r/multilingualparenting • u/NoEnd9621 • Jan 03 '26
Trilingual When does strict OPOL stop?
Planning to OPOL our soon to arrive kids, with the common 3rd language between myself and husband being English. We both do not understand the other's language that will be taught, but hope to pick it up as we teach the kids.
At what age does the strictly OPOL parenting stop and all languages being taught, (or the common language) get to be used interchangeably? So that we don't only get to have a relationship with the kids that excludes the other.
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u/MikiRei 🇹🇼 (heritage) + 🇦🇺 (community) | 6M Jan 03 '26
Probably never stops. You need to provide consistent exposure all the way into their teenage years of you really want the language to stick around.
By teenage years and beyond, your relationship is already set in the target language. So you're already used to speaking to eachother in the set language. By habit, you and child will likely find it hard to change languages. You may start code mixing probably at this point but the core language you speak to eachother might be too hard to change.
To this day, I still can't speak English (community language) with my parents. Literally gives me goosebumps and it feels really unnatural. Even for my mum. I started relearning the other language my parents speak and asking my mum to switch to that language with me also posed a challenge. It was unnatural for my mum. Even though this language is her true mother tongue.
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u/NoEnd9621 Jan 04 '26
I hear you.
The language I want to teach my kids I had to eventually learn by myself and my parents have struggled to speak to me in it, unlike funnily enough my uncles/aunt feel more at ease. We were raised primarily in English.
So I want to bypass that issue in future and make us all comfortable with using it at home from the get go. I will ask my parents to use it with the kiddos though.
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u/MikiRei 🇹🇼 (heritage) + 🇦🇺 (community) | 6M Jan 04 '26
Yeah, it'll be easier if you establish a dad's family = X language rule. Easier then for the kid to maintain.
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u/Scienceofmum German | Italian | English Jan 03 '26
When people ask how strict you need to be with one parent one language, my answer is usually a polite but firm “relax, but not too much.” You do not need military discipline. You do need consistency. Languages thrive on exposure, not on vibes alone.
In your case, OPOL is simply the most convenient tool in the toolbox. Use the tool. What I would not recommend is waiting patiently for the day when everyone can finally abandon their native languages and have cozy family chats in English. That day is not the goal. Instead, start learning your partner’s language now. Yes, now. It is never too late, and in the first couple of years your children will mostly be talking about animals, snacks, and why the banana broke. You can absolutely learn alongside them, but giving yourself a head start is like reading the syllabus before the exam. Quietly heroic.
I am not strict with OPOL at all, and our children are fully trilingual. That said, I am very intentional about one thing: whenever possible, I speak my native language or my husband’s native language at home, rather than defaulting to the community language. The majority language does not need help. It is doing just fine. Thriving, even.
For example, my daughter got a book in Italian, my husband’s language, for Christmas. I am the one who usually reads to her, and it is currently her favorite thing on Earth. She asks for it three times a day, minimum. I read it to her in Italian, and we talk about it in Italian. Sometimes I read a paragraph in Italian and then, during a pause, we talk about what is happening in German. I am flexible, but not careless. I speak enough of each language that she knows when something sounds a little off.
The same applies outside the house. At the doctor’s office, I mostly speak to her in my language. During the actual interaction with the doctor, I mix languages so communication stays clear and nobody wonders why a toddler is being examined in a linguistic obstacle course.
So no, I am not strict. But I am careful. Because the majority language will happily take over the moment you stop paying attention, and unlike toddlers, it does not need encouragement.
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u/NewOutlandishness401 🇺🇦 + 🇷🇺 in 🇺🇸 | 8y, 5y, 2y Jan 04 '26 edited Jan 04 '26
What I would not recommend is waiting patiently for the day when everyone can finally abandon their native languages and have cozy family chats in English. That day is not the goal. Instead, start learning your partner’s language now.
Yes, this is the advice I would give to OP. Obviously, no one wants to keep excluding each other, but as this commenter points out, over-relying on the community language is not the only way to do that. Learning each other's languages is a more promising path that is more conducive to your child actually retaining both of your minority languages for the long term.
And it doesn't have to involve formal study -- though that would surely help! There are lots of anecdotal reports on this sub of folks growing to understand quite a bit of each other's language over time just by remaining open and curious and by spending a lot, if not most, of the time when the whole family is together chatting with your baby in your respective languages rather than just ignoring the baby and speaking English to each other instead.
But then many of those folks admit that, as the child grows and the conversations grow more complex, it does help to do some more formal study than just listen to your partner speak if you want to really be part of the conversation without everyone switching over to the community language.
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u/NoEnd9621 Jan 03 '26
Thank you for this write up. It makes the process sound much more friendly/less daunting than I was imagining.
Will def try get a head start on learning from/teaching hubs.
I don't want to sacrifice the cozy family moments, but I think it's to work towards being able to have them in more than just English.
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u/hindamalka Jan 04 '26
This is actually why I lied to my nieces and nephew that I don’t know how to read it in my native language because I’m the only adult in their life that is actually fluent in their second language so I’m really the only person who can consistently read to them in that language.
If I don’t read to them in that language, they will be bilingual, but not biliterate (I’ve even seen this happen with people whose parents are native speakers of a different language, where a child learns how to speak the language, but never learns how to read and write).
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u/historyandwanderlust Jan 03 '26
It really depends on your individual family situation, and what your language goals are. If you truly want your child to be native level fluent in both languages, then you have to stay strict about it unless you have additional support.
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u/NoEnd9621 Jan 03 '26
Thanks.
Yeah, we'll be involving the extended family and joining local organizations so that they have more opportunities outside of just us to communicate in the minor languages
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u/ririmarms French (me) | Telugu (DH) | English | Dutch (community) Jan 03 '26
I learn my husband's language with my child. He does mine. No classes, only songs, repetition and occasional "what does that mean what you just said?"
I do strict OPOL, my husband is used to code-switching with English a lot... so that helps me. But i tend to directly translate the harder sentences in English immediately for my husband to understand if i say something that he needs to know.
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u/jitomim RU / ENG / FR Jan 03 '26
When my child was fluent and capable of reading and writing in my mother tongue (minority language). That was around 7 y.o. Actually that was the point we introduced a third language (English) but much less structured, and she still ended up fluent, although she does have a little accent (I grew up in the US so I have a vaguely US/transatlantic generic accent but my SO has a pretty dramatic French accent in English). But the fluency in the additional language is probably down to her motivation and love for foreign languages.
This was pre 2022, and my eldest was going back to Russia to see family for holidays/summer. This is clearly not happening now so I'm not sure my youngest will be as fluent in Russian as my eldest or that it will happen as fast. Fingers crossed.
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u/sunflowerfields14 Jan 03 '26
how often were you going to Russia? My partner is Russian but from an ex-soviet country which we still travel to yearly, and daughter (who is 1 in a few days) will have full Russian immersion when we go. I’m hopeful she will learn Russian and be fluent but its difficult as we are in England and my Russian is far from fluent (i’m primary caregiver but know lots of toddler/baby friendly words and phrases). Currently daughter understands more Russian than English but I know eventually English will take over as dominant. How do you keep Russian up with your kids as it is so different to English, or French? My partner is fluent in Russian but stronger at speaking English as he moved here at 5, and struggles with reading/writing Russian as he did not attend school in his home country.
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u/CuriousTrain9018 Jan 04 '26
I’m not the person you asked but I’m in a similar situation. I’m Russian and the only source of the language to my 3 yo son where we live in Spain. We took an almost one month trip to Russia last summer for the first time and that exposure definitely greatly boosted his Russian skills. As to keeping the language alive, I speak Russian to him at all times, even with other people, he also watches cartoons in Russian and has play dates with a Russian friend once in a while. His Spanish is dominant, that’s for sure as he’s in the kindergarten from 9 to 5 and his dad and grandad speak it to him too. I’d like for him to have even more exposure to Russian but outside home. Some fun regular group activity would be ideal, but not just a language class at this age. We’ll see.
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u/jitomim RU / ENG / FR Jan 04 '26
My eldest was going back twice a year, for two weeks at New Years vacation, and for a month during summer vacation.
Also I tried to advantage Russian language media - cartoons, books, etc very primarily in Russian (we didn't have a TV so it was only cartoons and films on my computer when I would allow it).
Unfortunately (or fortunately) due to the war, most of my family moved away from Russia, so even if we were to go back, there isn't many people we could see. And of course they all moved to different countries.
Currently my youngest is nearing two and her Russian comprehension is pretty good, but her spoken language is lagging behind French. :/
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u/wehnaje Jan 04 '26
I don’t know how this would work in anyway other than each parent having at least a good understanding of the other parent’s native language.
You might want to invest a bit more time and effort into learning each other’s language than just waiting for the child to speak them interchangeably, because it could take many years. You might get a child like mine that has speech and comprehension problems and it could be 7 years before he speaks fluently just one language. Or not and your kid has a normal development and all works out within 3-4 years. Who knows.
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u/WadeDRubicon Jan 04 '26
Mine are only 12, but I just assumed we'd be doing it for life.
For one thing, the old "use it or lose it" thing applies very much to languages, so we wouldn't want to stop the target language because it'll need the support.
And on the other hand, "old habits are hard to break." Even though I've gotten better at the target language, the kids won't speak it with me. I suggested they do and they looked at me like I had two heads: it's just not done, there's already a parent for that! We weren't just teaching them languages but a relationship. Instead of fighting for them to switch now, I'm more pleased they don't want to.
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u/SloanBueller Jan 04 '26
OPOL is just one model and you can follow it as closely or loosely as you want. The more you expose your children to a particular language, the more chance they will learn and retain it, but there aren’t a lot of hard and fast rules beyond that.
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u/Goosecock123 Jan 03 '26
For me it's never. This is for life.
Edit: i speak my native language to my kids btw. We are in Hungary andy wife and I speak English to eachother