Hello, not sure if my flair is correct.

I speak Russian and my husband is learning (slowly) and we live where English is the primary language.

I am speaking only Russian to our toddler and my husband is speaking only English. So far it’s been going very well - toddler understands both, but speaks 80% Russian and 20% English. I assume this will change once he goes to school (where only English is spoken) but I plan on sticking to strict Russian.

My husband has always been okay with this setup but recently brought up being a “unified front” when we are talking to our toddler about something. IE being gentle with our newborn. How we handled it - I spoke to him and then my husband spoke to him. Seemed to have went well, but my husband is concerned how these things will go once toddler gets older. Will it send the message that the parents are not on the same page? My husband also not understanding what I’m saying might be causing him issue.

What are your thoughts on this? How do parents navigate this as kids get older?

TIA

I’m wondering if this will be too much for baby?
I would speak to baby in only mandarin
Partner would speak to baby in only japanese
(me and partner are both very well about not slipping up at all. baby will only ever hear these languages come from us) (as for me and partner, we usually alternate japanese and chinese between each other)
Grandparents speak only english + currently living in the usa so environment is english speaking (playgrounds, libraries, gym daycare)
Baby goes to a korean speaking daycare / preschool (korean families, play dates)
And finally, a nanny / babysitter comes twice a week and speaks only Hindi. Since this language has the least exposure, me and partner are thinking of having babysitter read tons of hindi books, and having baby strictly only watch hindi shows.
Why are we doing this?
As we are currently in the USA, our plan is to move to china within the next three years. The reason Japanese and Korean are important is because we also plan to live there! Me and partner are pretty set on not having a “designated area to live” We basically want to do 1-2 years in each country. Starting with china, then japan, korea, india.
We don’t really want to live in the usa once we move.
Once we move out of the usa, im thinking of switching my language and speak to baby in only english so baby doesn’t lose that language
Is this asking for too much? I know baby is not going to be fluent in all languages nor understand everything. Is it too much pressure? Does this seem like a terrible idea? Would we be confusing baby?

EDIT:
After reading everyone’s comments, I think it’s unnecessary to try and have baby speak Hindi. In reality, with a Hindi babysitter twice a week, baby just will not learn anything.
I will speak to my partner later about this. Now we have to figure out the Korean language situation. We both want baby to speak this language but I’m not sure what the circumstances are going to look like, especially after reading everyone’s commentary.

My husband (Danish) and I (Russian) have recently moved to Greece with our 3.5 year old son from the UK. We don’t know how long we’ll stay in Greece. Minimum is another 2 years, could be longer and we’d like to maintain some kind of connection to here for years to come.

Our son’s strongest language is Danish, but he speaks to me and my family only in Russian. And in the last few months his English has started coming along (though it’s still his weakest). He goes to a mostly English speaking nursery (though there are lots of Greek kids so lots of exposure there still).

He also hears lots of Greek on the playground but I can tell he doesn’t understand and feels quite left out. Normally he’s pretty boisterous but I can see he keeps to himself when he doesn’t know how to engage with these kids. I have two questions - how can we help with his Greek? Hire a local babysitter for an hour to so a week just to “play” / chat with him in Greek?

Second question is re schools. We don’t love his nursery school. As I said, the school is primarily in English. However, the kids are hardly outside though they’re in a gorgeous woodland area…

Unfortunately city we’re in doesn’t have any international but also “alternative” / options.

There is however a wonderful school in our city that we’re more aligned with but it’s fully in Greek. I’m thinking of sending him there for the next school year (so 2027) once he’s had another year of passive Greek exposure. Is that silly? Will it lead to brain overload to force this fourth language on him when we don’t know that we’ll be here long term anyway? Should add he can be pretty intense and not always a big lover of change…

Me (Bosnian) and my husbond (Spanish) do OPOL with our 23 month old daughter, but we live in Germany and since 6 months ago she goes to tagesmutter (a day carer) that speaks only German to her. She understands all 3 very well, with at a moment more words in Bosnian, as my family comes every couple of weeks and we spent a lot of time in Bosnia. However, me and my husband speak to each other in English, as neither speaks speaks good German, and while I speak Spanish and communicate with his family in Spanish (in my family everyone speaks English so he never had to learn), we never spoke it to each other. Our daughter only gets upset when hearing English too much, I guess that she connects it as not being part of the conversation. Now we would like to start introducing a bit of TV, but problem is both of us hate dubbing and would prefer for her to watch cartoons in original language, which is of course English. But is this just going to add confusion, I don't want to break her brain just because I don't want to hear her singing some weird version of Frozen. Or do we leave English for when she is a bit older.

Live in the states and my partner understands 50% of my native tongue/Russian but doesn’t speak it. I’ve been speaking Russian to my son since he was born but as he grew older, around 5, he became incredibly resistant to hearing me speak it. I chose more straight forward English communication so that we could get through the growing pains. He has never spoken Russian back to me. My parents visit once a month or so and he may use a Russian word here and there when answering prompted options. With me, never.

From 5-almost 7 I would say I bumped down to speaking it 30% as his English vocabulary and reading skills have surpassed 9th grade levels. I just can’t have philosophical and often extremely technical conversations in a language where my own skillset taps out at grade school levels. He has very eloquently told me in many words why he doesn’t want to speak it. My husband also grew up in a household that spoke only Polish since he was born, and he and all of his brothers just chose not to speak it. Not a single brother. However when my husband found himself in Poland for two weeks in his twenties he came back nearly fluent. And now he can’t force himself to speak it if he tried.

All of this is to say, my son came up to me today and exclaimed that he would like to learn to speak it. He reiterated that he understands most of it when I speak slowly enough but he just doesn’t feel comfortable or know how to find the words to respond and that he would like to change that. He has done Russian language classes from 3-6 where he has learned to read in Russian at beginner levels but still never spoke it outside of reading it. He is a very precocious child who does things at his own pace. When he’s ready he is ready and nothing will tear him away. So now that I have his attention, and he is keen, how can I make this happen? We don’t have a Russian speaking community around us nor can we travel back to Ukraine where I am from. I already bumped up the time I speak it to him to nearly 100% but he just can’t find the words back to speak. I have no idea how to support him in this and would love all of your advice.

My son, who is almost 3 years old, never responds to his father in Spanish. He understands perfectly. My partner has spoken exclusively to him in Spanish since birth. However, my partner and I speak French together, and my son attends a French-language daycare. He kinda rejets spanish when I try to speak it.

I understand Spanish and speak it a little. I incorporate Spanish into our routine by reading bedtime stories in both French and Spanish, and my son watches a short show in Spanish every day. We also have video calls with family members who live abroad. There aren’t many Spanish speakers in our social circle, and my partner’s entire family lives in his home country. We are going to visit them for one month in december.

Is there anything else we should be doing? Is this normal? Should we only speak spanish at home even if I dont speak it fluently?

We are worried he won't speak spanish.

Thanks

I recently just heard about the OPOL method. My native tongue is Tagalog and husband is American English. We mainly speak English at home. I try to speak Tagalog to my baby when I’m aware of it but I’ve gotten used to just speaking English as it was just me & my husband abroad (Riyadh) and I unconsciously speak to my baby in English too. Right now, at almost 12 months she’s saying “mama”, “oh no”, “nyum nyum”, “no”. And I’m dreading she’d only speak English. I usually sing tagalog & English nursery rhymes and she can follow gestures like clapping hands in tagalog. And “Eat Bulaga” (Filipino version of peekaboo)

I’d like to try the OPOL method, do you guys have any tips on making it easier or consistent?

I’m Korean and I’ve been wondering how differently people can retain their first language after moving to an English-speaking country.

I have an older Korean friend who moved from Korea to Sydney at 9. He’s 27 now, has barely been back to Korea since, did almost all of his schooling here, went to university here and now works here. His parents stayed in Korea and his grandmother looked after him to some extent, so he didn’t grow up with Korean-speaking parents constantly using Korean at home. Almost all of his close friends growing up were white too, so he wasn’t really in an Asian social bubble.

English is more comfortable for him and he’s completely native in it, yet his Korean is extremely natural. I’ve known him for over 5 years and we basically only speak Korean. Korean probably became our default because my English wasn’t as good when we first met, but my English is completely fine now and we still almost never switch. His Korean was already very natural when I met him around 2020, and he says dating Korean girlfriends since then has improved it even more.

What’s interesting is how different other cases I’ve seen are.

I knew another Korean guy who moved to Australia at around 11-12, and by high school English was already his dominant language and his Korean was noticeably awkward.

Another friend’s older brother moved to the US at around 17. He was already extremely good at English in Korea, had even competed in international English-speaking competitions and had visited the US several times before moving. After he’d been there for a while, even his dad noticed over video calls that his Korean had become less natural and joked with him about it. English is now much more comfortable for him and he’s settled in the US.

So he left Korea much later than my friend who moved at 9, yet their outcomes seem almost reversed.

I also knew a Chinese guy who moved to Australia at 9 whose Mandarin still sounded completely mainland native, but he told me that culturally he felt like his understanding of China was basically stuck at age 9. That also made me wonder how separately language and cultural familiarity can develop.

I came to Australia myself at around 15-16. My English is completely fine now, but Korean is still overwhelmingly more comfortable for me for speaking, reading and writing, and culturally I still feel much more Korean.

So what causes outcomes this different? How much is age of immigration compared with family language, peer groups, relationships, media exposure, personality or individual differences in language retention? I’d especially like to hear from people who moved during late childhood or adolescence, or parents who have seen very different outcomes between siblings.

My son is 22 months. We live in Portugal, my wife is Portuguese and I'm Swedish. We both lived in the UK 15 or so years and speak English with each other at home.

So Portuguese is majority language, I speak Swedish with him as minority language and my wife also does sometimes (her Swedish isn't so bad). English we are not so worried about as there is enough exposure and he'll have it in school etc.

My son is going through a language explosion, which is really fun. Unsurprisingly though most of his words are Portuguese. He still seems to understand almost an equal part Swedish, which feels good. I'm only speaking to him in Swedish and we have plenty of books in Swedish.

I've read multiple things that if you want the child to speak the minority language, not just understand, you need to insist they reply to you in the minority language. I get that but at the moment it feels a bit like I'd be discouraging his general learning.

So my question is, at what age is it right to start insisting he replies to me in Swedish?

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My husband and I do OPOL with our child. I speak to our child in my heritage language, which I learned at age 7. I hadn’t used it regularly in a while before having our kid so was fairly clunky when they were born, including in vocab. I found myself on my phone looking stuff up often, which sucked, because a) I try to not be on my phone around them and b) I don’t want to paint the phone/Internet as the only source of all knowledge.

Then I found this random pocket dictionary translating between my heritage language and English (community + husband’s language) and started to use that. My kid looooved it. They would thumb through it all the time and “look things up” (2 yo, lol) and dad could use it with them as well. We upgraded and got a huge one, because the pocket one lacked many more niche words. It’s been a super fun tool for all of use and I love that it’s taught them about books as a reference!

Hi folks,

long story short, I am in the middle of a separation with my partner. We have a kid together (2+ years old), and we attempted to raise him OPOL because I am bilingual (raised with OPOL model, funnily enough.). She speaks to him in Language A which is also the community language (and the language we speak together), and I speak Language B to him.

I am C2 in this language, but it’s been a while I haven’t used the language that much. Sometimes I need to go the long way to explain or describe something I am not immediately having the words for. I used to take the time to read a bit, on my own, in Language B, to help me with getting the expression back on track. I was getting there. But with this was before.

With the separation (not yet divorce, but likely outcome.), I am thinking of giving up, because it’s just too hard. I can’t focus on surviving what we are going through, investing in myself to not drown, having to manage the little one on my own every 2 weeks, and working on language B at the same time. Also, we are at an age where verbal communication is getting huge with my kid, can understand, replies, speaks a ton (75% in A). I end up, because it’s quicker sometimes, to speak in A.

I feel I am failing this mission of raising my kid with Language B, which was important to me also because some family members I am close with speak B but not A.

Should I give up? I am scared my kid may blame me for this, being raised bilingual is such a blessing afterall …

if I give up for now, can I come back to it if my circumstances change/improve?

I have got almost 3 year old twins and we are doing OPOL, with me speaking to them in Afrikaans and my husband speaking to them in English. We live in an English speaking country. The only other Afrikaans they get is from my parents. I speak English to my husband.

They have done really well and easily repeat what we say, make up sentences in both languages and code switch.

However, I myself have been out of South Africa for 16 years and only speak Afrikaans with my parents. It never used to matter but now we are getting into emotion and consequences territory, I find myself searching for words and not always remembering them.

It is disheartening!

Has anyone been in this situation? What did you do? Maybe I need to do more reading in my native language!

If your child was diagnosed with a speech delay while growing up in a bilingual or multilingual environment, would you drop one or more languages to help them start talking sooner and focus on just one for now?

I’ve been following this sub for awhile and wanted to post a win. I’m a non-native Spanish speaker (my proficiency is probably somewhere around a B2 maybe in the C’s idk). My mom is a native speaker from PR but didn’t really teach us. I connected super hard to the language since I was in elementary school and really just kept at it forcing her to talk to me whenever she could, ended up studying it in college and going abroad to Spain. I lost A LOT of it in my 20s. Fast forward to having my first kid and I really wanted to do one thing: teach him Spanish. Since the day he was born I’ve been speaking to him in Spanish. It started off just vocab but now I’m fully having convos with him. It’s a lot of work but I’m extremely proud of myself. And it’s clear this definitely unlocked something in my brain.

He’s 18 months now and also going to a Spanish immersion daycare twice a week. Most of his vocab right now is all Spanish words: agua, gorro, parque, etc. He understands me when I speak to him in Spanish too and understands my mom when she speaks to him.

It’s a really cool experience and I’m glad I could give him this gift. So to any “non-native” speakers looking for a reason to keep trying - here it is! I felt super insecure about my abilities but after 18 months of only speaking to him in Spanish I know I’m doing something right!

Hey everyone,

​I’m curious about the experiences of immigrant families (or people who grew up around many second-/third-generation immigrants).

​From your own experience or what you’ve observed:

​Do 2nd-gen (or later) kids generally speak their parents' heritage language fluently?

​Is language loss in the second generation a universal trend across all immigrant backgrounds, or does it happen more often in specific communities?

​Do expectations around keeping the mother tongue differ significantly from one cultural/ethnic group to another?

​Would love to hear your personal stories, family dynamics, or general observations!

My Child can speak fluent Mandarin, Cantonese and her mother's local dialect of Cantonese. I speak Mandarin, Cantonese and English. I teach Speech and Debate in English at a Chinese school focused on this and I have taught my daughter some English, but It's hard to keep it strong alongside the other languages she speaks and she's not always surrounded by English speakers. What are some things I can do to help improve her English skills?

For context my kid speaks a different language with me then his father and his third language is the community language of english which is what me and his dad speak to each other in. He is super chatty these days and is talking non stop, he understands and speaks both languages fluently but now he talks to his dad through me too! So I have to constantly answer his questions AND translate questions to his dad through me. If we’re sitting down at dinner it’s often like they are both talking to me 90% of the time then to each other. My language has become his dominant language which I am so proud of but that means when he is just playing and mumbling to himself I’m the only person who can respond to him. I’ve become so frazzled and impatient and irritated and overstimulated and grumpy and I hate the I’m giving my kid that vibe when he just wants to be chatty and hang out. I don’t know how to lighten my talking load, I’ve told my partner to take him to a playgroup with his language so that he gets a little more comfortable with his language too or to just start seriously learning how to speak my language which he says he wants to do but he doesn’t seem to motivated to do either of those things yet. Any tips or just similar experiences would really help

What are ways you’ve learnt a second language. I want my kids to learn fluently through immersion however would love to learn with them.

Hi all. My son’s (6.5yo) Sunday school (we are in U.S.)is offering Hebrew as additional class and I’m at crossroads. He has a similar set up at Saturday school with Ukrainian but there is similarity to Russian and he has had no issues enjoying it as an additional class. Part of me wants an exposure for cultural reasons for him but seeing that it would literally be only 1 hr a week with 0 help during the week is this a set up that can lead to anything useful? The rest of Sunday school is in Russian should we just stick to any available hours as support for minority language? I speak no Hebrew so can’t assist him but part of me wishes I did to connect to my people so that’s the part of me that would welcome that for my son but would it be that with the 1 hour a week set up during a school year?

Hi,

I am French and my husband is Spanish, we live in Toronto so English is the predominant language. We are expecting our first baby and started looking at daycare centers. A really well reviewed center near our house is a Japanese only immersion daycare, staff will only be speaking Japanese all day long with the baby. I think that's great, Japanese is a beautiful language, the Japanese way of bringing up children is recognized and praised but I also have concerns. If I will be speaking in French to my baby, my husband will be speaking in Spanish, we speak English to each other (with an accent) and daycare will be in Japanese, will it be difficult for my baby to start Kindergarten in English or in French after all these years of care/classes in Japanese ?

Hi,

This is more of meant as an encouragement post for anyone doing 3 languages.

I speak French and Greek and my husband speaks German to our 2 year old toddler. He has a vast vocabulary in all three languages. We suspect he has an excellent ear as he picks up words very quickly BUT as parents we also want to think that we're doing a rather good job 😅.

We were told so often that 3 languages is too much for a baby / child, and that he would speak later than the average. Turns out that was really not the case, in fact he spoke earlier than the average, and in all 3 languages. He has the about the same amount of vocabulary so far in all 3, but this will likely change as he grows and makes friends etc.

Our setup is a bit weird but seems to work (esp for me since I am trying to pass down 2 languages to him):
-Husband speaks German to him always.
-I speak french in the morning, then he goes to french-german daycare, and in the evenings I only speak Greek to him. That's the only way I found to make it work for my brain (otherwise I would switch mid sentence and that was catastrophic).

Anyways maybe this can be encouraging to parents in a similar situation!