Some advice on how best to raise a child with 2, possibly 3, languages

[greydot]

I'm hoping for some advice on how to raise our child with 2/3 languages, in the following circumstances.

My partner and I are both from country X and speak language X with each other and our extended families.

We currently live in country Y, where we may or may not stay for the long term. We don't speak language Y. We will likely send our child at least to childcare here at some point, and possibly school.

I'm also fluent in English (my partner slightly less so). It's important to me that our kid is fluent in English, and I'm not keen to leave that entirely up to the education system in Y (although it is a great system).

My rough idea is for me to speak English to our kid, my partner to speak X, and for us to speak X to each other. We would leave Y to local childcare, school.

I feel a bit odd with the idea of speaking English at home, when we generally speak X to each other. Do I answer in X to my partner and in the same breath speak English to our kid? I also wonder if it'd be a good idea to seek out an English childcare (or 50/50 childcare) to reinforce some English outside of home? Does anyone have any thoughts or ideas on how to proceed?

Thanks a lot!

 

[darya24]

@greydot I personally strongly believe in speaking your maternal language to your child, language X in your example. Language Y will be attained through daycare/school but will need to be maintained with effort should you move. After school or special school vehicles. English, honestly don’t worry about it at this young stage. It’s much more important to be educated with a high level of English at the middle school onward and that will not necessarily be influenced by their exposure as a little kid. Since, little kids forget their early languages if they change environments. If you speak English and later put your kid into a comprehensive English education then the language will better service them as an adult. Which is why I assume, you want them to speak it. But as for language X and Y it will be a clear separation between inside/outside languages.

 

[greydot]

@darya24 Thanks a lot for the advice!

English is not “far” from my native language. My family immigrated to an English speaking country when I was young, and I’m much more confident in English than in my mother tongue. It nevertheless wouldn’t be my instinct to speak English to my child, especially when not speaking it to my partner.

It is also the case that X is spoken by very few people, so there’s no chance my child would attain it outside of both of us speaking it. Children in our community who are born outside of country X tend to understand when spoken to in X, but often reply in the local language, and that’s also not something I’m very keen on.

It just seems a waste to me, given my own level of English, and the relative global uselessness of both X and Y, to not be teaching my child English as a primary language. Which is where this whole issue comes from.

 

[md15668]

@greydot What is the status of English in the country that you live in now? If children typically learn English well in school or during their free time, I would definitely focus on speaking only X with your child because it is spoken by few people and your child would need as much exposure to it as possible to actually learn it well. If few children end up learning to speak English well in the country you live in, the choice is a bit tougher. Because of your very strong skills in English, you could speak English with your child, but language X would suffer. Maybe you can try to get outside exposure to English instead, in the form of for example immersion programs, babysitters, or play groups?

 

[greydot]

@md15668 We’re one of these Northern European countries where tourists are so amazed and happy that everyone speaks English. I think the education system does a really a good job at getting the majority to a decent standard. I’m not really sure what the written level is like, although judging by emails I’ve received in various contexts it is definitely short of native. I’d want to be doing quite a bit more than the regular school system, like maybe multilingual daycare.

 

[md15668]

@greydot I am a native Swedish speaker, my husband is a native English speaker and we live in Finland, so I am quite familiar with this kind of situation. In many cities and some villages, you can send your child to either fully English language daycare and school or bilingual immersion programs. In some cases it's also possible to send your child to school in one language, but have them go to an after school program in another (we did school in Swedish but Finnish-German immersion after school program). Some cities also offer extra education in languages that are either the child's native language or a language that they have learned elsewhere (our children have taken part in English for native speakers classes, but many other languages are offered as well). There are also English language clubs after school and during school holidays. If any of these possibilities are not enough, you can also homeschool English as a school subject during evenings and weekends. We've been using Easy peasy all-in-one homeschool to teach English reading and language arts. My point is that in the Nordic countries, there are plenty of English learning opportunities in addition to school, so you should be able to speak language X at home only and still end up with a child that is very proficient in English as well.

Edited to add: The child can also start out in a language Y school, but go to high school in English. That's what I did.

 

[greydot]

@md15668 Thanks a lot for the detailed reply! That has given me quite a lot of great options to look into!

 

[darya24]

@greydot If it’s not your instinct to speak English then I would go with language x. Language as a role in bonding with your kids is about more than usefulness or uselessness. It’s about history, culture, a richness beyond something that they will acquire later anyway through their education. You’re not teaching a language as much as being with them in a language. Because we tend to use the same 3k words when taking to kids anyway. We’re not discussing Shakespeare or legal debates. It’s pretty simple. Any English they would learn is better and more robustly transferred in school. Because as I’m sure you’ve observed, people speak English as a native language and don’t necessarily sound particularly capable or educated when they do so. Your level of English will help your kid so much when they are in school, doing writing composition, expressing themselves etc.

It sounds like you feel a bit self conscious about the minority status of language x in terms of number of speakers. Which is a somewhat common experience when anyone is teaching their kids a minority language. You need to feel confident in it first to show your kids there is nothing to be ashamed of. Language diversity is a wonderful thing and language x is shared by you and your partner and your families, why keep your kid excluded from that? Because English is more useful? Not to a five year old.

I wish you the best of luck. Feel confident in whatever you choose.

 

[greydot]

@darya24 Thanks again. I’m definitely not down about our minority status. We’re educated and well-employed as compared to the stereotypes people have about our country. I always go out of my way to identify with country X publicly, rather than blend in as a native English speaker and have never faced any sort of prejudice as a result (though of course I’m relying there on other privileges!)

It really is more that I remember the initial effort of learning English, and I know that we’re very unlikely to ever be back in country X outside of visiting family, so I want to make things easier.

I think you’re right though about the emotion, culture, history etc behind a language. I’m better off focusing on multilingual childcare and schooling.

 

[merriesthouse]

@greydot I agree with all the points from the other commenters, but just to address your issue of “wouldn’t be my instinct to speak English to my child, especially when not speaking it to my partner”:

I’m married to a man who is a native Japanese speaker with pretty weak English skills. He’s been working on it, especially since our daughter was born, but any “real” adult conversation needs to be done in Japanese. So up until we had kids I was virtually always speaking Japanese at home with him even though I’m a native English speaker and I’d still consider my English to be better than my Japanese.

When our daughter was born, it was actually hard for me to make the switch to speaking English to her right away. My brain was so used to speaking Japanese at home and I was sooo rusty at speaking “childish” native English that the first few months felt very stilted and unnatural, to be perfectly honest. It helped that I was calling home almost daily to my parents and I could listen to them baby-talk to my daughter and relearn natural phrases.

Now there’s no issues and I seamlessly switch back and forth from English when talking to my daughter to Japanese when talking with my husband. But don’t feel like you’re “broken” if you do decide to speak a language with your baby and it doesn’t feel totally natural at first.

 

[greydot]

@merriesthouse Thanks a lot for your thoughts! It's a bit of a weird situation for us as well. We've both separately been living outside our home country for a long time, him for 10+ years and me for 25+ years. In that time we've both spoken mostly English, socially and at work. My English is much stronger than our native language and my work is much more communication-driven than his; for him our native language is perhaps a little stronger. I switch fairly often when I don't want to pause to think of words, and I especially lack phrasing for having an adult relationship in our native language since I've rarely spoken it outside of home with my parents.

At the same time, it is my mother tongue; I started learning English at 10 years old and I feel as if my throat is still shaped to speak my native language with slightly less effort and it sounds more natural in my ears (although no one else would ever hear that). I'd feel embarrassed to speak to my parents in English, and--as I said in the original post--it would feel a little odd to speak it to my kid. Put it the other way, if I had an English partner, I would be doing my best to teach our child my native language no question.

I'd almost feel more at ease if I just said everything twice: once in our native language and once in English. Probably not massively practical though, and maybe more confusing for the kid?

 

[merriesthouse]

@greydot It sounds like you want to bond with your child in your native language so I’d make that your priority! That’s how I felt as well but I have the added pressure of being the only solid source of English for my kids since school-taught English in Japan leaves a lot to be desired.

Personally, I think the other commenters have given you solid advice to just speak in your native language to your kids and I second that idea. I don’t think it would make sense to double-speak every phrase you utter in two languages - that’s not very natural, is it? If you want to introduce a specific time/setting to practice English that might be more practical instead.