I am a first time mum of a 2 months old baby, a new member and new to the concept of teaching children early.
I am not sure where to start but I am very interested in stimulating my child to the best of my abilities.
I am French but my daughter’s dad speaks English and we live in an English speaking area.
I speak French to my daughter but English when with English people. I have no problem teaching her in English
but wonders how it is going to work as I speak French with her on a daily basis ! Any takes on this?
Anyways, I am glad to have found this website and forum and hopefully, we will be successful with this method !
DS spent the first few years of his life speaking and hearing english, french, spanish and signing. he’s fine. and it’s amazing because he can automatically translate! i mostly teach him in english and we speak a lot of spanish and a fair amount of french and asl, but he just needs to hear a new vocabulary in one language and if he knows it in the other, he can translate it, as if he were taught in that other language too. no worries, your lil’ one will be fine just have fun with it and stay consistent and not stressed. one suggestion: don’t mix your languages up. at least in the first year or so, keep your phrases all in the same language. for example, you can speak in french, and then later on switch to english, and then later on switch to french, but don’t use both languages back and forth in the same sentences (franglais, spanglish, etc) because then the syntax of the language is broken down and their miracle computer brains won’t be able to pick up the rules for language as easily, which may lead to a delay while the brain decodes the rules. hope that helps!
I’m Australian and my husband is French and we live in France. I’m the only foreigner and English speaker in my town so I’m all my daughter has for now to teach her English.
I speak English with her, I also speak with her in Turkish but she is having difficulty with pronunciation, though I understand what she is trying to say if she repeats back. My husband almost always speaks in French but sometimes Franglais or in English with her.
She knows when to switch languages with people and doesn’t speak Franglais with them, either French or English or says one sentence in French then repeats it again in English.
She does have a preference for English and sometimes prefers to speak to her French relatives in English too, who never understand her, but I expect that to change once she starts school if I can’t get her into an International school, English then might be forgotten or neglected!!.
I don’t allow her to speak to me in French. I always speak to her in English when other people are around, I’m not concerned if that annoys them but I will speak with others in French when she is around.
Never mixes things up but she never responds to me or her father if we are referred to as maman and papa by someone. I am mummy and husband is daddy to her. If someone says “give that ball to maman or papa or say bye bye to maman or papa” she will gaze around thinking “who/what?” even though she knows what we are referred to in that language and people often have to point at us when she doesn’t respond. I explain she doesn’t have autism as people are often shocked with that!
She is 2 and speaks in clear, grammatically correct 8+ word sentences. Being trilingual hasn’t affected her speech at all. You’ll be OK
I really don’t know why I speak English to my daughter ! I just don’t have an opportunity to speak French much and
have been working with many English speaking children so the first language that comes to me is English.
However, I really want her to go to French school so I have to be more consistent !
Do you live in France or Canada? For now my husband speaks with our daughter mostly in French (90% of the time) but once she starts school, it will be just English spoken at home (I hope he keeps this promise). Your daughter will learn both languages, no doubt, and will be just as good in both (at least orally) if you keep her surrounded in an English speaking environment. She will learn French at school so it’s not so bad if you speak to her in mostly English now. French will be her most dominant language, that’s for sure, if that is the language she will be using at school amongst her peers/teachers and may not use much English at all if she loses contacts in English. My husband speaks French with our daughter as he thinks she won’t learn French and needs to know French to enter school - but we live in France of cause she will learn French!
We speak slovak and english at home - we are slovak. I am the one who teaches her both languages. We use english when we are alone and slovak when there are more people with us. She understands well both languages and can translate words if she needs to. I make sure we don’t mix languages but she has already used few code words. But that is natural I think and do not worry about it.
just have fun with it and stay consistent and not stressed. one suggestion: don’t mix your languages up. at least in the first year or so, keep your phrases all in the same language. for example, you can speak in french, and then later on switch to english, and then later on switch to french, but don’t use both languages back and forth in the same sentences (franglais, spanglish, etc) because then the syntax of the language is broken down and their miracle computer brains won’t be able to pick up the rules for language as easily, which may lead to a delay while the brain decodes the rules. hope that helps!