Kids growing up with 4 languages and choice of FR vs NL school

[gleelyn]

Hi everyone!

Our daughter will start preschool in September (maternelle/kleuterschool) and we are really divided regarding the best choice of school for her. We hope that we can find someone with a similar experience that could give some more insight before we make our final choice.

Context: She has just turned 2 and for now she has been raised bilingual Greek/Dutch, with English being spoken a lot around her, as my husband and I speak English between us (but never actively with her). My Dutch-speaking in-laws look after her one day a week and she goes to a Dutch speaking crèche. So far Dutch is her dominant language (naturally) and her Greek has been catching up after a good language “bath” over the Christmas holidays in Greece.

We are soon moving to Flanders but close to the border with both BXL and Wallonia. We can therefore opt for either a Dutch-speaking school (she already has a spot secured in our future neighbourhood school) or a French-speaking one.

So far her interaction with FR has been limited to doctor visits/supermarket runs etc and the occasional play date with FR speaking friends. She doesn’t seem to have an understanding of French, as would be expected at her age and given her limited exposure.

Also important to note: both my husband and I speak all 4 languages involved, which is definitely a luxury in our case.

Our questions are:

• what would you foresee as a challenge/advantage in either option?
• is anyone of you in a similar situation as us? So far we have plenty of examples around us of kids growing up with 3 languages, but we haven’t found any with 4 (even if English is not really a native/active one).

Any insight would be well appreciated!

Note: question also posted on r/Brussels, see here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/brussels/comments/10p6lh6/kids_growing_up_with_4_languages_and_choice_of_fr

 

[job64]

@gleelyn So I live in Flanders, raising my kids bilingual. But my advice is going to have nothing to do with languages.

My advice would be to pick the school that logistically makes your life easier. Which school has the easiest commute for both parents? Do you need before/after school care and which school has it?

Traffic is terrible in Belgium and public transport can be unreliable. I wouldn't want to spend 40 minutes going to and from school because the commute is tricky, just so that my kid can exposed to french.

Your child has 3 languages already. I am sure picking up french later in life won't be difficult for her, is she chooses to learn.

 

[md15668]

@gleelyn My situation is not the same as yours and you already got some good replies on r/Brussels, but I thought that it may still be useful for you to get my input because I have children that are a bit older and who speak four languages (and are learning a fifth).

My children are native Swedish and English speakers who live in Finland. I was born in Germany and there happened to be a conveniently located Finnish-German after school program by their school (a Swedish-language school; we have since moved and they go to a Finnish school) so they started learning German for that reason. Their dad's heritage language is Spanish, so they have recently started studying some Spanish as well.

I tend to write too much and there's just so much to say about this topic, but so far things are going well for our children and four languages is definitely possible. One or more of the languages will most likely be weaker than the other(s) and it's challenging to raise children who will be fully competent in multiple languages because of the depth of the education they receive at school. For example, if history and the sciences are only taught in Finnish at school, they will lack the vocabulary to talk about these topics in their other languages unless you take steps to fill those gaps. In our case, their German (and Spanish) will have those gaps because it's not a priority language for our children.

Edit: Fixes typos

 

[drcao]

@gleelyn My children speak four as well. It is doable.

Language 1 from dad, Language 2 from me, and she goes to a bilingual English-Mandarin school. She is able to cope with all. We live in Singapore; community language is English and my husband and I speak English between ourselves.

English is strongest, followed by Language 1 from dad (she is nearly 5 and a daddy’s girl!), Language 2 from me and then weakest is Mandarin. so we supplement with a lot of private tutoring.

 

[jakeranco]

@gleelyn when i was younger, i was a nanny to kids that grew up with 4 languages. the mom and dad spoke different mother tongues, the community language was different, and i spoke to them in yet a different language. one kid was fine with it, but it seemed like she preferred two of the languages and completely refused to speak one. the younger one had pretty noticeable speech delays. unless there is a long term tie for each language, it's pretty stressful on the kids. even for myself that grew up trilingual and learned 3 more languages as a teen, i feel like i messed up my brain and had identity issues as a result. it was really hard for me, and also for those kids i knew. i would say keep it to 3.

 

[alisssabru]

@gleelyn I had a friend who grew up with 4 languages. His mom was from Lebanon and dad from Iran and they lived in Canada. He spoke Arabic with his mom, Farsi with his dad, French was spoken between his parents/as a family, and English was the community language. He says it didn’t confuse him as a child because he didn’t think about it much.

The only consequence was over time his parents came to understand each other’s language as well as English so they do a really confusing mix of all 4 languages now that he’s an adult, but it works for them so