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 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…

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’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.

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.

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