Raising child trilingual (OPOL) when parents don’t speak each others language

[pollyton]

We are a binational couple (Dutch, Israeli) currently living in the US. Before our child was born we planned to raise him with all languages - Dutch from me, Hebrew from Dad and English is the language between us and also the community language.

While it sounded good in theory, practice revealed many challenges. A main one being that neither of us understands the other one’s native language beyond some basics. We understand quite a few isolated words or expressions, but even simple children’s books for toddlers are usually too complicated. As a result, the parenting experience with the OPOL approach has been very isolating with essentially two people parenting their child in their own language in one household. Our son is 1.5 and does not yet attend daycare. So there is no “natural separation” between languages.

Unlike many academic studies suggest, I also do find that our son gets confused by me pointing to something in Dutch and then my husband naming the very same thing or picture in a book with a different word. In one incident my son told my husband proudly the name of something in Dutch and when my husband insisted on the word in a different language, he completely stopped mentioning the word or interacting with that book page again. Even when I would ask him “What is this?” he would no longer answer and refuse to speak about it for many weeks.

Are these normal stages of multilingual children? And how do other parents deal with there being no “common” family life where everybody talks and plays with each other? Or at least understands what is being said? Instead of two parents competing over the child’s attention to educate it in their native languages?

Even family moments like “bring this to your mom/dad” can’t really happen when the other person doesn’t understand what is going on at the moment.

 

[kevin184]

@pollyton I don’t have too much to add but I’ve heard that people on similar situations will often say something to the child in their language, then repeat it again for the parents in the language you use for each other. So you would say something in Dutch while looking at your child and then repeat it to your husband in English. It’s cumbersome but we are aiming for trilingualism here, it’s a lofty goal.

I would also add that you should try and be more encouraging when your child speaks Dutch to the Israeli parent or vice versa. It sounds like your son felt your husband was telling him off for using the Dutch word. Instead when your child says something in Dutch, your husband can encouragingly say “Yes!” Followed by the Hebrew word for the same thing.

Lastly, is it possible you and your husband could learn a little of each other’s languages? Even just a bit of Duolingo for fun would help you pick up on the main themes of what the other parent is saying so it’s less isolating for you both.

 

[aldredian]

@pollyton

In one incident my son told my husband proudly the name of something in Dutch and when my husband insisted on the word in a different language, he completely stopped mentioning the word or interacting with that book page again.

Do NOT do this. The aim is to encourage your child to speak. Your husband basically destroyed his confidence right there.

What my husband and I do (and no, my husband doesn't understand my language - initially anyway) is if he says something in one language that's not ours, we say, "Yes! That's xxx." but in our language.

This way, you are acknowledging what he said and letting him know that he said the right thing but then you're also reinforcing the language you speak.

Of course he's "confused". Because your husband kept correcting him so now he has no idea what's right, what's wrong.

What I have been doing with my husband not understanding is I translate once I'm done speaking to my son.

What my husband has been doing is listen very intently what I'm saying then asking me questions so over the years (son's 4 now), my husband has picked up on a lot of Mandarin. These days, I actually don't have to translate as much.

Bridge the gap between the 2 of you using English. Both of you try and learn eachother's language on the side.

DEFINITELY stop correcting your son when he's saying the right thing. Acknowledge it but just in your language.

Also, can you elaborate on your point around competing for time? It's a concerning choice of words ....

 

[simancia]

@aldredian The "yes and" approach...

Yes you are right!! It's a gitab in hindi. It is also called a book. Or w/e

My inlaws are driving me a bit crazy. They think by saying the word LOUDER and faster the kid will understand. He's 18 mos.

 

[pollyton]

@aldredian Yes, I told my husband afterwards that he should not do this and “correct” our child. And he hasn’t done it since.

But I wonder even in daily situations how to not give the impression of something being wrong. I think your tips helped me to see how it could be done.

The competing for time or rather attention was maybe overstated but is coming from my (occasional) impression in daily interactions. Essentially if you have no common language it will be either you or your partner talking to the child. And while one parent speaks or has an interaction with the child the other will be on the sideline and just waiting for “his/her turn” with nobody to talk or interact. Does that make sense? Another example would be me trying to calm our child down and my husband jumping in and trying the same (essentially acting like me), but in his language.

 

[aldredian]

@pollyton

And while one parent speaks or has an interaction with the child the other will be on the sideline and just waiting for “his/her turn” with nobody to talk or interact.

But I mean, that's how conversation works, right? Even if you're speaking the same language, you wouldn't talk over your partner or your child. You have to wait for your turn anyway?

What happens with us here is I will talk with my son. Like I said, my husband listens very closely. That's how he is slowly picking up Mandarin on the side. He takes an interest in what we're saying.

What I will do is, every so often as I'm speaking to my son, I translate for my husband in English.

Because of these 2 things, my husband can largely jump in.

BUT, our common shared language is English and he only speaks English.

So probably, for your big moments like discipline or calming, you guys need to switch to English. OR, you guys have to be conscious of each other and translate for each other as you go.

 

[gixxer750]

@pollyton I completely understand this comment and feel it every day. We are a trilingual OPOL household with a 2 year old. My husband speaks my minority language but I don't speak his, and my child goes to a daycare that is bilingual with my husband's minority language and my country's majority language. We also live near my husband's family and they speak my husband's minority language there as well. I feel like my whole life is waiting on the sidelines for a turn to speak. I have picked up a lot of my husband's minority language and can sometimes follow the conversation but not always. Our approach has been very effective for our child as he has learned both languages. But the waiting on the sidelines thing sucks and it sometimes makes family dynamics frustrating for me. That being said, I'm happy my child is trilingual and consider this the unfortunate cost.

 

[rolandh]

@pollyton When my daughter was your son's age, she mixed both languages up alot. My husband doesn't speak my language, but started picking up words and my daughter learned. We both stick to our language, even when we both are there. You each can translate to each other in English to reduce confusion when it's necessary. At about 2+ my daughter could different pretty well between the language. At 2,5 she started to translate and tell the same thing in both languages with ease.

 

[pollyton]

@rolandh Did you speak your husband’s language or was English also the only common language between you?

 

[rolandh]

@pollyton Our common language ist my husbands language. But I still speak my language to my daughter, even if my husband is there. Sometimes I translate to him what I said.

 

[barsomo]

@pollyton My kids are being raised with 4 languages and we don’t have a family language that everyone speaks together. I’m Finnish, my husband is Brazilian, we live in French speaking Canada and us parents speak English between us. We didn’t know each other’s languages at all in the beginning but now, after doing OPOL for 5+ years with two kids, I can fully understand and even speak Portuguese and my husband can understand Finnish although he can’t speak it to the same extent. We didn’t go through any of the struggles that you are mentioning, which is why I’m going to share some of the things that made a difference for us. I can’t prove that because we did those things we didn’t have your struggles but maybe it’ll be interesting to you anyways:

• Positive reinforcement instead of having a battle between the languages. As others have mentioned here before, it’s a good idea to always acknowledge any word that the child says even in the other person’s language and add the equivalent in your language after (“Water? Yes! Agua!”)
• Always talking and playing together even if we speak different languages. It’s important to make the other person translate things from the very beginning so you can learn at the same pace as your child in case you don’t understand what the other parent is saying. Many people think that this will mean lots of translating which will only increase over time, but we’ve found the opposite to be true. Once you have a solid foundation in understanding your partner’s language (and vice versa), you will be able to build more complex concepts on top of that independently. Also, you shouldn’t feel like you need to take turns to interact with your child (which would indeed create a strange dynamic) but rather speak to your child in your language and your husband in English. It might feel weird at first but it doesn’t have to.
• Finding synergies instead of division. Although we don’t speak the same language as a family, we sing, listen to and play music a lot in our languages. While we only ever speak our own languages to our children, we always sing together in all our languages. Not only does it strengthen our connection as a family, but music is an excellent way of learning languages.
• Having a growth mindset and motivation/an interest in your partner’s language. It can be a big ask when you are juggling so many things already but it helps a lot. You need to get into a habit of asking the other person to explain something you didn’t understand or researching it on your own. It might sound like a lot of work and might not be a good fit for everyone’s situation at all times, but it’s the only way to learn. Your child is going through the same process as well with all the languages they are learning.

When you say that you don’t know each other’s languages beyond the basics, that’s the perfect scenario! The kind of language that you are both exposing to your child right now IS the basics. You don’t need to understand children’s books in each other’s languages, it’s beside the point. Focus on the stuff that your child is learning in the “other” language and you will always understand what’s going on and learn with them. You are doing a great job!

Feel free to DM me if you want to talk more about this.

 

[maxinetwells]

@pollyton Maybe Dutch and Hebrew is more complicated, but with our languages, we are simply picking up the language at around the same pace as the child. Even if we don't recognize words, we will understand out of context. If my husband says something to our child I have no clue about, I will ask. We don't have any confusion with language yet, but we also don't really have many words either. Our child understands both our languages and also the community language in daycare, and seems to understand some of the English between me and my husband as well, although that wasn't part of the plan. We enjoy our crazy mix of languages and it works for us.

 

[pollyton]

@maxinetwells Thank you for your response. What do you mean by not having many words? How old is your child? It is growing up with 4 languages?
We also noticed our son picking up English as language between us more and more.

 

[maxinetwells]

@pollyton Our child is 20 months and most of the “words” are animal sounds currently, which are fairly international, and easy to go “yes, it’s a dog!” in our own language, so the correcting confusion wouldn’t really happen.

We are aiming for three languages, so my husband will try to learn the community language so we can phase out English between us.

 

[jprice63]

@pollyton In the long term, you will have the most success passing on Dutch and Hebrew if you avoid lapsing into the community language as much as you can, since the community language will almost certainly become the child's strongest language with the potential to crowd out all the other languages. So maximizing the use of the two minority languages will feel like an effort, and at this stage this effort has the understandable unpleasant effect of making the parenting seem disjointed and alienating. Your example of "bring this to mom/dad" illustrates your difficulty well and I just want to validate that that's a tough thing to be feeling all day long as you parent together.

As the other commenters said, would using Duolingo to improve your grasp of each other's language be something that you two would be open to? Even without it, you will keep improving at least at the same pace as your child if not faster, because each of you, after all, already have a well-developed theory of language, something your child is still trying to learn alongside learning both of your languages.

Perhaps another thing to keep in mind is that, as adults, we often have lost touch with the experience of being novices, so for many of us, any time we are plunged into a situation where we feel like newbies at something, that understandably feels grating and unpleasant. But! We all know that we all experience the most growth from learning new and challenging things, so I wonder if you'd find it a motivating idea to think that you are strengthening your brains, future-proofing them against the kind of cognitive decline we all have somewhere on the horizon as we age, by continuing the immerse yourself into the challenge of learning your spouse's language alongside your child.

 

[pollyton]

@jprice63 I did an introductory course in Hebrew and also Duolingo. But the Duolingo was not really helpful because in Hebrew the vowels aren’t written. And many lessons/words are without sound (and all without additional signs indicating the vowels). So while I might learn how certain words are written, I will have no idea about how that word or sentence sounds like.

Think of a word like “composition”: In Hebrew it would be written cmpstn. How would you ever know how to speak it? And what the word actually sounds like? It becomes an exercise of memorizing clusters of consonants.

But I am trying to make efforts to learn more in other ways and will maybe also take another course.

 

[kevin184]

@pollyton What helped me is to realize that it IS a struggle for you to learn your partner’s language, but it’s also a struggle you’re asking your child to take on. So when you listen to your partner speak and try and pick up on what they’re saying, it’s helpful to realize your child has to do the same thing and knowing that can give you empathy and determination to push through.

My husband speaks Spanish and I’ve been trying to learn from him and other sources as much as I can, in the hopes of maybe even making it our home language. I speak my own native language to our daughter, but Spanish is so much more useful and we don’t live near any other Spanish speakers. I know she’ll pick up the community language (English) easily outside the house.

Whenever it’s hard I remind myself that it’s hard for my daughter too, and by pushing through and trying I am teaching her to do the same. Maybe that same mindset will help you as well.

 

[jprice63]

@pollyton Ah yes, now that you say that, I'm aware of that being the case with Semitic languages. That does make learning tough! I mean, what can I say, only you guys can figure out if this is the sort of struggle that's worthwhile for you. The alienation you speak of is certainly real, and for many people, it's reason enough to use the shared community language more -- which is a legitimate choice for many families, and maybe for yours as well. It does almost guarantee that English will not only be the child's primary language but will be one sooner than you might hope, but that might be fine if a feeling of family togetherness is as compromised otherwise as you say it is. This sub is a group with a very particular slant and set of biases so of course we'll cheer from the sidelines for you guys to power through the tough parts, but only you can decide if that's worth it. Good luck

 

[knowledgeisnotignorant]

@pollyton We're in a pretty similar situation (Mandarin + Russian so also two VERY different languages, English is the community language). Our son is 22mo so similar age to yours as well.

I'm a bit baffled by what you mean by competing over the child's attention. Maybe your son is just more advanced in speech than ours so there's more of a communication barrier?

We've been doing strict OPOL since birth and it hasn't felt like a competition at all. It just is parts of our family dynamic now. I speak Mandarin to kiddo and English to him. He speaks Russian to kiddo and English to me. My husband will sometimes use Mandarin words/phrases he picked up from me/kiddo and vice versa. The basics of communicating to toddlers has been pretty easy to pick up given contextual cues, especially as a lot of it is repetitive sentences/phrases ("We're gonna wash our hands now." "Let's eat"). I say this as a person without any talent for learning languages. I did Duolingo classes for Russian and it is ridiculously hard. I do think I'm gonna have to learn some more Russian once kiddo gets older and communication gets more complex.

One thing that may or may not help: we don't "double up". For instance, if my husband is playing with our son and is teaching him "This is a tree" in Russian, I don't run over and say "This is a tree" in Mandarin. As a result he has a slightly different set of vocabulary in the two languages. That's okay. Plenty of times when he speaks to me he'll use a Russian word because he learned it in Russian first; I'd just smile and say "Yes this is X" in Mandarin. The challenge is sometimes I don't know what he is saying, and I'll just ask my husband. Sometimes none of us know what he means. This is common for even monolingual kids at this age (jargon is the technical term).

 

[katydid07]

@pollyton I think you guys are trying to hard to guide the child.

What I did with mine is I spoke one language (only) in front of my child. My partner spoke the other language (only) in front of the child. Then we only spoke our mutual language when the child wasn’t around.

If you speak one, your partner speaks the other. It should work. But never try to specifically impose both engaging with the child. Trying to teach multiple versions of the same word at the same exact moment is chaos for the kid. However, you two can teach the same word in different languages at separate times.

My daughter can easily say all the words she knows in our different languages when engaging with each of us.

As for English, they will learn that from exposure at school and when playing. No need to go out of your way to speak it, if your goal is to push the other two languages to fluency.