Multilingual environment, 2 years and 8 months old child having a language explosion (grammatically) in a single language

[anndryperez]

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 French with him, my wife an hour a day, the rest of the time is with the Nanny in English or together as a family. Me and my wife speak English with each other, so when talking to our son we'll switch to our native language and translate for the other partner after (if needed, over time I'm starting to understand Cantonese and my wife is starting to understand French). He is 2 years and 8 months.

In the past month, his English has improved suddenly by leaps and bounds, he started making much more complex sentences from a grammatical perspective. Going from simple 3 words sentences like Mummy come in room.... to sentences that are much more complex grammatically "Papa, the dog has no more batteries. " or "When mama come home, mama will give me sweet" or "I tell you a funny thing. Why is the tomato red? Because it's angry".

At the same time, he has mostly stopped answering in French and Cantonese and only answers in English. We've been telling him the correct sentence in our native language and have him repeat it but he definitely has started having a clear preference for English. French seems to be his weakest language (which is not surprising since I'm the only person he interacts with in French on a daily basis.)

Is pushing him to repeat the sentence in our native language the right way to go? Are there tips to help ensure that he keeps speaking the other languages?

Or am I worrying for nothing and it's just a phase while he's making so much progress in English?

 

[relle25]

@anndryperez I wouldn't stress at all right now, he's not even 3 so even for a monolingual kid it's normal to have certain phases where you make leaps and bounds in grammar and sentence structure and then have things be stagnant for a while. I wouldn't push repeating sentences at this age, it really won't do anything other than potentially make him frustrated and possibly have negative associations with the language so I'd personally stop doing that.

The key things right now are just being consistent with speaking with your kid and reinforcement through other speakers of the languages, family, books, music, whenever possible and keeping things fun and positive.

It's also great that you guys switch to your native language even if you know your partner doesn't understand initially and that they are learning along with your child! An issue I see in a lot of multilingual families is that one parent will sometimes default to the other parent's language with the kid so that their partner understands, but it really undermines OPOL.

 

[anndryperez]

@relle25

I wouldn't push repeating sentences at this age, it really won't do anything other than potentially make him frustrated and possibly have negative associations with the language so I'd personally stop doing that.

That's definitely been my worry.

t's also great that you guys switch to your native language even if you know your partner doesn't understand initially and that they are learning along with your child! An issue I see in a lot of multilingual families is that one parent will sometimes default to the other parent's language with the kid so that their partner understands, but it really undermines OPOL.

I strongly believe that it's important for both parents to learn the other's language. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, it's difficult for us to really learn each-other's language but I figure that doing it this way is also a good way to learn by immersion.

 

[relle25]

@anndryperez It absolutely is and you guys should keep it up! I am still not fluent in my husband's native language, but after nearly 8 years of hearing him speak to our kids every day, my comprehension has improved immensely and my speaking has improved as well.

 

[md15668]

@anndryperez My youngest daughter is exactly the same age as your son and shows strong preference to Swedish but I am not at all worried because her three older siblings all speak 4+ languages. My daughter at the moment forms surprisingly complex sentences in Swedish ("One could say that I am like a roaring lion."), while her English is strongly mixed with Swedish and she only says a few words in other languages.

The key is really to try to strengthen the weaker languages eventually over a long period of time. If for example French is weakest, you could make French the media/audiobook/music language and try to find French speaking playmates or events in your area. Modeling the correct way of saying things and making the language seem important, relevant, interesting and fun tends to work much better than corrections.

 

[glencoco]

@anndryperez This is time issue, don’t worry too much right now.

Chinese will come naturally from going to school.

Keep speaking to your child in French, telling stories to him etc. I have the same family situation, at 8 years old she had a correct English, strong Chinese and weak French so we decided to bring her to france while keeping the practice of her other languages.

 

[anndryperez]

@glencoco Thanks!

We are planning to see if we can put him for a few weeks in a maternelle in France when we go to visit my mother. It should be fun and a good way for him to talk to other kids in French. That'll be in a year or so.

 

[glencoco]

@anndryperez Did it was well, it was nice but the effect dropped very quickly, nothing will replace constant speaking in the language.

I have read some study about multilingual and the priority for them to acquire the phoneme of that language and keep hearing and speaking those. Then it allows them to learn the speak like a native even years later.

 

[anndryperez]

@glencoco Oh do you have a link to those studies? It does make sense intuitively since pronunciation and hearing are two things that degrade quickly past early childhood.

Anecdotally though, I lived in UK when I was 10 in an English family for 6 months and when I came back to France, I had a nice RP accent (even my French was accented) but I quickly lost that accent and now I sound a combination of French and German when speaking English.

 

[glencoco]

@anndryperez Frankly that was 5 years ago when my daughter was the same age as your boy, so no way I could remember those exact articles

Google is my friend

 

[aldredian]

@anndryperez Where do you guys live and what's the community language? For a pre-nursery to have 20% Mandarin, 40% English, 40% Cantonese....Hong Kong?

I think it will be helpful if you can tell us what the community language is and what would the language of instruction be once your child is at school. Then it'll be easier to know whether to worry or not. As in, if community language is English, then need to do something to up exposure of the other language. If community language is Cantonese, then focus should really be on French etc.

I will say, based on what you've said here, remind them to speak in your respective languages.

So for example, I speak Mandarin to my son in an English speaking country. My son when she started daycare will latest out whether he could get away with speaking to me in English. And then I'll say, "Why are you speaking to me in English?" And then he'll switch back.

So like, I would say acknowledge what he said in your target language. And then ask him if he could repeat what you've said. If he does, great. If not, don't push it. I would also do a gentle reminder like, "Hey. Remember, speak in daddy's language/French when speaking to daddy."

This article might help.

https://chalkacademy.com/encourage-minority-language-trilingual-family/

And this article is good form tips in upping exposure for the non-primary caregiver passing on a minority language.

https://bilingualmonkeys.com/how-many-hours-per-week-is-your-child-exposed-to-the-minority-language/

Regardless, you guys are doing great.

 

[anndryperez]

@aldredian Yup, we're in Hong Kong. Once our son goes to kindergarten, he'll be doing 50% English and 50% Mandarin (we hesitated between local schools and international school primarily because we would have wanted more exposure to Cantonese but, in the end, we decided on a montessori school).

Even though the community language is Cantonese. At least here in our building, children tend to use English and Mandarin with each other more than Cantonese. This is partly due to the fact that quite a few people living here come from Mainland China but also from parents being "pragmatic" and thinking that Mandarin and English are more important for their child's future.

Thanks for the links.

 

[aldredian]

@anndryperez In that case, I'd ignore Mandarin and English and focus on French and Cantonese. Particularly Cantonese. Mandarin and English sounds like will take care of itself eventually.

It is a sad state of affairs that parents keep thinking "Mandarin is more useful" and all these different Chinese languages are slowly dying off.

My parents had the same view, mostly because of KMT propaganda while they were growing up and never passed on Hokkien to us. I feel like there's a part of myself I do not understand fully because of the loss of a heritage language.

 

[anndryperez]

@aldredian Yes, it's a very sad state of affair. It happens everywhere I'm afraid. I'm French but my great grand parents spoke Picard (chti'mi), my grand parents spoke Picard with each other but French with my mother and when in public. My mother sort of understands Picard but doesn't speak it, I do not speak it nor understand it and that language has almost fully died out in that region.

It's sad because it's a part of one's cultural heritage that's lost. I used to live in Malaysia and I've also seen that happen with Hokkien and Teo Chew. Younger children mostly speak Mandarin.

We are so concerned about our son learning Cantonese because it's the language of the grand parents but also because there's such a rich history behind it. A lot of old Tang Dynasty poems rhyme better in Cantonese and Hokkien than in Mandarin for example.