my LO is only 1.5 years old that he won’t recognize those words but picture , I can basically point him the picture tell him in language A regardless what source of the language written. (In this case either book in language B or C, there are pictures anyway.)

However, would this lead to confusion? It’s my first kid, and first OPOL experience so I am really afraid making any big mistake

p.s I speak languages A & B, and basic C so I can make sure no mistake if I read all those material to my LO.

Edit: community language is C where my LO learns from grandparents.

 

[scrupulous]

@dontgiveup230 I speak the minority language and we have a lot of books in the majority language that I just translate on the fly. My two-year-old enjoys it in all versions. There was one funny situation where I said "the thief is hiding there" and then she repeated the sentence but switched the thief to the majority language. It's so fascinating!

 

[dontgiveup230]

@scrupulous This is indeed fascinating and lessen my worries now, thanks for sharing !

 

[dontgiveup230]

@scrupulous Oh but one thing, do you also read the original majority language ?

 

[scrupulous]

@dontgiveup230 I tried to avoid it. There is one poetry book my daughter likes a lot so I do read that sometimes in the majority language.

 

[chole]

@dontgiveup230 My husband regularly translates my daughters story books into mandarin. It's a bit different for us as my husband doesn't really read/write mandarin at all but speaks pretty fluently.

 

[dontgiveup230]

@chole And your daughters pick them up easily or you see any confusion on their faces?

 

[jchardy]

@dontgiveup230 I tried an experiment the other night. I read a spontaneous translation to English of the first page of The Neverending Story and then read it again in the original German. My 2.5yo LO responder well, exclaiming excitedly when he recognized the names Irrlicht and Felsenbeiser that I left untranslated in the English reading.

I suppose you could manage a diglot weave in a similar way.

My theory is, as long as it’s comprehensible input, kids figure it out and don’t get confused.

 

[dontgiveup230]

@jchardy This gives me hope. Thanks for sharing.

 

[zacjesus]

@dontgiveup230 Bilingual librarian (former pre-k teacher) here.
I would definitely use a book and translate on the spot in order to read it in another language. Around 3 or 4 years old though, start reading mostly books in the language that matches the words on the page, because they will begin to recognize words/symbols/letters.

When I taught first graders (6-7 year-olds) I still did this on occasion (a book was only available in English, but I had to teach in Spanish, so I just translated it as I read it out loud). Maybe once every 2 weeks or so. If it’s for the fun of the story and the book isn’t available in the language you want, then I think by then the child would understand that you just want to enjoy a book together, regardless of the literal words on the page.

 

[dontgiveup230]

@zacjesus I hear you , some books just not available in another language and why not . Just hoping my kid won’t show me a confused face one day why is this fruit sometimes is “apple” sometimes is “manzana”. And, I guess you pointed out the age as a limit reference that sounds reasonable to me , thank u for sharing!