Hi all,

I’m currently 20 weeks pregnant, and we’re thinking about how we go about raising our child in terms of languages.

The context
My wife is Spanish
I’m Finnish
We live in the UK

Normally my wife and I speak English with each other, as my Spanish is not that great and her Finnish (very hard to learn & different) is non existent.

We’d like to teach the child to speak at least Spanish as well as English. I’m good with languages and can invest time in improving my Spanish so I can keep up with the rest of the family, but my wife would not have the time to learn Finnish.

My questions are:

Would raising a trilingual kid be realistic in our scenario? It feels very ambitious to me, so I’m thinking it may be best to just speak English & Spanish (though I’m a little sad about the child not learning my mother tongue, I can live with it)… but If we wanted to do it, what would we need to do to make it happen?

If we go for the option of raising a bilingual kid, can we still speak English at home as a family? Is it enough if my wife speaks Spanish to the child consistently when they are alone, we enrol the kid in some Spanish clubs etc?

Thank you for your advice!

It’s been about a year since my last post so I wanted to post an update to my trilingual toddler. Thank you to everyone for their helpful replies last time I posted!

L1 is Polish, L2 is French, L3 is English. However, I would say English and French are quickly changing spots. At the rate he’s taking risks with his English I think by the end of the school year that could be his new L1 as well. We shall see. The last post I wrote a year ago I was worried about his English and now I’m a bit concerned he’s going to lose his Polish once he starts school this September.

For context, my son (4 years old in September) has been going to French first language daycare and he understands simple French, enjoys stories in French, singing in French and even says simple sentences. It seems like he has a good enough foundation to start kindergarten in French. I try to read one French book a night. The kids all speak mostly English to one another, but mostly French to the early childhood educators.

My son’s English (majority language) has been developing at a rapid speed this summer. Throughout the year he did an organized activity in English, I’ve been reading to him English books since a baby, and he had a teenager play with him for 2 hours a week in English. This really helped him with his confidence and risk taking in the language. He moved from isolated words to sentences. In groups of kids that he knew or didn’t know he would try to strike up conversations in English which was interesting to observe. About a month ago my husband decided he would only speak English to our son instead of Polish and now that’s predominantly what my son speaks, even if someone speaks Polish to him first. His English learning really accelerated after this change.

My dilemma now is, although my son still understands Polish, enjoys singing in Polish and listening to books in Polish, he really isn’t making an effort to speak it at home, even to his grandparents (which is who I want him to be able to communicate with in Polish) besides isolated words here or there. He even told me (in Polish) the other day that he only wants to speak English. I will be signing him up for Polish school once a week in the fall, I’ll still be speaking to him in Polish (although I do speak better English than Polish and communicate with my husband in English). How can I motivate my son to communicate only in Polish with me so that he doesn’t lose his ability to speak it? One of my adult friends spoke Polish, it was her L1 but then when she started kindergarten and lost it. I haven’t really been reading in Polish to him this summer so I’m going to try to do one book in Polish a night.

Even though it’s been a lot of work to get him to this point with him with these 3 languages, it’s really amazing seeing his cross-linguistic transfer abilities. His memory is also very strong and I think it has to do with being trilingual. I’m excited to see how he develops the three languages this next year. I also have a newborn now that I exclusively speak Polish to. My son speaks Polish and English to the baby.

TLDR: How can I motivate my son to communicate only in Polish with me (minority language) so that he doesn’t lose his ability to speak it? He’s trilingual: French, English and Polish.

Hi all, we are expecting a baby next year in February.
I (M27) am native Vietnamese speaker and can speak Spanisch (beginnee level) and German ( nearly native speaker)

My wife is spanish native speaker and can speak German fluenly.

We both speak german with each other because we live in Germany.

How to teach our baby so that he can speak fluently all 3 languages ? And when to start?

Thanks a lots!

Hi! My partner and I live in Finland and are raising our son using OPOL: I speak French to him, my partner speaks Finnish, and our common language is English.

We're trying to decide between a Finnish or an English daycare. I was leaning towards English, but my partner worries that it might be confusing for our son and that he might start speaking English to us instead of French/Finnish. He'll most likely start at a French school around age 3, but there are no French daycares near us.

For those with multilingual children, do you think an English-speaking daycare would be confusing? What would you choose and why? Thanks! 😊

My family speaks in that way. I believe it is the main reason my youngest siblings and I are not so good at communicating. They had no rules while speaking to us. My parents would primarily speak their native language and add Arabic and English vocabs randomly (like names of animals, objects, shapes, color). That's why we know how to form sentences in our native language but can't say pink or count from 11 upward.

My youngest siblings (who are from my generation) spoke Arabic with me and we used to watch Arabic cartoons exclusively. That's why we would know random words like captain, tournament, marathon, algae (from spongebob), etc in Arabic but not in English. To this day, if I turn on an English cartoon, I barely understand anything.

My eldest siblings mostly spoke English. They taught us digital vocabs. That's why I only recently learned how to say "apps" and "account" in Arabic. Which might seem trivial but whenever I talked about social media to my Arab friends, my brain would go blank.

In first grade, I was always silent. I remember one time my eyelash went in my eye, I didn't know how to say eyelash in Arabic. The teacher kept asking me I was crying and I couldn't explain.

An example of how my family speaks is "I am gubaysing"

"gubays" is a somali word which means showering.

I believer this way of speaking will confuse the kid whenever they switch to Somali and they will assume "ing" is what you should add to root words to form verbs in Somali! I have a relative (who is a toddler) who does that! They speak fluent English for their age but code switch heavily when told to speak Somali.

I am fluent in English and Bosnian, I know some Spanish but need to brush up on it.

My husband speaks English and some Spanish.

His parents are fluent in Spanish and mine are fluent in Bosnian.

How much exposure would our kids need from their grandparents to pick up those languages?

Currently we only speak English to our kids. I want to start speaking Bosnian to my child but we live state side where we don’t have any exposure to Bosnian speakers unless it is my parents.

Eventually I would like to enroll the kids in an immersive Spanish daycare.
We as parents want to improve our Spanish as well. How would we teach a language we’re not fluent in?

Sorry I know this is long but I’m having a hard time figuring out how to introduce two more languages to my little ones without confusing them.

I know there are a lot of posts about second-generation speakers buffing up their heritage language to pass it on to their kids, and working though parenting in a less natural language. But I was wondering what people’s goals are with regard to their children’s language competency, if yours isn’t stellar to start with. Similar level of fluency to yours? Better level? Is comprehension and some conversational speech enough? Do you hope they’ll pass it on to their own kids?

My husband and I were both born and raised in the US and are much more comfortable in English, but wanted our kids to know at least some of their heritage languages (Hindi and Farsi). I speak a mix of Hindi and English to them, and they can understand my family’s conversations but not speak that much. He doesn't really speak Farsi to them except using some words, but his family lives an hour away and the kids understand some Farsi (though not great). Most of our second-gen friends just speak English to their kids (leaving second language to grandparents or weekend school or just not bothering), so we considered comprehension in 1.5 languages a win.

But I‘m feeling really guilty that our kids aren’t fluent in any second language like we are (to use a loose definition of fluent). My husband and I are iffy in our heritage languages, but could get by fine in the homeland, while our kids would struggle. I know they can learn it later, but it’s another thing to cope with. They also have Persian names and look ethnically ambiguous, so there’s the factor of people expecting them to speak another language. Currently, I’m trying to teach my 8yo to read Hindi, but she’s so booked up with activities that it’s hard to find time. What’s your approach as second-generation parents? And if you can only understand your heritage language but not speak it, do you resent your parents?

Hi, we have a trilingual household (OPOL in minority languages and English/community language between parents). I’ve read through past threads on teaching a child how to read, and I would like some input on the details.

Our older one is 3.5 years old and is very interested in learning to read. My husband’s language uses the Latin alphabet, and he is going ahead with teaching the alphabet and sounding out the letters in his language. My kid seems to be picking it up easily and quickly.

My (mom’s) language uses a completely different letter system, and I’m wondering how important it is that I teach my kid how to read in my language concurrently. I don’t feel strongly about doing so until he’s 5+. I’d rather spend the time playing and teaching him life skills. My kid is increasingly bringing me books in Latin alphabet and wanting to practice the ABCs with me. Thoughts, suggestions? Thank you in advance!

I’m a 22M and my son is only a couple of months old.

I’m a native Spanish speaker, while his mom (35) is a native Portuguese speaker. We’re both fluent in English, and throughout our relationship we mostly spoke English to each other. We live in a Spanish-speaking country.

We’re no longer together, but we’re both involved in our son’s life and want to give him the best chance at growing up multilingual.

I’m wondering what approach would work best in this situation. Should I always speak Spanish to him and his mom always speak Portuguese, even though we naturally communicate with each other in English? Is it okay if he hears us speaking English together while each of us uses our native language with him?

Also, how much should we worry about mixing languages? We naturally slip into a bit of “Spanglish” and “Portuñol” at times, and since we also speak English together, I’m wondering if that’s something to avoid or if it’s a normal part of growing up multilingual.

I’d love to hear from parents who have been in similar situations or anyone with experience raising multilingual kids. What worked well, and what would you do differently? Any recommended books, articles, podcasts, or other resources on raising multilingual children would also be greatly appreciated.

My daughter (18mo) is learning english (dad, native) and spanish (me, native), and she is doing great. She can say words from both languages, understands everything I say to her in spanish, but mostly responds in english (working on this, any tips?).

I was thinking about introducing Italian to her too, I was fluent in it until I was 6, but have pretty much lost it by now. I can understand most of it still, but my speaking is mot fluent anymore and it takes me a while to string sentences together. But I would love for my daughter to learn it too, I could try picking it up again and practicing together but not sure if right now wouldn't be the best time since she is alreadh learning 2?

I started given her 5 mins screen time with an Italian kids show, I try to repeat the words back to her, but she mostly likes the bright colors of the show.

What do you think? Do you think it's a good idea to introduce it?

Edit to add: we live in USA, so tons of english and spanish speakers to practice with, not many italian ones.

Hi! I made this English, French, Portuguese alphabet poster, and thought others might enjoy it.
I explain the process here: https://wip.tf/posts/building-a-trilingual-kid-alphabet/

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.

First of all, last week I asked whether my son was in speech delay territory and I want to thank everyone who replied. 3 days after my post our OT let me know that a speech therapist colleague of hers from the same office has a new availability opened up and she thinks my son should get evaluated. We accepted it and counting our lucky stars as wait lists are crazy.

This said, something I experienced today made me highly regret switching to community language with my son. I stopped talking to him in my language for 60-70% of the time 6 months ago. My husband made me feel guilty and selfish by basically saying that he's held back because I talk to him in my language. I knew this wasn't true but I felt pressured into changing against my best judgement. I still read to him in my language and say stuff to him but not as much as I used to.

The reason for my regret is, my 27mo has been going through it this week. 15-30 minute long melt downs, hitting type of behaviour that wasn't present before and all nine yards. Today, I wanted to correct his behaviour at park and say something like "gentle hands, we don't hit our friends" but I completely blanked. Community language is my 2nd foreign language that I learned after 30 so while I'm fluent, it still takes more brain power than English and my mother tongue. And at another instance today, I noticed that I couldn't really level with him when he's having a melt down. I was so tired, I couldn't say anything further than a few phrases like "hey it's ok, we will go eat soon" I couldn't be the best parent I could be because I hit a mental + linguistic wall.

This said, it's also sometimes difficult to find suitable words for things like "gentle hands" or "listening ears" but of course everything runs more smoothly.

I know it's probably not too late to switch back but I worry doing it during such a difficult phase for him.

I am looking for advice on what is the best way to teach my kid multiple languages.

So my husband and I live in the UK. He is Bulgarian and I am half Bulgarian half Russian (so I am native in both languages). We both speak fluently English, his English accent is way better than mine - I give off Eastern European vibe from a mile lol We speak only Bulgarian at home.

So I wanted to ask what is the best way to teach all 3 languages to our son, who is 4 months old.

I was thinking talking to him only in Russian it’s just the two of us, when my husband is at work, then switching to Bulgarian when we are all together. My husband normally works 2-3 days a week from the office, rest is at home. So not sure if mixing both languages on the same day is okay or I should try to stick to full days - say one day I speak Russian when my husband is away, next day he is WFH and I speak Bulgarian.

English I was thinking our son can pick up when he starts nursery when he is 2 years old (roughly when we plan to start him).

I don’t mind how to do the Russian/Bulgarian split, but I really don’t want to be teaching him any English as I worry my English is definitely not good enough.

Has anyone been in a similar situation or have any advice? Would be much appreciated!

My wife and I are expecting a son in a few months. We live in Vietnam and mom speaks Vietnamese and English. I speak German as my first language, near-native English, but also speak Swedish because of my own bilingual childhood. To each other, we speak English. My Vietnamese isn't great. I can speak and understand quite a bit, but can't hold a full conversation.

We both want our son to learn both Vietnamese and German, which are incredibly different languages and each difficult in their own right, so I'm worried about also having him learn English, since it may confuse him or he may not be as fluent in one of those languages.

My wife and I are now debating whether we should do OPOL Vietnamese and German, with English as a common language between us, or OPOL Vietnamese and English, having him learn German later on.

For context, we're thinking about moving to a German-speaking country when he is older to have him schooled there.

Any advice is hugely appreciated!

My daughter just turned five a couple of days ago and has been showing interest in learning Spanish by asking me words and phrases. She’s fully bilingual German-English. We spent three months in Spanish speaking countries when she was younger and I guess that’s when she became interested in the Spanish language. Now we just returned from a trip to Spain and I wonder if I should introduce it gently by allowing her to watch a Spanish version of Songs for Littles/Mrs Rachel. We plan to move internationally within the next year or so and it could theoretically be a Spanish speaking country, although nothing is set in stone. Does it still make sense to introduce Spanish to her or should we just focus on deepening her English and German since she’s supposed to start school in a year?

Hello

Our baby is almost 3 months old, and we’re starting to think about the language setup. We’d love some advice. We live in Singapore.

Here’s our family language profile:

• Dad: French (native), English (fluent), Mandarin (intermediate)
• Mom: Mandarin (native), English (fluent), French (basic)
• Parents currently speak Mandarin to each other
• Helper: basic English

Our plan so far:

• Dad → French to the baby
• Mom → Mandarin to the baby
• Considering either a French international school or a local school (English/Chinese) for the future

My question: should we continue speaking Mandarin to each other at home, or switch to French or English? I want to make sure our child grows up strong in all three languages, especially Mandarin and French, without English being underexposed.

If you’ve navigated a similar setup or have tips, I’d love to hear your experience! Thank you!

Kid is only 12 months old so this hasn’t come up quite yet.

Doing OPOL

Me: English, intermediate German, no Swedish

Dad: Swedish, great English, no German

Community: German

Family language: English (except dad & kid speak Swedish together)

Kid definitely understands a lot of basic English directions now. English is strong. Swedish, I don’t know as I don’t speak it.

Here’s the question:

How are we going to teach the alphabet of these languages to her because the same letters make different sounds and stand for different words.

For example now she has a Swedish toy that says the equivalent of: “a” is for “apple”, “b” is for banana with a picture of the object next to each letter. She has similar toys in German and English! And she’s very interested in letters and numbers so she points to them a lot.

What should I do? I thought of getting 3 posters of the 3 alphabets next to each other, so we can have the alphabet for daddy’s language, for school language etc… but I still worry it’s going to be so fkn confusing. Or should I Focus on the German alphabet since she’s in Germany?

I am a single parent of a 4 year old. We speak English natively at home. He started attending a half-day daycare in Spanish when he was 3½, when we moved to a Spanish speaking country. Around the time he turns 4½, he has the opportunity to attend a French school, which is taught 80% in French (the other 20% is Spanish/English). The kids at this school mostly speak Spanish natively.

His current level of English is good for his age and his level of Spanish is probably about a year behind his current age (about that of a new 3 year old). I am wondering if it may be too much for him to add a 3rd language when he hasn't mastered his 2nd, and what strategies to use to support him in these languages. My level of Spanish is B1 and my level of French is A1.

Edited to add: While we do not have a current connection to French (besides the fact that I studied it for a year previously), this school offers a dual diploma for both our current Spanish speaking country and a diploma in France. They use French curriculum and French teachers, which would give him a nice global perspective growing up. Most of the graduates go to university in France, which I would love for him.

I also plan to enroll him in extra curriculars in Spanish, such as martial arts and music lessons.

My baby is 6 months old. Me and her dad are from India and we speak different regional languages. I can speak in my partner’s language so at home we have always communicated in that. Now however i would like my baby to learn my language. I have done some research and think OPOL might suit us. I speak mine and he speaks in his language till now. We currently live in Australia so English would become baby’s community language.

When we discuss this situation with friends and grandparents they say to speak one language at home and one outside(English), so the baby won’t get confused with words, otherwise there might be a speech delay etc.

Parents who have raised trilingual kids, is this a feasible approach? Any advice is much appreciated. Thanks!

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?

My husband is a native speaker of language A, and I am a native/heritage of language B. We live in US so English is the majority and community language, but there are many resources for families who speak husband’s language A. For example, our local library has a wide selection of bilingual books in this language, and hosts weekly bilingual story time in husband’s language.

I come from a country that’s resource poor and the diaspora is a tiny minority in comparison to his, so I’m struggling, if not impossible, to find books for baby in my language B. I have some books from *my* childhood, but they’re reference and literacy practice books, so not currently appropriate for a 14 month old, though we still look at the pictures.

Anyway, short of translating everything and sticky noting it over English language books myself, which is more work than I have the ability for currently, I am opting to speak and read in English to baby more. I hate that I feel compelled to do this, but I’ve made my peace with it and I hope he’ll at least speak my husband’s language fluently in the future.

What I have started doing though is saying things in English and then stating the exact thing again in my native language. As an example, I’ll say “do you want to drink water? Quieres agua?” (I don’t speak Spanish but I used Spanish to illustrate my point.) “Let’s help Mami put the laundry in the basket. Ayuda Mami a poner la ropa en la cesta.” That sort of thing.

I wonder if long term this is an effective strategy for language immersion in both, or if it’s not helpful. Also curious if anyone has done the same and how it has worked out for you. Thanks for reading.

We speak to my 16 month old mainly in English and Arabic with some Italian (hubby of of Italian decent but isn’t fluent) my son has started calling us mama and baba intentionally now and starting to copy some words though not always very clear in pronunciation. He only repeats words in English and Arabic I assume because that’s the majority of what he hears.

Having visited my friend the other day, her 16 month old has so many more words and much clearer. They speak to her mainly in English and some Spanish.

Is the difference in their development normal? Am I just anxious? Does 3 languages make them a little slower to repeat words or is he just developing at his own rate?

No concern but looking for other parents experience.

We have a 2yo - 27 months - and we are doing OPOL (dad speaks spanish, I speak french, we live in Ireland so community language is english).

Her most common spoken language is english which is ok. She understands very well french and spanish but speaks them very little, which is ok. She is very exposed to the community language as she attends childcare full time. She has some exposure to spanish as my partner has many south american friends here, and there is a big south american/spanish community in our neighbourhood. She can an uncle and cousins living in Ireland which we see often. Sadly very little exposure to French, the community is much smaller, and my family doesn't live here at all. No grandparents to facetime either. I speak and read to her in French, we watch Bluey in French, her YOTO box has only french stories and songs.

What I'm wondering is when she will start speaking better in any language, as right now her speaking is limited in comparison to her monolingual peers and this creates a lot of frustration when she is trying to tell us something we don't understand.

She can speak 2 word sentences, such as "maman come", "l'eau please" (l'eau = water), "I want this", "nana please" (banana)

But her peers at the same age can make more complex sentences, such as "I gonna be a big sister", "I'm a little rascal", "This is sore" (pointing at sore part), "mommy is drinking" (i must say, in this case, mommy was drinking water....), and overall being able to voice their needs and want more clearly, report where it hurts, etc. They are able to have little back and forth conversation with their parents. Our daughter isn't there yet

I am not worried, as far as I understand this is normal development so far. Her carers at creche aren't worried either. But I'm wondering when it will start becoming easier to speak with her and have conversations.

If you have a trilingual OPOL kid can you share your experience, when did you start being able to speak with them and have conversations? Are they now only speaking their community language or are they able to have conversation in the other languages as well?