Raising a Trilingual Child: How NOT to do it.

OK, I have to warn you from the beginning. This is a “true story”. Not only true, but also a pride, prejudice, pain, gain, failure, and finally getting the grips kind of story. Got your attention? Cool. Listen up. I will give you a secret on how “not to raise” your trilingual child, so that you can probably skip the “failure part” from your own story.

Yes, finally after a long battle over “theory and practice”; I can say that I am a proud mother of a trilingual. Over the 4 years, this got me on the edge of mental failure – especially trying to find a “method” that fits our family, trying to keep that method within the family, and trying to “ignore” the super parents around who kept blab blab blab’ing on “how natural it is in their family”, “how fast the kids absorb 3,4,5,6,7 languages (no *hitting, I met an African mama who kept all 7 languages at home!) etc.

Ok, now a flashback on who I am. I am a psychologist.Not only a random one (unfortunately), I am a “shrink” and a “neuropsychologist”. Yeah baby. I thought I read it all, I could just use my knowledge and get through this business of raising a trilingual. Easy-peasy. Not really. That is the first piece of information I will give now: “Do not read too much, especially after the child is born”. Why? Because you will get lost in theory and surprised how different it is in reality. Skip that part. Google “OPOL technique” and see how you lost from the beginning: “One Parent, One language, Never mix” simply does not work with more than 2 languages and only 1 parent. Gosh its sooo easy to raise a bilingual, right? (Sorry guys, you do a great job, just pure jealousy here).

The problem with theory is; you tend to forget the basic cliche: “every child is different”. Yes, there are supposed to be some super talented kids around who absorb languages like “you stuff yourself with chocolate in bathroom when your 2-year old is having a meltdown in her room”, but most children are not talented that way.

My child was an exception of theory. She was raised 3-lingual until age 1,5. Me speaking Turkish, daddy speaking German with her and we speak English when we all were together. The first year was easy since there were no expectations of her talking back. The second year, I realized she was far beyond her developmental stage. First time mothering plus being a neuropsychologist hit me hard, ladies and gents, and I started comparing and contrasting my kid. Second advice: Do not do it. Why? It only makes you miserable. I got panicked. She was not gonna talk, EVER.

So what did I do? I went to her pediatrician who was obviously an “expert” in speech development (Nooooot!) who told me “yeah, it’s delaying, not normal” (some doctors really fail in human psychology, right?). So I thought, “Oh no, all the old and wise ladies who stopped me on bus-stops were right! (We call them Oma-Police here, they are those grannies who are always worried about your child being outside without a hat). The brain on development is having hard time, lets make things a bit easier for poor child” and whoooop I dropped the 3rd language. I did! Yes.

And she talked.

Of course.

She talked, but not because I dropped the 3rd language, because it was her personal developmental point of starting to talk. Gosh, she talked and talked... and talked. But she talked nonsense! It was impossible to understand her “3-languages in same sentence” talk unless you can speak all those languages. The books said “it’s a phase, keep on answering her in your own language, she will know soon whom to talk with which language”. But when? I was devastated.. What was I doing wrong that she was just not getting this trilingualism?!

Let me tell you. I was believing theory and other mothers too much! They all told me “yes, sure, ours is trilingual and it’s just so natural and easy” and I believed. I thought I was the only mother who sucked at this trilingualism business and my child was the only one who didn’t get it. But in reality, people just tell you what they believe, not the “brutal” reality. They usually say “sure, she is trilingual” when the child understands all those languages, yet can not speak them properly. Or when she mixes, jams, plays around. Or even when her nanny speaks a language, they assume the child is automatically trilingual! I even met a mother who believed she was raising a trilingual because she was watching TV in language X for 1 hour every day!!! And me, I only accept a child is trilingual when that child speaks ALL three languages without mixing, forming grammatically correct sentences with rich vocabulary. In this sense, are there any trilingual children (at least before Age 3-4) at all???? My answer: No. Never seen one.

So relax! Don’t be a dick head psychologist who questions everything until perfectionism.. Relax..

Until age 3, she lived all these VERY NORMAL phases of more than one mother language acquisition: she mixed, she developed her own rules, she tried using grammar of one with vocabulary of other, she formed logically correct yet linguistically super wrong sentences (this phase was really so much fun). Not so much fun but still normal phases such as stuttering, avoiding one or both or any languages for a long period of time (selective mutism) and being socially rejected due to lack of community language skills etc. Also, been there, done that. Of course when you are living it, it’s not fun. But they all pass eventually, just like all those growth spurts of babyhood or terrible twos pass. And somewhere between age 3 to 4, you realize that you have a child who can speak the community language as good as her peers PLUS at least one language better than them - to be honest, you may end up with a child who can speak at least one language better than you or your husband, too. ☺ Welcome to our boat, fellow parents of multicultural children.

Now let’s turn back to our “poor old 3rd language”, which I radically decided to drop for a while, at age 1,5, panicking my toddler will not speak any language at all. You know what, it showed up by itself at age 3,5! Without any effort, without any intention, to my surprise one day, she started speaking it with her grannies.. Just like that! I was shocked, speechless.. She was there, all by herself, cracking the codes of her looooong forgotten 3rd language! In only 1 month, where we had a long summer holiday with her grannies, she started showing interest in speaking Turkish. After a full month, she was speaking it! – Well, not perfect, but good enough to be able to play with children speaking only Turkish. Now, finally, at age four, she is “trilingual”. Isn’t it a success story? Hell, yeah!

But, to be honest, it was damn hard for us. We failed, got up, tried again, failed again, got up, tried again, failed again. Learned a lot on process. And its another story or multiple stories, I would love to share with you.. Common mistakes, common misunderstandings, common failures, common “I can not do it anymore on the loooong road of “creating a trilingual child”. If I dare to say “trilingual” at all.. I see our family as “on the road of trilingualism” still, because for me a true trilingual is someone who can speak all three languages fluently, in right context, without any (or minimal) mistakes. And well.. we have a looooong way reaching there. But, come on people, be honest! Who does not?! So, why not sharing our experiences, why not saving each other doing same mistakes, why not giving a hand to each other on this common road? Good idea? Then come up, join up!

To be continued.. ☺

Ceren Schubert  - Contributing writer from Munich, Germany. She holds double Masters degrees in Developmental Psychology and Clinical Neuropsychology, who choose to give a break on her PhD career to be SAHM of two trilingual (to be) children. When she is not full time parenting; she is also an enthusiastic traveller off the beaten tracks, a passionate blogger, and enjoys being around open minded, colorful and multi cultural people.

She loves dogs a bit more than cats, malaga a bit more than vanilla ice cream, coffee a bit more than sleeping, and summer a lot more than winter. She also loves walking very long distances when she needs to think and sometimes (often) gets lost doing that.. Her latest “project” is learning Qigong, which she started just recently and loved a great deal!

Oh and, she dreams of writing a book one day.


Are you interested to participate in the Life Story series and write about your experience as a bilingual or multilingual child and/or a parent of one?  Would you like to take part in the Multilingual Family Interview series ? You can contact me here.

Recommended Books for Parents Raising Trilingual Children

Language Strategies for Trilingual Families: Parents' Perspectives (Parents' and Teachers' Guides) by Andreas Braun  - Kindle  - Paperback

Growing up with Three Languages: Birth to Eleven (Parents' and Teachers' Guides) by Xiao-lei Wang  - Kindle - Paperback

Trilingual by Six: The sane way to raise intelligent, talented children by Lennis Dippel MD - Kindle - Paperback



You might also like:

Click to listen to radio stations for kids from around the world!

Click to read how you can motivate your multilingual child to speak YOUR language!

Q&A: Trilingual parent: how to add one more language to a bilingual child.

Q&A: Trilingual parent and monolingual spouse.

Trilingual Parents: How Do You Choose Which Language To Speak To Your Child?

How Do You Choose Which Language To Speak To Your Child When Both Parents Are Trilingual (In The Same 3 Languages)?  

My Personal Story About Raising Trilingual Children

by Suzan Alakas

No, no, no! Ei! Yok! YOK!

Younger Daughter stamps her feet, crosses her arms and pushes out lower lip in a pouty defiance. She refuses to get in the car and sit in her car seat. Sigh. Here she goes again. It’s not enough for my 2 year old to be stubborn and object in one language... she has to go on a rant in 3 languages. But even though it’s completely frustrating in the moment (we are going to be LATE if she doesn’t get in and sit down), inside I’m proud of her language ability at such a young age.

Allow me to translate: Yok (Tatar) = No (English) = Ei (Finnish)

Did you guess that she is saying: No, no, no! No! No! NO!

How my husband and I became trilingual in the same 3 languages:

Hello! I’m Suzan Alakas. My first language was Tatar, an old Turkic language, spoken to me by both parents. We spoke Tatar at home, with my grandparents, and extended family/community.

I was born in Japan, and learned a little Japanese, but attended American pre-school and learned English at a young age. We moved to the US when I was 7 (unfortunately, most of my Japanese was forgotten). English quickly became the dominant language in my life, and still is to this day.

About 20 years ago I met my future husband, at a wedding, in California. He was visiting from Finland. He was also raised speaking Tatar at home, and learned Finnish growing up in Finland. Plus, like most Finns, he had a pretty high competency in English since he started studying it in 3rd grade.

After that wedding, we went our separate ways, but kept in touch, long distance. We primarily communicated in English, because we felt limited by our Tatar vocabulary. I also started learning Finnish with songs, reading the dictionary (yes, I’m a language nerd!!) and eventually studying Finnish in college. He would send a portion of his emails to me in Finnish, and I would sit and translate them, asking him questions about the words and expressions I couldn’t find in the dictionary. (This was before Google Translate existed.) As our relationship grew stronger, and we visited each others’ home countries more often; my Finnish improved, as did his English.

By the time we got married, settled in California, and had our Older Daughter, we were both highly proficient in Tatar, English and Finnish.

Suzan Alakas with her two daughters 

In what language environment will we raise our child? Our thought process.

We talked about this A LOT. We planned, discussed different scenarios, and reached a mutual agreement.

Our main options were the same as what you may have read about here: http://www.trilingualchildren.com/p/language-strategies.html

• One Parent, One Language (OPOL) – seemed like a good approach from the beginning.

• Both speaking the same language (Minority Language at Home, ML@H) – Leaned towards Tatar, considered Finnish.

• Speaking a language based on the day of the week (Time and Place strategy, T&P) – We quickly ruled out because it didn’t feel natural. We had tried this with just the two of us and it never caught on.

Living in the US, we felt our daughter would pick up English from her environment. So neither of us would be speaking that to her. That left Finnish and Tatar.

• Was Finnish necessary since only 5 million people in the world speak it, and pretty much only in Finland?


• Was Tatar necessary since it’s only spoken in Tatarstan, and quickly being replaced by Russian? Would we even be good enough to speak it to her, to teach it to her?

We decided that any language we can teach our child would be a benefit, and there were many reasons why we decided to include all 3 in her upbringing.

• Tatar: speaking to grandparents and small Tatar community, retaining link to culture, food, songs in that language.

• Finnish: keeping opportunities open for travel/business in Finland, possible move in Finland in the future. 


• Benefit of knowing more than 1 language in general: becoming more culturally sensitive, increasing exposure to sounds/tones/grammar of other languages, making it easier to learn a foreign language later.

Lots of encouraging research on this, like:

“Most researchers agree that multilinguals have special characteristics which are different from those of monolinguals or even bilinguals. Multilingual speakers use languages as a resource in communication and they use the various languages in different ways according to their communicative needs and their interlocutors. Monolingual speakers use one language for every situation and have fewer resources available.” (Ruiz de Zarobe, 2015)

After we decided all 3 languages would be present in our child’s life, the decision became quite simple. We adopted the OPOL (One Parent, One Language) approach. Since I am not a native speaker of Finnish, I would speak Tatar and my husband would speak Finnish.

Learning to make traditional Tatar food

In theory and in practice

I was already talking and singing to my tummy in Tatar before my Older Daughter was born, so when she arrived it felt natural. It wasn’t easy though – I hadn’t spoken Tatar day in and day out since I was 3 years old. I could only hold a middle school level conversation, mostly limited by my vocabulary. My grammar was rusty too. I could read Tatar written in Latin letters, but not in the widely used Cyrillic alphabet. I had 3 dictionaries nearby and started to read the Tatar children’s picture dictionary daily with my daughter, just as much for my own sake as for hers. It felt wonderful learning more of my mother tongue and passing it on to my daughter.

During the first few weeks, my husband spoke to my daughter in Tatar. When I gently reminded him that he was the Finnish speaker, he agreed that he would switch, but kept forgetting because it felt more natural to speak to her in Tatar. Then something clicked, and he did switch to Finnish.

By about 1 year, my daughter understood Tatar and Finnish very well, and was speaking lots of Tatar. She also knew some English phrases and words from playing with other children, listening to mom and dad, and listening to lots of songs in English. She was an early speaker and said her first string of 4 words, “happy birthday to you” at 12 months.

Then at about 18 months in, we seriously started talking about moving to Finland. At this point, my husband switched back to speaking Tatar. Because my husband knew we would eventually be moving to Finland and our daughter would learn Finnish there, he decided to switch back to Tatar full time.

We supplemented Finnish by playing more Finnish songs and showing some Finnish TV programs via internet.

At first I was disappointed that we were abandoning OPOL, but I didn’t push it because I knew my husband felt isolated speaking to Older Daughter in Finnish when no one else in our Tatar or Finnish circles could understand them. I felt that the most important thing was that he build a strong, loving relationship with her, and if he felt that Tatar was the language to do that in, then that was his choice. We didn’t notice any confusion from our daughter as Finnish decreased and we switched to the ML@H (minority language at home) model. Fortunately for us, she was still quite young, her father’s transition was to her dominant language and she spent most of the time with me at home speaking Tatar anyway.

And then we moved! Äk! Now what?

While pregnant with my 2nd daughter, we decided to move to Finland.

Now what to do with the languages? Should one of us start speaking to her in English?

I didn’t want to switch out of the mother tongue. I was the primary caretaker and didn’t want to abruptly change from Tatar to English. Our daughter would have probably been ok with it, since my husband and Tatar community speak Tatar, but we decided to both keep speaking to her in Tatar, and add more English to her life - since that was going to be the new minority language.

How we increased exposure to the non-mother tongue, minority language (English) 

• The biggest factor was increasing her exposure to children’s shows in English. We were VERY selective with how often and what she could watch. At first, we only found one show we were comfortable with: Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood. Slowly, we added more.

• We played lots of music – from the Beatles to School House Rock, plus children’s songs that I wrote myself in English.

• We visited the US every year, and grandparents visited us often. While they spoke mostly in Tatar, they did use lots of English too.

•  My husband and I continued to speak English to each other at home.

Increasing language exposure with songs

How Older Daughter Adjusted

When we moved to Finland, Older Daughter was about 3 years old – she was a solid speaker of Tatar, very good English speaker, and knew just a few Finnish words. We quickly enrolled her in a Finnish music group and dance classes, took her to story time every week at the library, and made sure she was out and about hearing Finnish at the park or grocery store during the week. Simultaneously, the increased exposure to English was working.



One day she says to me, in English: I need to elevate my leg. It hurts.


Me, in Tatar: What happened? And did you say, “elevate”? Where did you learn that word?

She replies, in Tatar: Daniel Tiger hurt his leg and went to see the doctor, and she said to “elevate” it.

Wow.

So since Older Daughter had such a strong English ability by age 4, we decided to shift her focus to Finnish, and enrolled her in a Finnish pre-school for 5 hours per week. Within weeks she was using Finnish words, and just a few months in, she was understanding and replying with basic sentences. We also added more Finnish children’s programming, and my husband started to read books to her in Finnish.

Yes, she would learn Finnish in school, but since we had a few years before she started school, we wanted to give her a chance to be proficient before she got there. Our hope is that by the time she starts school, she knows Finnish well enough to focus on the content and school experience, rather than on learning the language.

My Younger Daughter’s language journey

We lived in the US until Younger Daughter was about 1 year old. My husband, Older Daughter and I all spoke to her in Tatar, and she had very little exposure to English and Finnish.

After moving to Finland and upping Older Daughter’s English shows and songs, my Younger Daughter got much more exposure to English at a younger age than her sister. While she was much slower to speak compared to her sister, now at 2 years old, her English ability is already almost at the same level as her Tatar.

How did this happen? When I looked a little closer, I realized that her Tatar and English exposure are about 50/50:

• Less Tatar 

• She has less 1 on 1 time with me, as there are 2 children now vying for attention

• Less focused Tatar dictionary reading/studying because I already learned lots of new words with Older Daughter o 

• More English

• Interestingly, the girls speak English to each other. Big sister spends the most 1 on 1 time with little sister and English is older sister’s language of choice

• Their favorite shows are in English

• Mom and dad have more time together at home in Finland vs US, so she hears us speaking more, in English

• I write children’s songs in English, sing these songs at home, perform these songs at local concerts

• I teach English to other children and hold story time in English at the local library. My girls often attend.

I have no worries about Younger Daughter’s ability to speak Tatar and English, so now that she is 2, she will be starting a Finnish music playgroup in the fall. We intend to start her in the Finnish pre-school when she turns 3.

A colorful blending of languages - Instances of Code Switching inside and outside the home

What is code switching (CS)? It’s when you mix languages during a conversation.

While I try to consistently speak Tatar to my girls, I am ok with some code-switching going on. To me, it’s more natural to choose a word in another language that we mutually understand, than to stop the conversation, try to explain it or look it up. I grew up in code-switching environment, and so did my husband, and I am happy with how our language abilities turned out. Some people look down upon code switching, though the research is mostly favorable.

“Parents in particular are concerned that CS may confuse children as they develop their knowledge and skills in different languages. However, recent research in bilingual and multilingual education has provided evidence that CS can not only be used as an effective pedagogical strategy for teaching and learning (Canagarajah 2011) but also should be seen as a sign of linguistic creativity and criticality (Li 2011).” (Dewaele/Wei, 2013)

“CS has both educational benefits and drawbacks. Positively, it increases learner participation and lesson comprehension. Negatively, it does not contribute to developing the learners’ proficiency and confidence in speaking…” (Mokgwathi/Webb, 2013)

“Code-switching induced by a particular emotional state and by a lack of specific vocabulary in a target language appeared to relate to increase in innovative capacity.” (Kharkhurin/Wei, 2014)

So when do we use code-switching?

• Outside the home: Usually when my girls speak to me in English at home, I repeat their question or statement in Tatar and then respond in Tatar.But sometimes when we are outside the home and they speak to me in English, I respond in English. English is definitely more prestigious than Tatar, and I teach English here in the community, so it feels natural to incorporate some English when we are around a larger group of people.
   
• Gaps in vocabulary: When I don’t know a word in Tatar, I try to explain it the best I can in Tatar, and then say it in English. I honestly explain to the girls that I don’t know the Tatar word, and that the word I’m using is the English name of the word. Then we attempt to find the Tatar word in one of our dictionaries, or by asking an older member of the community.
  Sometimes I make up Tatar words that are logical translations. For example, when I didn’t know the Tatar word for vein, I explained it in Tatar as “blood roads”. When the actual translation turned out to be the English equivalent of “roots”, we all learned a new word, and made the switch. 
  
  However, sometimes I do not follow through with finding out the Tatar word, or there is no Tatar word equivalent, so the English word gets incorporated into our everyday vocabulary. 

• Emotions/complex subjects: It is still hard for me to express deep emotions and have complex discussions in Tatar. Now that Older Daughter is 4, our conversations are less superficial and much more technical (Why do the leaves fall from the trees in the fall, etc?). I do my best to explain in Tatar, and then supplement in English when needed.

• Written language: Another challenge is reading and writing: I am teaching my girls the English alphabet because I don’t know Cyrillic, and they will learn the Finnish alphabet in school.

What I have learned creating our language environment, in a nutshell

• It was important to take the time to talk about and work through scenarios of what language to speak to our children.

• While very common, OPOL is not the only option or best option for everyone.

• It’s ok to be flexible. Our initial choice doesn’t feel right in practice, and we needed to make a switch. Obviously, the earlier, the better.

• I’m grateful that I have options of which language to speak to my children. Most people don’t.

• I will continue to incorporate all the languages I know, at whatever level, to my children - via books or shows, play groups, or songs. You never know which language might be valuable to your child in the future, and at the very least it will help them be more culturally aware, expose them to other languages, and help them learn other languages in the future.

How did you decide on your family’s language arrangement? Please leave a comment below. I’d love to hear how you made the decision.

Suzan Alakas is a Mom, Linguist, Singer/Songwriter, and Founder of www.gozango.net . She created a system to help children learn English via songs, and stop struggling to learn English; to make it fun, and faster than other methods; to focus on the key words and phrases that native speakers use all the time; to better remember what was learned; and to help reduce heavy/unclear accents.

NOTE: All photos are provided by Suzan Alakas.


Are you interested to participate in the Life Story series and write about your experience as a bilingual or multilingual child and/or a parent?  Would you like to take part in the Multilingual Family Interview series ? You can contact me here.

Recommended Books for Parents Raising Trilingual Children

Language Strategies for Trilingual Families: Parents' Perspectives (Parents' and Teachers' Guides) by Andreas Braun  - Kindle  - Paperback

Growing up with Three Languages: Birth to Eleven (Parents' and Teachers' Guides) by Xiao-lei Wang  - Kindle - Paperback

Trilingual by Six: The sane way to raise intelligent, talented children by Lennis Dippel MD - Kindle - Paperback



You might also like:

Click to listen to radio stations for kids from around the world!

Click to read how you can motivate your multilingual child to speak YOUR language!

Q&A: Trilingual parent: how to add one more language to a bilingual child.

Q&A: Trilingual parent and monolingual spouse.

Simple way to motivate your bilingual child to speak your language.

When our family started the trilingual journey more than 6 years ago, I had no idea if I would succeed in passing my mother tongue onto my two children. I simply launched myself into this adventure. Now my kids are 4 and 6 years old and can speak, read and write in Russian, my mother tongue. I can not believe that I did all this work by myself. I set a goal - the maximum fluency level my children can possibly reach - and I went for it.

What is the recipe you might ask?

I believe being motivated yourself is a part of successfully raising bilingual /trilingual children,
as for the rest - just give your child what he enjoys the most and what he is interested in. Give it all in the minority language!


BABY ( 0-12 month)


What babies like is exactly what they need for starting learning the language you speak. They need face to face contact, mommy’s and daddy’s smiles, baby talk.

Talk to your baby all the time. Use simple sentences. Point to things and name them.

“Babies are taking statistics while listening to us” , as Particia Khul has noted in her TED talk. The test have proved that "It takes a human being (not audio or video!) for babies to take statistics!"  (7:08 minute of the video)

Read my article "Bilingualism and Speech Delay. How can you help? for more insights on this topic.

Here are some more tips:

The Best Way to Start Building Your Bilingual Child's Vocabulary


When to start reading to your baby? 


Virtual babysitters help




TODDLER (1-3 years old)

What do toddlers like? - They like being with their parents, play, sing, read books, draw and move. The are full of energy. You just need to direct it a way that works best for language learning and vocabulary development.


Incorporate teaching into play. It is not as difficult as it sounds. Do not associate word “teaching” here with a class room settings. Remember that at this age kids learn well while moving. Turn on a song or sing yourself. I am sure you have something similar to the English “head shoulders knees and toes” song. If not you can make up your own!

Here is how we had fun with the Russian “Wind is blowing in the face”.

Add more words when describing an object to your child. If he makes a mistake, correct it indirectly by simply rephrasing, repeating what the baby says.


Read as much as you can during this period. Select books on different subjects.


Would you like to know why your baby does not want to sit still while you are reading to him and what you could do about it? You will find some answers in
Your Toddler Doesn't Like to Read? article.


Teach letter sounds, too, especially, if you’d like your child to be literate in your language.


Here are 7 simple principles to keep in mind while teaching your child how to read

Watch this Video by Floating University lecture, Professor Steven Pinker , who is talking about the nature of language acquisition in children.

PRESCHOOLER (3-5 years old)


What does a preschooler want? Same as a toddler, but now he is ready to play with friends.


It would be great, if you could find a friend for your child that can also speak your minority language.
My kids play with each other speaking their minority language only. They often sing songs in other languages, but speak Russian all the time no matter who is around them. Read about 7 facts that can determine the language spoken between multilingual siblings. 


SCHOOL AGE (5-8 years old)

What do first graders like? - school experience is very new to them. They love writing in a pretty notebooks with pretty pan and pencils. Just use this opportunity to start a new routine. Get a notebook for your home language and “play school” at home.


My kids both 4 and 6 years old have a notebook for Russian, where they write stories, short and simple dictations. I take whatever they covered at school and use it as a base for our fun lessons. Yes, I invent lessons myself. It is not very difficult. These lessons do not have to be long.


Write notes to each other, shopping lists.


Read more books about animals, adventure.


Magazines and interactive games are something they are interested in. Have them available for your child in your language.

Travel, visit museums. Talk about things you see and experience together.


TWEENS (9-12 years old)

I am not quite there yet with my kids. I will add more details later.

Right now I can only assume, that they would like to spend even more time with the friends. Watch TV. I would watch together some news in the minority language on TV or online. They will probably already have a cell phone - it is a good idea to send messages to each other in your minority language.
If kids have hard time reading books, perhaps having Comics around the house could trigger kids interest in books.


TEENS (13-18 years old)


What do teens like? - learn more facts, watch TV, hang out with the friends...


This is a difficult period for many parents as I hear.

Do you already have tweens and teens? I would be happy to add your comments here! What do they enjoy?

                                                        ----

Are you interested to participate in the Life Story series and write about your experience as a bilingual or multilingual child and/or a parent?  Would you like to take part in the Multilingual Family Interview series ? You can contact me here.



You might also like reading


What language should I speak to my child in public? - Multilingual parent dilemma.



One parent speaks two languages. Raising a trilingual child.




PROS & CONS of Raising a Trilingual Child

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How to explain your bilingual child the importance of speaking a minority language?

Do you want your child to speak your (minority) language with you and/or with a sibling? Or do you want her/him stop mixing the languages? Use this great tip from Berna to explain your bilingual child why it is important to stick to speaking the minority language and to speak it more often.


by Berna

We live in the USA and have two kids. Their majority language is English and minority is German.

My older daughter always speaks to her little sister in our minority language. I usually leave it be when she slips and uses English words every now and then, but recently she has been talking more and more in English (majority language!) to her sibling.


I kept reminding her by saying
"Remember we need to speak to your sister in German so she can learn it too" .

My daughter’s response was
"She's a baby. She'll learn it eventually".
I guess it is something she heard another adult was saying.


She didn't seem to quite 'get' it why it is very important to speak German to her sister. So I decided to show it to her in the form of a little game.

1. The sponge represents our brain. Two colors represent our languages.

I have chosen the dark color for the majority language English and the light color to represent the minority language - German.

2. Each time we counted where we (must) speak English we made a dot with blue color.

3.We did the same for German in yellow.

4. “Now what happens when we choose English between us?” I asked her.

The German gets diluted and eventually we can't see it!


I asked my 5 year old what can we do so this doesn't happen?

5. She took the yellow color representing German and said "we speak speak speak it all the time" and added that daddy can get some yellow too cause he's too blue.



7. At the end we got a beautiful color and she understood that this is the result of keeping up with German. She also asked if we could add red for Turkish. “Absolutely!” - I said. “We just need to keep practicing so we don't forget the languages.”

If you have a child who refuses to speak with you in the minority language and who is old enough to understand the concept using the colors same as I did above, maybe this fun way of explaining how the brain works is just what you need!
For those of you, who speaks more than one language to your child, try to use two sponges and more colors. Be creative! :)


Are you interested to participate in the Life Story series and write about your experience as a bilingual or multilingual child and/or a parent?  Would you like to take part in the Multilingual Family Interview series ? You can contact me here.



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15 Inspirational Tips From A Mother Raising Trilingual Children

by Filipa

As you already know from my previous post, I am a mother of two beautiful trilingual children French/Spanish/English. We live in Perth, Western Australia.

My son Tiago has just turned 3 and my daughter Elisa is 23 months old. They are amazing little learners.
As you will notice when your children reach that age, their little minds absorb much more than you expect. It is great fun and a privilege to witness their progress on a daily basis.

Tiago speaks French and Spanish as well as any same age little Aussie speaks English. He understands everything in English but for now it is his minority language, so he is not as fluent.

I am not worried about my children’s English since they are going to be schooled in Australia. I’d rather focus on the French and Spanish while they are little. I feel that the more efforts I put into these languages now the harder it will be for them to give up later. It requires a lot of discipline from us but it is well worth it.

Elisa is starting to associate the languages with the people. Where before she used to ask me for “agua” (water in Spanish) now she says “eau” and “agua” is just for dad.It is very amusing to hear my son correcting her when she speaks Spanish to me instead of French “Non, en français ma poupée” (No, in French my doll).

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At home we use the OPOL method. I only speak French to the children and dad only Spanish. I am fluent in Spanish and my husband can also speak French, therefore none of us is excluded. I never switch to English when talking to my children even if I am with people who cannot understand French. I simply translate in English for their benefit. I do not want my children to think that English is better than French or Spanish.

I personally believe that switching to English would confuse them and would undermine my efforts in getting them fully proficient in the other languages. We want them to be able to communicate with their grandparents and cousins who live overseas. We cannot travel every year to France or the USA where my father-in-law lives. It is expensive. The journey is too long and we like to explore other places too.

We use several tools to ensure that they are learning French and Spanish without feeling excluded.

Let me share a few with you:

1. Consistency

We never switch to English (our community language). When they learn new English words at daycare, unless they are singing a song, I will translate everything back to them in the form of a question. “Oh! You have played with the farm animals at daycare. What did they eat? (my son knows the difference between herbivores, carnivores and omnivores) Who else was with you?”

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2. Video calling

We skype with my family in France once or twice a week. My children practise by speaking with their grandparents and their cousins. We also skype once a week with my father in law in New York and again they practise their Spanish.

3. Playdates

We are lucky to have South American friends who have same age children. We try to organize playdates at least once a month.

4. Reading Books

I own an online bookstore specialized in international children’s books and we are lucky to have access to hundreds of books in French and in Spanish. My children love books and they are my fiercest critics. So far they loved all the books I showed them.

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5. Language Workshop for kids

I also run Spanish and French workshops for little ones. I take my son along with me so he can get more practice with other children but it also motivates the other children who do not have a Spanish or French speaking background. When I ask them to repeat new words, some of them are shy and Tiago says the words straight away, then the children give it a go.


6. Activity Book

I am crazy about activity books, I love them since I was a kid and used to complete them the first couple of days of the holidays. Every time I go back to France or the USA I come back with at least 10kgs of books, same when I have friends who come over. I could never resist a book; I would cut down on my coffees or something else but not on books. However, it can be quite expensive but with the magic of internet you can now find many free activity books that you can download and print. For example, I use for the Spanish http://www.edufichas.com and for French http://www.teteamodeler.com/cahier-de-vacances/cahier-vacances.asp . There are many more just Google “free activity books for a 2 or 3 year olds” and you will see many options offered.
I still buy some activity books with stickers as both my kids love them.


7. Music

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My children love dancing and singing. I have CDs with French and Spanish rhymes.The other day I got really confused when my son asked me to sing the rhyme with the elephant. I told him I did not know any French rhymes with elephants. He then added, “Yes you know! The elephant that rocks on a spider web.” It is a Spanish rhyme but since he made his request in French I assumed he wanted a French rhyme! When we sing together, I let them finish the sentence. They would sing the last word, and then little by little they are singing the whole sentences and songs.



8. Making mistakes

When I read a story or I sing a song, I will change it to say something silly. They will correct me right away.


9. Play games

For my last Spanish workshop I took a small Christmas tree with coloured balls and stars to decorate it. In order to hang a decoration on the tree the children had to tell me the colour and the shape of what they were picking up. Anything to make them speak.


10. Flashcards & Memory cards

I like to use flashcards. I make my own for my workshops. The ones you can buy tend to be on a single topic at the time. I have made about 45 that cover several themes, such as the house, clothing, food, farm animals, wild animals…..

I also like to play memory cards with them. Again I make my own using different themes such as Halloween, Christmas, birthdays…..


11. Comment on everything

I make comments when we are at the library for storytime or at the theatre. Obviously it is all in English, so I say something like “did you hear that? The cat jumped on the bed then went out of the window and he wasn’t even afraid”. I want to make sure they understand all the English words they are listening to but also I want them to tell me in our home languages what they remember of the story once it is over.


12. Encourage conversations  

Even if they are little and do not speak clearly, it is always great to get them included in the conversation. Promote open end questions? Avoid “yes” or ‘no’ questions. For example, today it is windy I pointed the tree branches moving and asked my children to look at the branches and hear what noise the leaves were making. Then I asked them if the wind was blowing softly or strongly. They could feel the wind on their faces, was it cold, warm? Ask them to describe what they see and feel when they are older.


13. Do not correct kids speaking

I do not correct them every time they make a mistake. It might make them want to stop talking.


14. Exposure

I take them to museums, art galleries, fairs, cultural events and exhibitions to develop their vocabulary.


15. Learning before travelling

When we are travelling, I organize little activities with them on the country we are going to visit. It is fun to see them recognizing some monuments and greet people in the local language.



If your partner speaks English only

I get to speak to many mothers who are trying to raise their children in a language other than English and it seems that they find it more difficult when one of the parents speaks English only. What I tend to tell them is to avoid switching to English when their partner is home, keep speaking German, Polish whatever language you are teaching your child (remember consistency) and say it again in English for the partner’s benefit. This way the partner can also pick up a few words in the foreign language.


Raising children in other languages than the one spoken in the country we live in is not easy.

I always tell myself it all comes down to 3 words: 

CONSISTENCY,  DISCIPLINE and PERSEVERANCE.

When you speak different languages, you are able to think differently and be more tolerant and open to other cultures. We all really need it these days.

Now it is your turn! Let us know what you do to keep your children speaking their mother tongue.

Comment below or share your story!

My husband Albis and I live in Perth, Western Australia. Everyday brings more fun when we hear our children Tiago and Elisa speaking in French, Spanish and English. I love listening to my son literally translating jokes from one language to another. I cannot wait until Elisa is a bit older to hear them sharing a secret code/language in French or Spanish.



Are you interested to participate in the Life Story series and write about your experience as a bilingual or multilingual child and/or a parent?  Would you like to take part in the Multilingual Family Interview series ? You can contact me here.


Recommended Books for Parents Raising Trilingual Children

Language Strategies for Trilingual Families: Parents' Perspectives (Parents' and Teachers' Guides) by Andreas Braun  - Read more

Growing up with Three Languages: Birth to Eleven (Parents' and Teachers' Guides) by Xiao-lei Wang  - Read more

Trilingual by Six: The sane way to raise intelligent, talented children by Lennis Dippel MD - Read more


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One Parent Speaking Two Languages. Raising a Trilingual Child.

by Semiha Sözeri

We are a family of three living in the Netherlands.
I am originally from Bulgaria and I belong to the Turkish minority there. I grew up bilingual: speaking Bulgarian and Turkish equally well. When I was born, my parents spoke primarily Turkish to me. I started learning Bulgarian at the kindergarten when I was 2 years old. Both of my parents were teachers in primary schools located in areas with high percentage of Turkish minority population. They were experienced in supporting majority language acquisition without attrition of the minority language. In this respect, they spoke both in Turkish and in Bulgarian with me and my brother in order to maintain both languages simultaneously. Their only rule was never to mix the languages within the same sentence. I think I have adopted a great deal of their approach to me in the linguistic education of my own son, whom I raise trilingually in Turkish, Dutch and English and expose to the fourth language - Bulgarian.

As many expat parents, I was wondering which language teaching approach we should adopt. I have read extensively on the topic and I have benefited from observing other expat families with kids. I have seen that for many families where the father and the mother have different mother tongues, it is rather easier to follow the One Parent – One Language method and to obtain good results.

However, in our case we had more than two languages which we needed to teach our son. My husband is Turkish from Turkey. Significant part of our education was in English: we started learning English in secondary school, then our bachelor and master’s degrees were completely taught in English. Right now, we have many international friends. Thus, even before our son was born we knew that he will be exposed to multiple languages.

We knew it was possible for a child to learn up to four languages simultaneously and the literature on the subject was indicating that as long as the parents are consistent in their approach, the exposure to more languages would only be beneficial.


When my son was born, my husband was working full-time and I was lucky enough to be working part-time from home. The first language I started speaking with him was Turkish, but from the very beginning I exposed him to English and Dutch nursery rhymes, books and videos as well. Our child started going to Dutch daycare two days a week when he was 18 months old. In the meantime, we were attending English speaking playgroups in The Hague. This way we made sure he gets sufficient exposure to Turkish, Dutch and English.

When we read a book, I always ask him in which language he would like to hear it and I translate accordingly. When we learn the name of a new object, we try to name it in all of the languages we use making clear that things have different names in the different languages. Same goes for counting as well.

Now that my son is 2 years and 11 months, he has the same level of proficiency in Turkish and English with Dutch lagging somewhat behind these two. Nevertheless, he speaks in whole sentences in all three of them and I hope that going to a Dutch school will help him a lot. Neither I, nor my husband is a native speaker of Dutch and we started learning the language only after we settled in the Netherlands 5 years ago.

Also, I must admit that although Bulgarian is one of my native languages, I was a bit reluctant to introduce it. There are a number of reasons behind this decision. First of all, during my early childhood the Bulgarian state has banned speaking Turkish in public as a part of the assimilationist policy of the communist state. Because of this I had developed an idea of the Bulgarian state as an oppressor of its minorities and my ethnic identity as Turkish had a major place in my development. Therefore, it did not come natural to me to start speaking Bulgarian to my child after he was born.

Nevertheless, I do want to teach him Bulgarian as well, but I would prefer to wait until the other languages are established. Besides, we have no one else who speaks Bulgarian around us: I would be the only person who speaks Bulgarian to him. So, I opted for my mother tongue Turkish together with Dutch (the majority language) and English (the language of the playgroup) and decided to postpone Bulgarian for a later stage.

Luckily, I see that he shows interest in learning different languages (when we speak Turkish, for example, he is asking me “What do we call this in Dutch (or English)?”). This encouraged me to expose him to Bulgarian nursery rhymes as well. For now, Bulgarian is lagging very much behind the others but I am happy that he recognizes it and I believe that spending time in Bulgaria during the summer holidays, for example, will be beneficial for his learning.


I notice that many parents are worried when they encounter situations which do not allow them to strictly follow One Language – One Parent or Minority Language at Home – Majority in Public methods. So far, in our experience few languages can be successfully absorbed by a child even when the same care-taker is exposing the child to more than one language. I just would like to underline that this should not be interpreted as mixing the languages. We are very careful not to mix words from different languages within the same sentence and we always try to make it clear for the child when we switch from one language to another.


I am glad that the multilingual approach we have adopted has worked well for us so far. I do realize that it will become more challenging to sustain the minority languages once our son starts Dutch school. However, since I went to a majority school myself and managed to sustain my minority mother tongue skills at a native level, I am not very worried about it. I know that language maintenance through time requires the conscious effort of the family and the child himself.


According to me every family can have different linguistic needs based on their cultural heritage and current circumstances. I know of single mothers successfully raising bilingual kids and homeschooling families who are the sole teachers of their children for all languages and subjects taught in a regular school. In this respect, I don’t think that there is one-fit-all formula when it comes to language teaching. Instead, I believe in adapting the existing methods to the unique needs of each family.



                                                        ----

Are you interested to participate in the Life Story series and write about your experience as a bilingual or multilingual child and/or a parent?  Would you like to take part in the Multilingual Family Interview series ? You can contact me here.

Are you a multilingual family and looking for a playdate in your language or another family to chat with? Click here to find it now!

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