What to expect of a bilingual 2-year old?

[newbelieverinchrist]

My partner and I are both fluent in each others mother language, Norwegian and Dutch (my language). Our 2 year old is exposed to the minority language Dutch when we’re at home together (usually only on weekends and 2-3 hours during work days). I guess it’s a OPOL / Minority language at home hybrid, but the majority of her language exposure is still Norwegian.

Lately I’ve been concerned about my daughter’s bilingual progress, but I’m unsure about what to expect at this stage. It’s obvious that she understands both languages perfectly, but she mostly speaks Norwegian when speaking spontaneously. There is of course some code switching and I’d say the Norwegian : Dutch ratio is somewhere around 60:40 or 70:30.

When I’m alone with her or when my parents are visiting she doesn’t seem to switch to Dutch automatically. I had expected that if she says a word in the dominant language multiple times and for example my parents don’t understand her, that she’d try switching languages more readily.

I’m aware that the most important thing for me to do is to maximize exposure to Dutch. I guess I’m just concerned that the language imbalance I’m seeing is a predictor of a “failed” bilingual education. But maybe I’m setting the bar too high for a 2 year old…

 

[lliner]

@newbelieverinchrist Sounds similar to how my five year old was at that age and how my twenty month old is. They both are in Poland, surrounded by Polish and English is only spoken by me.

When visiting my parents in England the youngest uses a mix of Polish and English as she doesn't really understand they're two languages, and my eldest did the same at a similar age.

By around threeish the same eldest grasped it was two different languages and use the correct language consistently.

We don't see it as an issue as my parents are more than capable of learning the Polish words and phrases my youngest uses and answering back IN English

 

[newbelieverinchrist]

@lliner That’s comforting to hear. I try to teach my parents some Norwegian phrases, but it’s hard for me to see when my daughter is blabbering away mostly in Norwegian and my parents obviously don’t understand her.

 

[lliner]

@newbelieverinchrist What I think is important is that my parents don't use Polish with them. They respond in English and my wife or I will frequently repeat what the child says but in English to help the child. When we're in England we don't do OPOL and we stick to 99% English.

We also have my parents read them lots of stories in English and we take them to visit English people with different accents

 

[aldredian]

@newbelieverinchrist Check this article out for more ideas around upping Dutch exposure.

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

Question: Who's the primary caregiver?

By the sounds of things, your child is at daycare full-time? Since when?

I will say, if it's since they're a baby e.g. before they started speaking, this is pretty normal. Because the majority of their exposure is Norwegian.

Another question is, when you're at home and altogether and during weekends, are you switching to Norwegian with your child when your partner is around? Or are you sticking to Dutch 100% of the time no matter who is around?

If you are switching to Norwegian due to being in the presence of others, start sticking to Dutch 100% of the time when talking to your child to up the exposure.

The other idea would be to spend a day at your parent's over the weekend for more exposure. Or find Dutch play dates. Or carve out a morning without your partner so you have 1-on-1 time with your child to have 100% Dutch exposure there.

 

[newbelieverinchrist]

@aldredian I’d say we’re both primary caregivers based on how much time we spend with our daughter. She’s in day care full time. When we’re all together on the weekends we speak Dutch. When alone with her I almost exclusively speak Dutch.

 

[aldredian]

@newbelieverinchrist So is Norwegian spoken at home at all? If you're all speaking Dutch, that means your partner can speak Dutch as well?

If so, I think you should transition to minority language at home then. That is, your entire family just speaks Dutch.

This will be more effective to combat the full-time Norwegian exposure at daycare.

I would also gently remind your child to speak Dutch at home and with family members so she doesn't default to Norwegian.

This might have some good tips: https://chalkacademy.com/encourage-minority-language-trilingual-family/

When my son tries to speak to me in English (community language), I just remind him to speak to me in Mandarin.

Even when he's with his Mandarin playdate, we remind them to stick to Mandarin. So like we were at his friend's place today. And she was saying to her mum she's going to speak English. Her mum says no. She's home. She needs to speak Mandarin. And then I jumped in and said you're already speaking a lot of English at daycare, so speak Mandarin at home or you'll forget it. She asked why and just as I was about to answer she then said, "Oh. I'll end up like daddy if I don't speak Mandarin at home." (Her dad is 2nd gen Chinese and learned Mandarin as an adult) And her mum was like, "Yes. You don't want to end up like daddy."

Kind of mean I guess but it's just reminders at home and gentle reinforcement.

When my son tried to see if he could get away with speaking to me in English, I just looked at him and went, "Why are you speaking to me in English?" And he immediately switched back.

He's mixing more these days and I just repeat what he said but all in Mandarin and I usually ask him, "Can you say that again?" And he'll do it. Sometimes don't even need to do that. I would repeat what he said as a question and then he'll answer back to confirm and this time, using the correct Mandarin term.

It's just a lot of reinforcement and then up the exposure as much as possible. I have noticed he never mixes when speaking with my parents so it's almost like he KNOWS. He knows I understand both languages so he mixes with me but everyone else, he sticks to the one language.

If you and your partner can both speak Dutch, then eliminate Norwegian completely at home.

That's what my parents did. English was banned at home. I was only allowed to speak Mandarin with family members. Helped a lot.

But what helps A TON is playdates. Find your child Dutch playdates. It's the best reinforcement.

 

[tinisha]

@newbelieverinchrist My newly 2yo used to be better at switching when he was younger, but now just seems to assume that others understand him automatically. I'm thinking it's just developmental

 

[adrianemarthe]

@tinisha My 2 yo just uses whatever word is easiest to pronounce! He ALWAYS uses "auto" instead of "car" and "airplane" instead od "vliegtuig". He often doesn't seem to care who it is that he's talking to/which language is being spoken to him.

 

[moevb]

@newbelieverinchrist We kind of have the opposite situation where the minority language (English) that we both speak at home is preferred instead of the community language. Although there are certain words that she prefers from the community language that she uses all the time instead of the equivalent ones in English.

She started attending daycare at 16 months old before it was mostly English exposure. When did your child start? Currently 2 years old and 4 months, so one year in daycare as of now.

 

[tmc1284]

@newbelieverinchrist Language gets explosive between 2-3. Our two year old hardly spoke any French at all, but she’s almost three now and her French vocabulary and usage has increased significantly. She still doesn’t speak French sentences, but she does use the French words for things, occasionally counts in French etc.

 

[relle25]

@newbelieverinchrist That sounds pretty normal for a 2 year old to me- a lot of times the way the kids taken on preferences when they're young is also a bit of a crapshoot. Some multilingual kids will codeswitch and mix languages and have strong preferences at least for long phases and other kids have no problem separating the languages from the get go and speak all of them without issue (I've observed this both with my own kids and working in bilingual schools). But yup, two is still very young and a lot of kids, not even multilingual ones per se, have a big "jump" in linguistic skills around 3 years old.

 

[agadir]

@newbelieverinchrist It depends on the kid. My daughter's friend didn't really distinguish languages until after age 3. My first kid was trilingual at 2, speaking full sentences in all languages, never mixing them up, singing many songs and so on. My second kid will turn 2 in a few months and he says less than 10 words in his two languages. They are totally different speaking wise.

 

[kairete]

@newbelieverinchrist First, a general remark: keep in mind that there is a tremendous amount of individual variation in when children (even "normal," typically-developing ones) hit standard milestones which aren't reflected in simple categorical statements like "your kid should do ____ by 24 months."

What if I said "by 24 months, you should expect your kid to be at least 80 cm tall and have at least 16 teeth"? This is based on some scientific evidence (at least half of typically-developing kids in first-world countries will satisfy this at 24 months). But if your kid is a little shorter than that, or has fewer than 16 visible teeth when they turn 2, your shouldn't automatically think, "maybe I have failed to feed my child well and they are suffering from malnutrition." Well, it's possible they are, but these kinds of things are generally detected by consulting with a medical professional, and by looking at how the child is growing and developing over many months, and considering many factors. Think of cognitive milestones in the same way.

So I would not panic, especially if your kid just turned 2 (there is a big difference, though, between a typical 24-month-old and a typical 34-month-old).

Your situation sounds similar to mine. My daughter, now around 40 months old, is quite talkative but produces 90-95% of her words in the community language, mixed with many words and short phrases in the minority language. For us, neither OPOL nor strict minority-language-at-home was really feasible: very often, we have visitors who are monolingual speakers of the community language (in-laws, friends, babysitters...) and it would not work for me to pretend that I don't speak that language.

Therefore our daughter knows that both parents speak and understands both languages, and although I speak to her in the minority language at least 80% of the time, she speaks back to me mostly in the community language. She knows I understand it and does not have a strong motivation to talk a lot in the minority language.

Here's how it's going for my daughter now:

-She and I have long, fairly complex dialogues in which I speak only the minority language and she responds almost entirely in the community language. It's clear that her comprehension of my language is very good because she replies appropriately to complex questions ("Who gave you that blue toy over there?") and follows my lead when I suggest things while playing ("let's pretend that this is a castle!").

-She sporadically produces words and short phrases in the minority language, often mixed into the middle of long sentences in the community language, or sometimes as stand-alone sentences (examples: "I'm a bunny!", "Wait for me," "I'm falling asleep").

By this point, she has produced at least several hundred of words in her minority language, and has progressed to producing complete sentences with subject and verb (with correct conjugations). But her production is kind of random and sporadic, and she will go through phases of using a certain minority-language word a lot for a few weeks (such as "make" and "moon" and "lake"), then stop using it as it is replaced by a corresponding word in the community language.

-If I ask her directly to say something in my language, she flatly refuses ("I don't want to!"). But if I just keep talking to her in my language, she will gradually mix in more and more words and phrases from the minority language in her responses, often for pretty sophisticated concepts ("behind," "empty," "sticky," "snowman," "walking stick," "next time," etc.).

As a 3-year-old, my daughter's community language is developing well (better than average for her age) while her production in the minority language would be fine for a typical monolingual 24-month-old. If she stays on this track then I think she will probably become fully bilingual but with a strong preference for speaking in one of the languages.

 

[pterinochilus]

@newbelieverinchrist Mine is almost 3 and he's finally starting to sort through his languages and speak the right ones to the right people. The problem we're running into is complexity of expressive speech, which I attribute to the differences in grammatical structures of our respective languages. So if my kid is anything to base your expectations for a 2-year-old, then expect rapid vocabulary acquisition and a lot of garbling and mixed speech. One language gains dominance, but you keep working through it with aggressive practice.

 

[seeker112]

@newbelieverinchrist

”maybe I’m setting the bar too high for a 2 year old.”

I’d say it’s likely this. A 2y.o. is typically just beginning to be really vocal at “longer phrases/full sentence” level anyway. They’re absolute sponges for language though & taking it all in, so the more exposure the better.

Only 2-3hrs a night and weekends sounds like not a lot of exposure time for Dutch, but it’s far better than zero! Going to visit there for a few weeks each year to really immerse in the language/culture would be helpful, if that’s doable. Reading more Dutch books (even if your partner can do so while you’re not there) or asking to work at home a few times a week (if that makes any sense for your job) just to be around more could also help. Maybe consider making Dutch your “at home” language too if it’s not already?

We’re also kind of OPOL/Hybrid since we speak English together and I speak the minority language decently too so we use it at home a lot. From age 2-3 we saw a lot of growth in complexity in both languages, and just past 3 our kiddo is capable of having full imaginative conversations in both, and just started preschool in a 3rd that mama speaks - they’re currently having a conversation in that language as I type.

Kiddo still mostly speaks the minority language with everyone though, so we often have to explain that “grandma/grandpa/aunts/uncles/cousins/neighbors/that lady at the grocery store only speak English.” Their confusion doesn’t seem to register as kiddo keeps babbling about whatever topic.

 

[jacobwestroswellnm]

@newbelieverinchrist My 3 year old has English +Dutch at home with French at preschool. She prefers English over anything but has always understood Dutch. She only started to talk more Dutch in the last couple of months (after turning 3) and is now starting to understand the difference when she talks to us (daddy says tree but mama says boom and teacher name says arbre and I can say tree, boom and arbre)
For us it helped to do most screentime in Dutch and have Dutch background music but she is still figuring it out and mixes languages which seems to be very normal if I compare her to her friends (most are bi/trilingual)

 

[ispain]

@newbelieverinchrist It seems quite young to conclude anything just yet. Also some children are more comfortable then others using words they are less at ease with. Nevertheless I would simply continue she seems far too young to conclude anything yet. Besides you said it yourself she understands everything. The rest will follow.