I’m Chinese, grew up in Switzerland and living in Australia now. I have been speaking to my 2 1/2 year old son in Chinese (Cantonese) and German. His dad speaks to him in English. So far, he has picked up the languages, but more and more would only respond in English instead of Chinese or German. He understands everything I say to him, but prefers to say things in English.
My question is does anybody have experience teaching their kid 3 languages at the same time and what tips can you give me? Not sure, if I should only teach him reading in English or start teaching him reading in German as well.
Most people would simply break up the different language reading lessons throughout the day, your child will figure out the difference without issue. You can absolutely teach them at the same time, it makes no difference. Well, I suppose it depends on who you ask but I think most people here would say that all can be taught at the same time. However, these “professionals,” for example, don’t believe a child can be taught to read any earlier than age 4, but you may glean something useful from their page so I am including the link anyway. http://linguistlist.org/ask-ling/biling.cfm#twolangs
Totally agree with TmT teach all at the same time. Just make sure you have lots of resources ie kids books in German and Cantonese to help the reading along. I would also pin up words around your house in the 3 languages.
Also an excellent book to read is the Bilingual Edge. It has a lot of hints and tips to families that are teaching there children more than one language.
My daughter is 3 1/2 and we started to introduce her to English, Spanish, Mandarin and German when she was 6 months old. My husband speaks English, I speak Spanish, Mandarin she has learned from DVD’s and we ended up dropping the German because we run out of materials. I’ll definitely say to teach her all the languages at the same time. They may mix words here and there, but with time the get better at using the right words when speaking certain language.
Now, regarding your baby answering to you in English, is normal because you live in Australia and that is his native language right now. I have the same issue with my dd, but every time she speaks to me in English I tell her she need to tell me in Spanish. I tell her I don’t understand. She knows I do, but that is the way of my telling her the conversation is not going to continue until she talks to me in Spanish. Neither of us speak or know Mandarin, but a couple of times she has named things in Mandarin (or at least we think is Mandarin because of the pronunciation) and one of her favorite DVS right now are in Mandarin.
