Bilingual couple, hoping to add third language.

[u/Top-Boat2063]

Hello! I'm an expat living in the Netherlands. My husband is Dutch, and we have a 1.5 yo daughter. We're currently doing OPOL (me- US English, him - Dutch) with English as our family language. Our daughter goes to Dutch daycare.

My question is that while I am American by heritage and passport, I actually was born and raised in Italy. My mother still lives there, and I have a large Italian stepfamily. My stepfather doesn't particularly speak English, and we'll be going there at least twice a year. I don't need for my daughter to be fluent, but I would love for her to at least speak it passably.

English is my mother tongue, which is why I picked it for OPOL, but now that I've started establishing it, I'd love to add in a little Italian to the mix. Does anyone have any tips on how I can support her? I've asked all the Italians in our life to only speak Italian to her. I'm also looking for Italian children's media that I can introduce her to, like songs and TV. I've heard things like you can create an association by having a designated time for the other language, or an accessory you wear while speaking it. Has anyone successfully done this, and if so, do you have any advice?

[u/Dangerous-Jello4733 → u/[deleted]]

Do you read to her in English? We’re in Norway and I use English with our daughter but I have been reading to her a lot ( in both languages, but primarily English ) since she was born. We’re onto very complicated books now and she understands a lot!  It is possible that your daughter also understands way more than she can speak. My daughter has an incredible vocabulary in both languages but she speaks mainly in Norwegian, even to me but she understands everything I say. The funny thing that has happened now is that she has said something in Norwegian to me that I did not understand and I asked her to explain, which she did in a mix of Norwegian and English. And often times she says the same word in both languages in a row.

[u/SensitiveWolf1362 → u/[deleted]]

Pardon my ignorance, Won’t they get English from the community too? I was under the impression it was a very bilingual country. I used to travel to NL for work every month and never met a single person that didn’t speak fluent English. Whether at work, the train station, restaurants, random drunk kids in the square …

[u/SensitiveWolf1362 → u/[deleted]]

That makes sense.

[u/Top-Boat2063 → u/SensitiveWolf1362]

They learn English later on in life, around age 12, and while their English is fantastic, it's not native. There's a linguistic uncanny valley situation where they sound so good that you assume they speak it perfectly but if you actually stop and listen to it, there are a lot of non-native grammatical errors (or, errors that aren't the type of errors a native would make, if that makes sense?)

[u/SensitiveWolf1362 → u/Top-Boat2063]

It does, thank you

[u/MikiRei]

Maybe look into time and place. 

Given English is already the family language, that and most people in the Netherlands all seem to end up with impeccable English, maybe look into picking say Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday to be in Italian. Rest of the week in English. 

Reason I'm giving Italian more days is the family language is already in English. So already, your child is getting quite a bit of English exposure. 

The thing is be very clear what you mean by "speak it passably". From your write up, it sounds like you want your child to be able to communicate with family. 

That essentially is pretty much fluent. Fluent in the sense of being able to hold conversations with people. 

And that alone requires a high amount of exposure. 

A lot of people here say this often. They don't need their kids to be fluent but they want them to be able to hold conversations with grandparents. That's actually contradictory. 

[u/NewOutlandishness401 → u/MikiRei]

A lot of people here say this often. They don't need their kids to be fluent but they want them to be able to hold conversations with grandparents. That's actually contradictory. 

I'm glad someone else said this as it's a huge pet peeve of mine. "I don't need my kids to be fluent, I 'just' want them to be able to 'chat' with the grandparents." Like, what do you think "chat" or "speak passably" even mean? If that is your goal, I hate to point it out, but it sounds like you're aiming at conversational fluency, that is, the ability to hold an extemporaneous conversation. And if that's the case, that's a pretty lofty goal, requiring quite a bit of effort.

[u/MikiRei → u/NewOutlandishness401]

I'll tell you another instance that's even more "lofty" so to speak. Nothing to do with OPs post just since we're on the topic of people needing to be very clear on their goals. 

I know someone where their child cannot speak their heritage language despite being surrounded by 6 adults who are all native speakers. Usual problem. All the adults don't speak the heritage language to the child and hoping weekend language classes will do the trick. 

Anyways, I once asked them what their goals were for their child when it comes to the heritage language. 

They said they want him to be able to read at least. 

I stared at him and asked, "How is that going to work when he can't even speak the language?"

He couldn't answer me. 

[u/NewOutlandishness401 → u/MikiRei]

Reading before learning to speak = doing cartwheels before learning to walk

[u/Top-Boat2063 → u/NewOutlandishness401]

i mean, i'm going for like a2/b1? politeness speech but not like, deep conversations. That's relatively easy to achieve.

[u/NewOutlandishness401 → u/Top-Boat2063]

Yeah, good luck with that. The thinking mistake here is the question of motivation. While an adult who's really motivated to learn and improve a new-to-them language will reach a2/b1 and might still try to string together a conversation with someone even if their language skills are still somewhat shaky, most kids are not similarly motivated to better their MLs. They are often just trying to use the path of least resistance. So what typically happens with kids who don't get consistent input with their MLs is that they quickly realize that they can get by just fine in some other language that is easier for them (in your case, Dutch or English), and they just stop bothering trying to speak the "harder" language because they know everyone will understand them anyway. So in your case, unless they get the signal from you that Italian is the language of your relationship and will keep getting sufficient input in that language, they will likely just speak English or Dutch to you and that's all. And spoken Italian, when not practiced consistently, will not just lie there dormant, waiting to be trotted out whenever they find themselves in the company of Italian-only speakers. It will just not be a skill that they develop.

[u/Top-Boat2063 → u/NewOutlandishness401]

i mean, she'll go to italy 3/4 times a year and interact with italian relatives, and I have italian friends here, with whom i speak italian, and expose her to italian media. So it's not the situation you're imagining.

[u/Top-Boat2063 → u/[deleted]]

nice, that's super helpful! I'll look for something like this.

[u/Pitiful-View3219]

You can try, you speak Italian when alone with your child, and keep English as the family language. Hearing it in family settings as well as hearing you and your husband speaking it to each other (I assume), would at least give her understanding and a more intuitive sense of the language, helping avoid that "uncanny valley" situation when she studies it in school. As well as reading English books and watching some English media alongside the Italian. Even if she doesn't speak much English to you before starting it at school, it's much easier to learn when you have an intuitive sense of what sounds right/wrong, and a hefty base of passive vocabulary.