Bilingual babies

[Vishenka69]

For those of you who are raising or planning on raising bilingual kids, how did/do you get started? I've heard all kind of recommendations from sticking to Russian-only until daycare/kindergarden to introducing both languages from the beginning. Would it be confusing to do two languages at once (interacting/alphabet blocks/nursery rhymes/etc.)? I want her to have at least our level of fluency in Russian but don't want to alienate from American kid culture either. I feel that they'll pick up English anyway and should put more energy into Russian. Am I right?

[DCJenn]

The immersion elementary school that Nikolai attends does 90% Spanish for the younger grades and gradually as they get closer to high school (it goes to 8th grade) they add in English so that by the end of 8th grade they're about 50/50 English/Spanish.

The instructors count on having native Spanish speakers in the classroom to help the non-native speakers.

Everyone who grows up in San Antonio ends up being bilingual.

I think your instincts are correct- focus on Russian and the English will happen later. You can't have the TV or radio on without English, after all!

Jenn

[GreyhoundsRUs]

I think that you will be fine!

I think that the "problems" that people cite with bilingual baby-raising (the confusion of language, not mastering either language) are a result of the parent's education level and the type of school they go to (to a certain extent). Some of my students who come from families that only speak Spanish have a difficult time with English (even in HS). This is because they were not taught Spanish in an academic setting, not really taught English in an academic setting (because their elementary schools were crappy), and not taught proper English at home because their parents don't know proper English!

[alison]

It's easier said than done, but we try to speak only in German when we are together. I speak to dd in English when it's just the two of us. When dh gets home, he has a hard time switching back to German, so for a little while, it's usually me speaking in German, and dh in English, until he's adjusted (within 10-15 min). With bil here, it was really easy to speak in German as a family, so I hope this ease continues.

I hope that dd learns that German is the language spoken at home. She should see that I speak to dh in German, and in turn, so should she. She'll get English with me and later, at school.

Good luck! It isn't easy.

[Thirteen]

My DH's residency peer has spoken Cantonese exclusively to her son for the first 2 yrs of his life. They are now introducing English at 2 1/2 yrs., but he prefers to use the Cantonese.

He understands and speaks both, though --

[MarissaNicole]

My nephew (almost two) is being raised bilingual and they didn't have a specific plan. My sister's native language is english, my brother-in-law's french. They pretty much speak French at home but my nephew has picked up English just from being around our family. Its funny because I would have been worried about kids getting confused, but oddly enough my nephew seems to know most of his animals in French and English as well as foods and most actions/requests. He also seems to know to use English around my family (rather than French). Your child will most likely pick up English regardless just from being around other people.

And also FYI my sister teaches at a French immersion school and she speaks NO English to the kids (except for safety issues) from day one! She teaches first graders, and I don't know how those kids aren't freaked out when they start school (none of the kids have any French background). I seriously don't know how she teaches them to read/write/do math without English, but somehow it works.

[DCJenn]

The immersion program is amazing. The only classes they have in English are gym and art.
I figure since we don't speak anything other than English, we're doing the next best thing. He's with them 30 hours a week after all!

I would have loved to have kept up the Russian but there's no support like there is in DC.

Jenn

[Tenacious_D]

Funny you should ask this...I am an ELL/ESL (English as a 2nd language) teacher currently for K-3 students and just spoke with my students' parents this morning about the importance of keeping the home language (i.e. Russian, german, cantonese) active with the kids. You want to make sure that they are getting as much language as possible no matter which language. If kids have a base language to work from, it's much easier to teach a 2nd language like English. I would make sure you read to her in Russian, look at the Russian and English alphabet etc. She will do fine once it's time for school. Glad to hear that you are choosing to teach her Russian from birth!!

And Jenn, that is such a cool school, I wish we had one here like that to choose from. There are a few French schools which I speak but Spanish seems far more useful.

[McPants]

Since the gf doesn't speak Swedish I find it highly unlikely that I'll even attempt to teach the language to any potential future children. Besides, it's a language spoken by 9 million people - I'd be more inclined to teach one they're likely to get some actual use out of. I suppose German would be the likely choice if we decide to make the children bilingual.

[DCJenn]

I don't know, McPants- I have a friend whose mom is Polish and she taught him Polish which they spoke at home- much to the dismay of his non-Polish speaking father. So, fast forward 30 years or so, at his wedding reception to the girl from New Mexico, our friends dad secretly took Spanish classes and then toasted his new daughter-in-law IN SPANISH and said that finally he would have someone he could tell secrets to! It was hilarious.

Jenn

ETA: here's the new video about Nikolai's school: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoUvzcglW-g

[Deebs]

We have friends who are a Danish/Iclandic couple. He spoke solely Danish to the kids, and she spoke only Iclandic. By age two, their eldest son was trilingual to the point that when we came in the house, he would greet us in English. DH and I could never figure out how he kept straight who in his life spoke what language, but he did. They now have two more children, and have taken the same route with them. The youngest is not yet speaking (she's under one), but the second child is also trilingual. Just seeing how well it has worked for their family convinces me that your kids will "pick up" English if you speak Russian to them at home.

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

I just want to say how envious I am that this is even an option!!

[Vishenka69]

Thanks for the encouragement. I don't know if I would have attempted this if I was the only Russian speaker, but with two of us and some help from grandparents, I think it should be doable. We also found out today that DirectTV has a Russian kids channel and I'm planning on getting lots of CDs/DVDs/books for her as well.

So many of our Russian-speaking friends don't bother to make sure their kids have anything more than basic skills (understanding grandparents). I just don't get it. I wish we had any kind of emersion school but I haven't heard of anything like that in our area, although we still have some years until we'll need one.

[MarissaNicole]

Thanks for the encouragement. I don't know if I would have attempted this if I was the only Russian speaker, but with two of us and some help from grandparents, I think it should be doable. We also found out today that DirectTV has a Russian kids channel and I'm planning on getting lots of CDs/DVDs/books for her as well.

So many of our Russian-speaking friends don't bother to make sure their kids have anything more than basic skills (understanding grandparents). I just don't get it. I wish we had any kind of emersion school but I haven't heard of anything like that in our area, although we still have some years until we'll need one.

Just a random note when you said books and CDs - my nephew is kind of little to sit through movies (and they don't really want him watching TV for extended periods) so they let him watch short YouTube cartoons in french (they are like 5 minutes long) and he LOVES them - so thats another place to look.

I've known two families that were really committed to it and went about it in two different ways.

Our friends here speak only Spanish to their kids until they're school age. Their caregivers all speak Spanish, they have family here, Mom is Spanish, Dad is Peruvian, and they have a large group of Spanish speaking friends. They feel the kids will pick up English once they hit school (and they do -- their two older boys speak both languages w/o a discernible accent on either). The one downside is that their non-Spanish speaking friends (or poor Spanish speaking friends) have a hard time communicating with their daughter, and she has trouble playing with friends in the neighborhood (she's 3). I've had to watch her a couple times, and between her Spanish / 3 year old pronunciation, and my strong grasp of nouns but poor sentence structure, it's a real challenge.

My other friends have one native Spanish speaker, and one who has learned (I actually know 2 families like this). From the start they decided that the native speaker speaks ONLY Spanish, the other parent speaks ONLY English. The kids grow up knowing both, and it's not at all confusing for them. They're sponges at that age - and it's never a matter of translating. They just know the right word in both languages.

The different alphabet could pose more of a challenge, but Danielle is right that you can read to her in Russian so that she's familiar with it. All of dh's cousins are fluent in Gujarati and Hindi, but none of them know how to read in those languages.