Trilingual toddler (not OPOL) - not sure if we're going in the right direction

T

trevallion

New member
Hi! I looked at the trilingual posts here but didn't find anything similar. I'm looking for advice/insight/reassurance...

TLDR: parents - native monolingual Czech + English (fluent, bilingual, not mother tongue), daughter 2.5 y.o. - Czech/English at home, German in daycare, grandparents - Czech, former community language: English, current: German. We don't have strict rules for home languages. Daughter understands both English and Czech well, but strongly prefers Czech for speaking. Is it ok or should we modify our strategy?

The long version:
Both me and my husband are Czech, raised monolingual. We both learned English since kindergarten (school settings), achieved a good level and then proceeded to live in the US for nearly a decade. At this point we're fluent, bilingual in English. Between me and my husband we use the language that is more convenient at the given moment, but I'd say it's currently about 80% Czech, 20% English for as at home. 100% English when around non-Czech people. We now live in Germany and learn German now, but I'm at ~ B1, husband ~A1/A2.

Our daughter (nearly 2.5 y.o.) was born in the USA, but now we don't live there anymore. Her community language was English at 0-18 months, Czech 18-21 months and German 21-29 months/present. She also attends German daycare (started at 2 y o.), so she's exposed there to the language by native speakers for about 25-30 hours a week.

Our extended families (grandparents, aunt's, uncle's, ...) speak pretty much only Czech.

When it's just us with our daughter, we switch between English and Czech based on what feels most natural in the moment. The screen time and books are in the original languages. We use solely Czech when around our families and solely English when around people who don't understand Czech.

We're not sure where will our forever home be, yet. But currently the goal is to teach her Czech, English, and German.

Our daughter is getting better at communication now. She understands pretty much everything in both English and Czech, the last time I counted her active vocabulary, the English one was about 60% of the Czech one. But she definitely has a strong preference for speaking Czech. She's getting to the point where she's starting to use correct declinations and conjugations and uses simple sentences (up to 5-ish words). Her English sentences are a bit simpler and shorter, but some things she does exclusively in English - for example counting. It just feels like she doesn't really want to speak English, as she mostly answers to English in Czech.
I'm not worried about her German. Either it will happen or it won't, but at the level we are with our husband, we can't really do much about it ourselves anyways.

My question is - is this a normal progress? Are we messing things up by switching between the languages at will (sometimes even several times within single conversation)? Should we put more effort into increasing English exposure or just go with the flow? We can't really do OPOL due to our situation with extended families and also the fact that she's already a toddler and is very aware of our language capabilities. What do you think, any advice?

Thanks a lot!
 
@trevallion Join this FB group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/bilingualandmultilingualfamilies/permalink/1654815278360624/

So there's someone posting somewhat similar (not exactly) question and quite a few Germans replied there.

Top comment

"We also live in Germany (🙋‍♂️). English is taught at the schools starting in grades 1-4 depending on the district."

There are a few more posts on that FB group but the consensus is, Germany is in the top 10 countries when it comes to English proficiency and apparently the average Germans speak English at a C1 level. Of course, would be great for some actual Germans to reply but the impression I had when travelling through Germany is most young people have high English proficiency (less so with older Germans).

So I'd say, you can probably carry on with what you're doing right now and just let the German school system handle German and English and focus more on Czech since that has the least amount of exposure.
 
@trevallion We have the exact same 3 languages as you guys and two of my kids are older than your daughter, so I'm happy to try and help!

If I were you guys, I would actually 100 percent stick to Czech if you're currently in Germany and maybe try to use outside resources for English. The German school system, in my opinion, actually does a good job teaching kids English plus English already is considered "cool" among German kids and the passive exposure to English in Germany is high anyways, so Czech is most at risk of getting lost by her of the three languages unless you end up back in the Czech Republic.

You could continue to reinforce her English in other ways- hang out with native English speakers, let her sometimes watch English TV shows, etc, but I'd only really stick more to the Czech as much as humanly possible. I think the more you still stick to English with her, the harder it will get with age in terms of emotional connection (since she knows you guys speak English), so I'd potentially encourage to try and transition more and more to speaking Czech with her. I see from personal experience with Czech friends who have moved elsewhere that this can honestly be a big problem in terms of keeping up specifically with Czech, especially because there are just way less Czech resources in other countries in terms of immersion daycare, finding babysitters and expats, etc.
 
@relle25 This!

English is like the absolute least important right now. It's part of the curriculum of every middle/high school, doesn't matter where you live in Germany. Or Europe, for that matter. The teachers will do their job and English is cool anyway.

Czech on the other hand will be an uphill battle once she gets older. Lay the foundation now at home and get German from the community. She'll need to be fluent by the time she hits first grade.
 
@johnnyhudson Yeah, I see that. And honestly, out of the three, English is also objectively the easiest language to learn. Czech grammar especially is very hard to master even for monolingual kids... Thank you! :)
 
@relle25 Thank you for the reply! I'll stop worrying about her English for now, then. We just don't want to completely drop it because we're not sure, where we'll end up living permanently and while the Czech Republic is not likely, we're not ruling it out completely. And from our personal experience, options of English learning and in-person English immersion are not great there. Just one question - what do you mean by emotional connection? Connection to the Czech language? Or with us?
 
@trevallion Yep, emotional connection in terms of switching out languages! I'll try to explain a bit more: basically, if you would decide, say, when she was 6 years old instead of now to switch over to more or completely to Czech, from an emotional bonding point it will be much harder at that point in your relationship and at her developmental stage as your linguistic communication is a current facet of your relationship. Essentially, the younger the better. I would still honestly really push to phase into mostly using Czech and maybe even gradually drop English- I can tell you that from a ton of personal experience among Czech family and friends who were outside of CZ and having one or both parents use a different language with the kid like English or French that is much easier to obtain internationally, it did have a negative effect on the kids' Czech since Czech is just truly much harder to reinforce if you don't have local resources or aren't going constantly to visit the Czech Republic.

We live in a neighboring country so we do visit CZ all the time and have Czech family visiting us a lot as well, so that's a huge help in having our kids' Czech fluency stay high and also motivation levels- another critical point. If the kids aren't really motivated to speak Czech since they have no Czech-speaking peers or they're not doing fun stuff like seeing movies and theater in Czech and things like that, it honestly can get lost and the kids can become demotivated. I really, honestly would try to not worry about the English too much as if you guys stay basically anywhere in Europe or back to the US the English will be obtained without a big problem.
 
@trevallion Maybe someone who's familiar with the German school system can chime in on how effective their school system is for teaching English. However, at first glance I think an English daycare (if that's an option) may be the simplest solution for you. If it isn't, just to increase your confidence, you could set specific activities (like media) or settings to be strictly English. It doesn't sound like you need to worry about German or Czech, but I'm not an expert.
 
@godmadegorillas Yeah, I'd also be curious to hear from others who know better about how effective German schools are at teaching English. From personal experience, all the German expat friends and friends of friends who live in Berlin tend to speak pretty excellent and nuanced English, so I've always assumed that to be at least somewhat a reflection of their schooling (though it could also be selection bias -- I have no way of knowing for sure). And if that's the case and an English-language daycare is a bother to find, then your kid will likely wind up with pretty decent English by going to school in Germany.

As for your home, I'd keep speaking as much Czech as possible and not bother with OPOL because, unlike with German and English, you and your spouse and your families will be the only exposure your child gets to that language (unless a move back to the Czech Republic is a serious possibility?).
 
@godmadegorillas It's fine. There is absolutely no reason to focus on English, she'll learn that at school soon enough. Source: am German. I reached English fluency learning it at school (only started in grade 7!). OK, I also married a Canadian and half my friends are foreigners, but still. You learn enough to get to a B1/B2 level, at least.

It's way more important for her to be exposed to German, especially if the parents don't speak it well. If the plan is for her to start 1st grade in Germany she has time to learn in daycare and kindergarten, but it's essential that she develops her German language skills BEFORE entering the education system in 1st grade. Otherwise she's basically already behind on day one.
 
@johnnyhudson Is German that challe ging for kids that young to learn? I've never been exposed to German and I'm genuinely curious since I know not all languages are equally easy for kids to learn. My son and some of my friends' kids around that age have learned a new language within 6 months of being in school, so I may have been biased and wrongly assumed that was the norm.
 
@godmadegorillas Of course they'll learn (and many refugee kids go to special classes to get caught up on German first), but the expectation is that a kid that grows up in Germany speaks German well enough to follow the curriculum in 1st grade. That's when they teach reading and writing and if you don't understand what is said you're automatically at a disadvantage. They test every kid around 4/5 to check for any issues requiring early intervention, in my state the children of any immigrants go to a special class every week to help with language development. They really hammer it home that kids need to be able to speak the language.
 
@trevallion I think you should actually be happy with this and put even less effort into teaching her English.

She will never learn Czech living outside of the Czech Republic except through you guys and the grandparents. English is everywhere. English is the global language she will inevitably consume and use through books, television, 99% of online content, learning material in school as soon as she hits 14-15+ I imagine, as well as anywhere she will ever travel. I did not acquire my C2 English level through effort, studying or living in an English speaking country. It honestly just happens because the sheer volume of English material is so incredibly vast that she cannot help but learn English to fluency by the time she's a teenager, especially when you are speaking English somewhat at home and likely have English speaking friends etc.

The same does not go for Czech. I would honestly celebrate the fact that she is learning Czech so well despite you guys communicating in English with her to the degree that you do.

I also live in a country with German as the community language. I speak to my daughter exclusively in my mother tongue and my partner does the same in his. English is the only language we share so we need to speak English 100% between ourselves and my dream is that my daughter will not speak or pay any attention to English at all for the first 10 years of her life. I know she will inevitably pick it up but I plan to limit exposure as much as I possibly can so that she can focus on her other three languages.
 
@robtarc Thanks :) I am really grateful that she's doing well with Czech and you're right, I probably need to stress less about English now. We just don't want to drop it completely because, while unlikely, we can't rule out living in the Czech Republic in the future, and English learning there is still challenging outside of the largest cities.
 
@trevallion I believe the younger generations learn English much easier than we used to when we were growing up. I did not have any English exposure at all until I was 10 years old. Today it is different because their online world is much bigger than we had with our dial up and most of the content is in English.

Also last time I travelled to the Czech Republic and met with a group or 20-30 yo software engineers, not a single one of them had any discernible problem with English.
 
@robtarc I agree that it's better than it used to be. But I also think that a group of software engineers probably speaks at an above average level. :)

I have some young family members, who attend elementary and middle school, and the way they're being taught is not much different from the way it was done 20 years ago. And that's not great. I know that modern language learning can look very different, as I'm learning German from scratch now and all the classes I've taken so far used a completely different (and IMO better) didactic approach.

But yes, English is definitely more available now and with motivation self-styled can fill the gaps left by the school system.
 
@trevallion I live in Germany and can confirm English is taught starting age 2/3 depending on where you live. In 5th grade usually another language is added. From my own school experience I would say the exposure alone isn’t enough to become fully fluent. Many classmates struggled with the basics until Graduation however if you support the classes at home with Reading, TV , speaking I’m sure she’ll be just fine. This goes for the second language as well when kids leave school they’re supposed to reach B2 but if they’re interested and study at home it could really be C1. If you’re really worried you could look into multilingual schools, classes
 
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