I’m currently at my sons’s place for a few days. My grandson is now 22 months and he’s now at that talkative stage where tries to pick up words and copy. It’s impressive stuff as he seems to be a quick learner. His dad is naturalized French for 30 years and his mum French.They speak French and English equally at their house and he seems to be able to distinguish between the two.
When we brought up our son in France we spoke English at home and we and he spoke French when not at home. He grew up finding both languages quite easy tho whether my grandson will be as lucky we will wait and see.
I don’t know if there is a right or wrong way to speak with the kids as they are growing up in a mixed language household or by foreigners in another country.
From what I’ve seen, @Peter_Bird , there’s no great effort involved. Kids just seem to pick up both languages and, even more amazingly, know not to mix them.
It may be because they’re using language to communicate, rather than learning it (I’ve not expressed that well), so they’re learning in chunks rather than individual words, and certainly not overthinking it.
As a regular Eurostar traveller on the Friday/Monday commuter trains I was always charmed by the effortlessly bilingual kids. They could switch language from one sentence to another depending on whether they were talking to an anglophone or Francophone.
I can speak for my own kids, who are bilingual French/English, although their English accents aren’t really placeable from a UK regional point of view, almost like many 3rd culture kids whose 3rd language is English. They grew up with French and English at home, their Mum being French, although I didn’t enforce the use of English with them when they were little. Actual useful English came much later on their lives, in their teenage years, and has since been reinforced by their respective work environments. My son is also fluent in German, through work, and my youngest daughter studied Spanish at university and then went to live and work in Spain, and now is learning Portuguese from living and working in Lisbon. It seems that they have caught the language learning bug! I blame the parents Both their mother and me speak/write more than just French and English. Obviously, language structure and the finer points of grammar for my kids came through education and schooling.
I also have a 2 and a half year old step grandson whose mother is English, father is Franco-Canadian, and they speak English, respectively French to him. When we go to visit them in Newfoundland, we have agreed at his parents’ request that I speak only in French to him, and my wife in English. He understands both just fine, and even though he currently speaks mainly English, he will throw in complete French sentences in the middle of what he’s saying. Kids are amazingly adaptable given the right environment.
My grandchildren are beginning to speak English without thinking some times and are encouraged to do so by their parents to give them a head start. Have to laugh at some of the pronunciation though, fox always comes out as fu**s
There’s certainly a wrong way..My wife really regrets that her Luxembourg father never spoke to her and her siblings in his native Luxembourgish, and only spoke in English. She is now trying to learn the language of her nationality, partly out of genuine interest in her heritage, and partly as a hedge in case Jordan Bardella kicks us out and we need to head for a safe bolt hole in Luxembourg!
Her Dad does now regret the decision not to speak anything but English to his children when they were growing up.
My parents made the choice to only use English around me once we moved to the UK when I was around 1 year old. That was regrettable later, since I would have been usefully bilingual otherwise, and even now with the very little German I do have, that feels far more accessible than the French I’ve studied for 4 years.
I have a passing interest in linguistics, but I’m far from an expert. Also I don’t have children, so I might be talking absolute rubbish… wouldn’t be the first time!
What I have learnt about language learning is that children have absolutely no problem being in an environment where there is multilingual communication going on.
We all know and have heard it said that learning a language as an adult is harder than learning a language as child.
In theory, this doesn’t seem to be true. Both adults and children can learn a new language, and it can be either hard or less hard. Depends on the person, not age.
However, in practice this does appear to be correct. When you look at the differences in our situations, children are far better placed.
Children have dedicated teachers, all day, every day. (parents, grandparents, friends, actual teachers, etc).
They learn through play.
They don’t have to go to work or do chores.
They don’t have any depends to worry about.
There is lack of adult crap to get tied up in!
And so on.
If I were in this situation, even as an adult, I would probably be fluent in a completely new language in one year!
A child acquires a language. Whereas adults tend to learn through vocab lists and grammar drills and so on. Acquiring, like your grandchild, is arguably better.
So, as an adult, it seems a mystery and potentially confusing to switch languages. For a child, it’s.. Well, child’s play!
I feel similar’ish. As a little child we spoke French, German and English in the home. But once my grandparents died it was just English as my father was an total anglophile. Which is a huge shame as would have been so much easier had I kept up languages.
I’ve two nephews who as very small children spoke Basque and English; what I found surprising was that even when very young, they could not only distinguish between the two, but knew which language to use with which adults.
I grew up speaking 2 languages as my mother tongue and a bunch of others with varying degrees of fluency. My parents were entirely fluent but noticeably non-native speakers of each other’ s language, I’m a native speaker of both. My children and now grandchildren are like me.
I know plenty of people who ought to be bilingual but aren’t though.
Our son and his family in Spain used the one parent, one language, method when the children were growing up. Now they speak Spanish when they are all together and the children speak English to their father and to us (online).
Not so for me, although I agree with most of what you wrote. I arrived here at the age of 57, 26 years ago and got a job almost immediately which involved competant French as I was alone and away from base most of the time. In the 3 years until my retirement, I made only one mistake and even that was mostly the fault of the French person I spoke with who did not follow company and national rules.
Now at the age of 83, I can speak French ok but comprehension is a nightmare for me. Given being surrounded by French friends and aquaintances I should be perfectly fluent. But I am not.
My cousin married a man, both late in their lives, who had had the Welsh beaten out of him at school. He lived a fine career, all in England as a teacher where he rose to become headmaster.
When they retired they decided to live back in the homeland and went to nightschool to resurrect their Welsh. It was just to difficult, and they gave up. Very sad.
My children’s first language is French, but I would always speak to them in English, so between myself and the occasional TV show, they became bilingual, although they never fully assimilated the English accent and sometimes use French grammar in an English sentence, or throw in the odd French word.
Someone I know in the States (Italian) were advised by the school not to raise their young children in a mixed language environment because it would stunt their development!
I know of at least one child raised to speak three languages, and they never had a problem switching between them.
I agree with using two or more languages, we knew families like that. My father read an article ages ago that said multilingual children could get a bit confused about age three or four but after that they sprinted ahead.
Since being in France, I’ve know quite a few families where the children were brought up in both languages and are compltely bilingual - accent and all! The result also seems to be that it’s much easier to learn other languages when you have a perfect grasp of two, but perhaps that depends on what those two languages are?
We read up on it when Josh (24) was born and and stuck with our plan since. We speak 100% English at home, including TV and French everywhere else. Josh is now trilingual with Dutch and then has about 3 other languages he can do the basics in (Spanish, German and Polish).
Interestingly Remy (11) isn’t as fluent as I’d expected in French (he being the only one to have done 100% of schooling here). He makes mistakes with simple stuff like le / la weirdly but his French mark is above to moyen so go figure.
Louis (19) is 100% Frenchie with accent ect, I’ve met his friend who on meeting me was so shocked that Louis wasn’t 100% French! He also makes mistakes in English, sentence structure ect. Better now he’s been living back home nearly 6 months although the French gf is too so we are all speaking much more French at home,!
When we went back to Oz last time Josh was 7 and refused to speak French when we got there (I think he was teased about his French accent) which was sad but he picked it back up.
Hubby grew up mum only French, dad English, they all ended up replying in English but Mil always in French, until I came along anyway!
I knew a family who’s kids lost their English as parents divorced and boys always spoke French so the mum just went along. Happened quickly too.
Another family’s near us the girls understand a bit but don’t speak any English as mum doesn’t speak any and the dad didn’t want to spoil family time and had no time just him and kids when little. A wasted opportunity I feel.
Both their mother and me speak/write more than just French and English. Obviously, language structure and the finer points of grammar for my kids came through education and schooling.