Understanding another language has as many benefits as speaking it. My bilingualism has enriched my life like no other learning experience because a language is a portal not only to another culture but also to a different way of seeing life
I hear three languages at home and we all siblings are blessed that we can communicate so easily with different cultures and can speak three languages proficiently.
You are so right, my grandson speaks Chinese and English, even he is only 20 months ! We are so happy that he has no problems to learn both languages! Thank you!
I was a little worried that my 2.5 year old isn’t as articulate as some kids but I realized she often knows the same word in two languages. She also seems to distinguish between English and Turkish pretty well, although occasionally she’ll use English words and Turkish word order. It’s fascinating to watch her learn. I’m so glad she’s learning as a child because I’m really struggling with Turkish as an adult.
I speak Cantonese with my mom, Mandarin with my nanny, and my hometown dialect with my dad. I don't remember I had any difficulties in communicating with different people. And now I come to the U.S., I can speak English well too! I found being raised with multi-lingual is very useful and inspiring for me to learn another language.
I speak Portuguese and French, I was raised in France and I learned Portuguese with my mother, as she is Brazilian. At home I would speak Portuguese, and I would speak French at school and with my father (he is French). I learned English at school initially but when I was 20 years old I moved to London to study, and lived in the Uk for 10 years. So today I speak Portuguese, French and English. I have twin boys they are 2 years old. I spoke to them both languages French and Portuguese since they were born.
My husband was raised here and he totally mixes English and Spanish we called it Spanglish. So we talk to our kids in English,Spanish and Spanglish. We are fluent in those three hahaha
I loved this video Adrienne, thank you so much! You solved almost all my doubts. I speak to my daughters(2 year and 4 months old and 10 months old) in Greek mostly but sometimes some Spanish words and phrases are coming out more naturally. Needless to say, I was feeling guilty about it because I thought that I am confusing them. My husband is Spanish and we live in Spain and we speak to each other in English. My 2 year old speaks a lot in Spanish and in Greek, sometimes mixing languages, immediately translating words when she speaks to my husband that doesn´t speak Greek. it´s magical to see a little human doing this. I enjoy this phase a lot. Thanks again and keep up the great work!
So true, I am in the same boat with you. I live in Spain with my Spanish husband, I speak dutch to my 17month old and he speaks Spanish with him (between us mostly English), it is amazing how my just 17 month old tend to translate something I tell him to dutch to Spanish, he seem to prefer to speak Spanish he pronounces the Spanish words better, yet My goal was for him to at least understand both.
@@LaFamiliaABZ I speak Dutch with my 2 year old twins, my husband speaks English (he is Zambian) and we currently live in France. The boys are going to a French nursery. I am happy to hear that it is a myth that you have to speak consistently the same language, because i sometimes forget to speak in dutch. The boys are choosing the easiest word like jas instead of jacket and shoes instead of schoenen. Very funny to hear! Do your children speak already 200 words at 24 months? That sounds like a lot....
Thank you for this, such valuable information for me! I speak Spanish to my 2-year-old and my partner speaks English to him. At daycare he hears Dutch, we live in the Netherlands. He's started speaking all three languages and knows who to speak every language to. He asked me for "agua" the other day and ran to his dad to ask for "water". It's so cool! I can't believe how quickly and easily they can learn! In the beginning, it did feel a bit forced for me to speak Spanish to him as I hardly speak it here in the NL. I'm from Spain. I'm so glad I took the decision to do it, now it feels natural to speak to him in Spanish and I'm already seeing the results. I was raised bilingual (Spanish and English) and went to a German school. Speaking these languages has allowed me to learn and understand other languages quite easily.
Awesome! I was a bilingual public school teacher for 15 years, mostly first and second grades. I was amazed to see Spanish speaking only children learning to speak and read English in a single year in my classroom, while continuing to enrich their native language through content area instruction in Spanish. One of the secrets of my success was the use of the 1987 Riverside Basal Reading program that systematically taught high frequency vocabulary in interesting stories with repetition of the target words. I now do private tutoring using the 1938/1957 Alice & Jerry reading program. I also taught SEE (Signing Exact English) to my bilingual students for reinforcement.
We now moved from Brazil to France a year ago. I am noticing my boys pick up more French words than Portuguese. We established with my husband to speak at home in Portuguese. I am speaking to them in both languages, but my mother keeps telling me that I can only speak to them in French and my husband can speak to them in Portuguese. But it’s feels inatural to speak only French with my boys. I was raised with Portuguese all the languages of love was in Portuguese to me and it feels strange to say it in French. I loved your videos it really clarified a lot for me thank you!!!
Wow Adrienne I'm so glad I stumbled across your channel! Thank you so much for your videos and free guide! What a wealth of great resources for parents wanting to raise bilingual kids. I've been trying to work out the best way to do this with my 9 month old. I am native in and most comfortable with English, I also speak French and Arabic. French comes more naturally than Arabic, especially language around the home. I want to be able to connect with my bub on the languages that feel most natural. The thing is, we are living in an Arabic speaking country until he is 2.5 years. I see this as a great time to introduce him to a new language. I know I'm spoiled for choice here I just can't work out if I will confuse him by speaking French, Arabic and English over the next critical two years. His dad and older siblings speak English with limited Arabic. My 10 year old wants to learn French too.
I speak fluent Mandarin, Cantonese, English and conversational Japanese. Bi-lingual and multi-lingual's benefits definitely reach beyond the language itself and open doors to different cultures! And the fun it brings to your life is infinite.
We Indians speak multiple languages, we speak Kannada at home, I speak Telugu with my parents, we speak a lot of Hindi with friends and we obviously speak English all the time.. my daughter who’s 11 months now is probably picking up all these languages from us.. we are yet to see how she’s gonna learn all these languages!!
It's been 3 years since you commented. Can you please share what your kids picked up? Even mine is a mixed Telugu/Tamil household in Karnataka. Would love to hear your experience
This is so useful! I am raising a bilingual little one and have loved learning from your channel (and the Hanen Centre's resources) so far. My 21 month old is doing so well and is super chatty in both English and German and it's so great to know there are just so many benefits. Thanks for all the advice! :)
Hi! I have a question for you is there a website where my nephew can learn how to speak German? His mother is German but isn't in communication with him much. He would like to learn
I’m from Korea and my husband is Canadian and we live in canada. I was excited to talk to my daughter in Korean at home and raising bilingual. But her speech is delayed and pediatrician recommended only talking in English for now as her social development is delayed as well. So that’s what we are doing. Can’t wait for her to communicate with us better soon. Your channel helps so much!
Hi Eunjin, I am from China, and my husband is French Canadian, so we live in Canada as well. We are speech 3 languages at home with our kids. My daughter is also speech delayed, I had my doubt too. But our pediatrician and therapists and my daughter's school are SUPER supportive for us to continue 3 languages at home. She is still behind but is making amazing progress in all 3 languages right now. So I am very hopeful that she will be able to catch up soon. And Adrienne has an amazing channel to learn all the SLP strategies! :)
Thank you so much for this video! I really needed this. I speak five languages and my husband speaks two. We were afraid to "confuse" our one-year old boy. I'm happy to know that mixing words is normal in bilingual children :-) I've been worried about this for quite a while, so I feel relieved!
I grew up with simultaneous acquisition (only communicated with my dad in french and mom in english, also went to a french elementary school). My older sister grew up with sequential (started French school in 5th grade then dad started speaking only French to her). I notice a difference in terms of grammar, verbs and pronunciation sometimes when we both speak French. However knowing this language has helped me to teach myself Spanish and learn some portuguese as well! 😊 Love your channel! ❤
I’m bilingual. My first language was spanish and English is my second. I felt that my spanish was taking a big hit when learning English but I would and I still watch novelas to keep up and understand the language.
hi Adrienne! I have recently begun teaching bilingual children from Japan and Vietnam. Your video was chock full of interesting stats. I couldn't stop watching it. Thanks for sharing 🙂 -Rob
I cried when I saw that you gifted your plan and lessons on how to help kids learn to talk. My daughter went to speech therapy for 5-6 months and had made some good progress. But her therapist decided to relocate. I personally feel like she was the best therapist there at the rehabilitation center so I didn’t pursue working with someone else. I have been trying to practice with my daughter and to motivate her to talk with no avail. It’s been devastating to me. Because I can see her try but words don’t come out right. I feel so bad for her. I really hope that once I get on with your lessons that she’ll improve. Thank you for giving me hope.
I am so glad that my resources are helpful for you and giving you hope! You sound like an awesome parent and I am thankful to connect you with resources to help your daughter make progress toward her communication goals :)
Thank you for a great video. My mother language is Polish but I live in the UK and have a British speaking partner. Our 17months old son can hear both language on the daily basis:)
*Very informative, I speak 4 languages and chose to speak Dutch with my 17 month old son from birth (since I was born in Holland), his father is Spanish, we tend to mix at times and I was worried he will be confuse and talk late. But he started saying words pretty early on and has a pretty broad vocabulary for his age (between the 2 languages together), I must say even though he understand both he seem to prefer Spanish and pronounce the Spanish words better (maybe since we live in Spain).*
I speak 4 languages. I live in Aruba, a tiny island in the Caribean. At homr we speak our native language which is Papiamento. Besides that at school we learn Dutch. Then when we are older English and Spanish. There are many tourists that come visit Aruba from all around the world and they teach us to try the comunicatr with all these people. Now my child will be bilingual from home, my husband is from Venezuela, he can speak 4 laguages too. His native language is Spanish and mine, as I mention earlier is Papiamento.
My husband is Turkish and mostly speaks to him in Turkish and I’m American and only speak English to him.. we are taking the simultaneous way of teaching our 2 year old son English and Turkish. Our son can only babble “ma ma” “da da” that’s it. We are currently in an early intervention program for him because we are concerned about his speech and some behavior sensory issues.. we hope he starts talking soon! I’m downloading your paperwork’s right now!!! Thank you for the video 👌🏻☺️🙋🏻♀️🤩💜🙂
Hey! I love hearing about all the languages you are speaking and how you are using the simultaneous approach. Glad you are in an early intervention program...such a great resource for you and your son. I hope you enjoy my printable downloads!
Thank you for your professional advice! This has given me the encouragement to continue speaking two languages to my baby boy...I hope and pray for him to grow up to be multi-lingual. Thank You again!
Good video!! And awesome resources linked. My parents choose the route of only speaking Russian at home because growing up in the US they were confident it was only a matter of time before I picked it up proficiently. It totally worked and now I speak both fluently and cross code all the time as an adult. I am very grateful!
I assume you're from Canada. Growing up in Toronto, multi-lingual households were the norm. Growing up in the 90's French classes were simply an academic milestone; virtually no one actually learned french from those classes or the french immersion school. I ultimately learned to speak french once I left the country, but grew to appreciate how culturally rich and diverse the Canada I grew up in was.
Hi, this is Pope from Thailand (literally that is my real name though it has a different meaning in Thai). My mother tongue is Thai and I speak English fluently. Few Americans have said that they thought I came from America. This VDO was the first time I learned about simultaneous vs sequential language acquisition and which got me thinking about the plan for my 1.5 year old to be trilingual. Here’s the current situation: Currently I speak English to him 95% of the time (very few exceptions where I feel it’s more natural for me to utter certain words in Thai). My wife speaks Thai to him 95% of the time too. We also have a nanny who is Karen (Burmese hill tribe, not the American slang) who speaks Thai to him with an accent. The nanny is with him 24/7. As of now he doesn’t speak yet but he knows equal words in Thai and in English (about 10-15 words each). I have a plan for him to be trilingual (Thai, English and Chinese). In terms of priority we want him to master English and Chinese, and know just enough Thai to communicate with his other family members like the grandparents. The current plan in my head is I want to continue what we are doing till he has a grip on both languages which I understand to be 3-4 years old. Before he turns 5, my wife will start teaching him Chinese (her Chinese is basic and she will need to brush up her vocabs) and he will go to a Chinese immersion school (English & Chinese) where he will have Chinese lessons. I’m not sure if that is the right way of installing the 3rd language when neither of us can speak it. Will the third language come too early or too late? For Chinese, Will relying on school and some home use be sufficient for him to pick up if he continues his Chinese education till about 15 (or longer if he doesn’t hate it)?
Thanks so much for this!! So informative and even peaceful 💚 I live in England with my English husband who only speaks English but as a Latina Italian (born in South America, raised in Italy) I exclusively speak Spanish to my 11 months baby because speaking Spanish at home is what is natural to me. I speak English only when talking to my husband. My proficient language is Italian though and I only speak Italian with Italian friends on the phone, I was worried that I couldn't teach my baby Italian too for the time being as I don't interact with Italians here in England but I've just understood that I can introduce the language later, even after 3 and that I should do what is natural to me. We also read and sing in Arabic to my baby (both my husband and I are studying Arabic). I'm glad to know that I'm not confusing and hurting my baby with these languages. From my own experience, like you explained in the video, a child can master a completely new language even after 3. And there's no need to speak the language of the place you live in at home in order to learn it.
Both my husband and I are bilingual in different languages. For me it’s Spanish which is what I spoke at home but then learned English from school. My husbands is Arabic and he learned English in school as well. My 3 year old is trilingual and knows words from all three languages. When I got married I made a point to learn Arabic and living in the Middle East for 5 years helped me. My husband picked up Spanish very quickly since he is Lebanese and they have a lot of French influence. When we moved back to the states we decided to become members of his Maronite Church and listen to mass in Arabic to make sure our sons are exposed to the language. When we lived in the Middle East we attended the Spanish mass since we didn’t have a lot of Spanish influence there. So far this has worked well for us.
I speak Hungarian and English. I’m currently 7 months pregnant, I am already trying to speak to her in both languages. My husband only speaks English, so I really hope I will be enough and able to teach her “mother tongue” Hungarian and she will be able to speak, read and write like a native. I started learning English in 4th grade, but I didn’t get fluent until I moved to the US 11 years ago. Thanks for the tips! 🤗
Our whole family is speaking Slovak language, we are from Slovakia. But my baby boy, who is 2 years old is listening to a lot of english baby nursery rhymes, songs and watching english videos.. So he is speaking and singing in english a lot, I would say maybe more than in slovak. He is code mixing a lot. But me and my husband can speak english so we are really happy to see how he self learned to speak :)
Sorry for the ten million comments haha. I speak Spanish, English, Haitian Creole, and a bit of Portuguese. My husband is a heritage speaker of Cambodian, so we are teaching Spanish, English, and a bit of Cambodian to my son. We're working to at least get him speaking what my husband knows since he is biracial, and it is very important to use that he knows both cultures. We tried to facilitate the grandparents teaching him using those first words type books, but it didn't work, since they weren't accustomed to teaching language through books and repetition.
What a wonderful video!! I am native Dutch from the Netherlands and married an American. I wish I had you, the internet, and UA-cam’s resources back when I was raising my two children. While I did teach them some Dutch vocabulary, I worried that speaking Dutch with them all the time would confuse them. We now have a grandson and I feel more comfortable speaking both English and Dutch with him. He is also learning sign language, so that’s tri-lingual! 😄 Thank you!!
Great content! I have a bilingual musical baby who at 15ms already passed 30 words in each language Spanish & English. At almost 2 he is already stringing together words and phrases in both languages and has over 50 words in each language. I educate parents on the benefits of music and multilingualism and interestingly they both tend to be very similar when you look at it from a neuroscientific perspective. The combination however is even more awesome!
My family & I speak English as r primary language, my mom speaks a little French & a little Irish, I took Japanese as my foreign language in high school. I can say thank u in 6 languages but that's all. My daughter was slow 2 talk so we learned sign language, I'm still learning so I can still teach her even though she doesn't use it as much anymore. She's 4 now & in preschool where they don't use it, but r teaching her a new letter every week. Im planning 2 do ur 300 signs class 4 both of us 2 learn. I will as soon as I can afford it I'm in-between jobs atm.
I’m Brazilian and I was born in Brazil but raised in the US so Portuguese was technically my first language but I didn’t learn to read and write in Portuguese until I was in high school. We spoke it at home often but English was the first language I learned to read and write in. I’m currently pregnant and looking into if I should speak Portuguese with my baby and have my husband speak English. He doesn’t know Portuguese only some words!
This is so interesting. I speak only English but I’m trying to teach my daughter some Spanish since she is half Spanish so I think it’s important to allow her to embrace that side of her heritage
Alway excellent information! I promote and pass your videos to many of my parents. (Pediatric SLP for a really long time, began in 1988.) Thank you for quality production.
My daughter is (almost) 2 and she is learning: English, Spanish, Nahuatl, Hawaiian and ASL. She was pretty quiet and used mostly ASL until about a month ago. Now she says words in all 5.
I speak two languages to our 2year old daughter...Spanish and English. Sometimes she does mix the two. She comprehends a lot in both. I have noticed her communication has been a bit slower compared to kids her age. But, also in the last couple of weeks her communication and vocabulary has taken off since turning 2!
Hello Adrienne. My name is Gabriella , I am Brazilian , I will be helping toddlers with English at a private school here in Brazil. Thank you a lot for you videos . They are amazing and helpful .My native language is Portuguese and I know English and French .
But which one are is your mother language ? My sister does the same with her kids , portugues and Japanese ... conclusion they understand but they answer in Japanese . 🥺🥺🥺🥺 Conclusion it's very hard to my talk to my nieces.
@@bectinha My mother tongue is neither English nor Spanish. I’m sorry that it’s hard to communicate with your nieces right now, but it will work out as they work out what suits them best. They know both languages and will speak both in time. My son chose English over Spanish but I still speak Spanish to him, he understands perfectly. 🙂
I always enjoy your videos. The topics are so relatable, eloquently addressed, and easy to understand and execute. I followed a lot of your advice related to teaching and conversing with my son using sign language when he was an infant and it helped a great deal. Now I am looking to your advice on bilingualism. It’s something I feel strongly about cultivating for my son. Your “myth busters” really helped quell my fears about whether or not my approach was right. It’s helped me gain more confidence on how to help support my son on the path to bilingualism. Thank you so much for your thoughtful and cogent breakdown and advice. I learned a lot!
We are Portuguese but are also fluent in English, both me and my partner so it feels natural to raise our son bilingual. He watches cartoons in English and we comment along and in our daily life we speak Portuguese.
I’m from Indonesia where multilingualism is very common. I speak at least 3 languages and understand (but speak very little to none) some other languages/dialects. My husband is a Greek and he speaks 2 languages. Now my daughter is 19 months old and she speaks/mixes 4 languages. There was never a delay in her speech. She even spoke more than 50 words at the age of 14 months and uses short sentences now. But yes, she uses 1 language more dominantly and is less fluent in others.
I speak 4 and understand reading in 3 more! I was an advanced child in maths in school, but all that faded away pretty soon.....languages is something you keep and use for the rest of your life!
Thank you for your video, as it clarified some doubts. I have my little boy, who is only 1 year old. We talk to him in Spanish, English, and Russian. I am a native Spanish speaker and my hubby is from Russia. We both speak in English when we are all together, but when I am alone with him I speak in "span-English", as I tend to mix these languages. I am trying to speak just in Spanish to him but sometimes is impossible as my mind has a mixture of languages :D... We are trying to do our best for our little one ....
I speak four languages English, French, Kiswahili, Pidgin English. I learned English and Pidgin from childhood. French as I grew and Kiswahili when I got married. I'm teaching my daughter three languages except pidgin. She'll learn that later on. She's 11 months now and understands Kiswahili since I've spoken that to her from birth.. Ive just introduced French and English now.
Excellent video: Hello I speak English & I’m learning French on Duolingo. I’m currently a resident of Côté d’Ivoire Africa where the dominant language is French. My wife & I are expecting a baby any day now & we wanted to know a healthy approach in teaching our child. Your video is very informative & thanks for sharing.🖐🏿
Thanks for these great tips! I speak Spanish first, English in primary school second, some Mandarin Chinese in College and self teaching American Sign Language. Teaching these to my children, niece, friends and grandson. I love it!
Myth six breaks my heart!!! My husband was a result of this, and he often has moments where he can't fully communicate with his own parents because they mixed languages so much growing up, with the emphasis more on English, despite them not being very proficient, because the mom wanted to learn English. Also, I taught Spanish and saw a lot of heritage speakers learning for the first time for this reason as well. Most of them were quite angry having to learn in school.
Thank you so much for doing this video! This is so encouraging and helpful! We speak English at home, but live in Turkey. Our babysitter speaks Turkish to our daughter and I as well speak to her in Turkish when we are with Turkish speakers! My husband and I are still learning to speak Turkish and also mix words at time! :)
Thank you sooo much for this video!! This was very helpful info! I am fluent in English and Vietnamese, some Korean, some Mandarin. My baby is half Korean, half Vietnamese, and he’s frequently exposed to those languages plus English. Thank you, I feel rest assured that it’s ok to code mix and delay slightly but still be within the normal range. Language allows us to connect with other people, I hope that my baby with grow up to connect with many people as a trilinguist. He really likes interacting with people more so than playing his toys! ^^
Hi Adrienne, thank you for your video! I’m a mother of a almost two years old girl. I speak Chinese and English. Chinese is my mother tongue and English is my second language. I learned French for 4 years in college but can’t speak fluently since I don’t have enough practice. I’m teaching my daughter both Chinese and English but since my husband only speaks English so her first language is definitely English. I’m trying hard to speak as much Chinese as I can, it’s a little difficult to switch language between husband and daughter. Still learning!
I speak English and Mandarin, it was sort of a mix of sequential and simultaneous acquisition, because I moved from China to the US when I was 2.5, and was speaking Chinese sentences already, but technically was exposed to English before age 3. Anyway, English is my dominant language now, but I still code switch all the time, I even mix English and Chinese into the same word (eg: -Chinese adjective-ness). TV shows and other forms of entertainment helped me keep up my language skills. I learned French in high school in an immersion classroom, which worked so well, after 3 years I could read books and understand French news, but that was a decade ago, I’ve forgotten most of my French. :( Now I’m picking up Spanish due to my work environment. I’m also trying to learn Cantonese because that’s the primary language for my husband’s extended family. Languages are so much fun!
I speak English and Mandarin, I speak English 99% of the time with my daughter, because I’m most comfortable speaking English. My husband speaks Mandarin and some English. My daughter is four now, and she is more proficient in English. She started school in September, and her teacher complained to me that she misunderstand directions given in class. I’m sure with time my daughter will become more proficient in Mandarin, so, only a little bit worried right now. 😅
My first language is Spanish and my second language is English. All my 3 kids are bilingual. My older boys learned English when they started going to school around 4 years old. Actually one of my boys is learning German in school. My 3 year old learned English way sooner by watching movies in English and been around other people who speak English. Me and my husband talk Spanish at home and sometimes English and my kids talk back in English and my 3 year old speaks Spanglish it’s so cute.
I speak 5 languages, only one of them (German) learned as an adult. I am bilingual in Spanish and Portuguese, with Portuguese being the dominant language. French and English I learned as a child, and English is since 15 years my main language. My 15 month old is being brought up with Portuguese from me, and German from the dad and childcare. At home we speak English as well and I sing a lot in English, Spanish and Portuguese. I find that my son is perhaps a bit delayed in his speech, although he understands perfectly what I tell him or ask of him. He babbles a lot though…
We speak mostly 2 languages at home with our kids, plus one together as couple and plus the constant exposition of the local dialect that is the spoken in the area where we live. Thank you for the information, it is of great value. We have many situations where we have to change the language according to the person we meet, even when I speak at home mostly with the kids in my mother tongue I have always felt comfortable while switching the languages mean while we spoke with other friends, so no one was left without the understanding of the conversation. Regards.
Me and my boyfriend are about to raise our still unborn child bilingually, in bulgarian and english, and I was wondering if that would be hard. But your video helped me ease my worries. I am a multilingual speaker myself, but I started learning foreign languages in school and even though i feel very comfortable expressing myself in at least 3 of these languages, i still speak them with an accent.
Thank you for busting myths and reassuring me, I am ok for speaking my native language to my son. I speak Serbian as a native, but I learned also English in primary school, and as an adult I mostly speak Slovenian- (out of home)
Hi Adrienne, thank you for this video, I feel a bit less guilty! I am French but I live in England and English has become my main language. I find it very difficult to speak French with my 2 boys and I feel very bad about it. My older son is 3 and a half and has a speech delay, which is partly why I put French on the back burner. My hope is that eventually, when he catches up with his English, I feel more comfortable speaking in French consistently. Thanks again! Take care. Julia
Oooh I’m so happy to see the video, and understand the research behind it. My husband and I speak 3 languages between us and I’ve been really worried about how this would affect our future kiddo(s).
When I was a paraeducator at an elementary dual language school, there was this kinder Indian girl who knew three languages! English, her home language, and Spanish. She was a bright kinder student!
Hi Adrienne, thank you so much for this video & all the other videos which I'm still working through. I was so glad when I received the e-mail with the link to this video. We are raising our daughter to be bilingual simultaneously. We reside in South Africa. My home language is English & my husband's home language is Afrikaans (similar to Dutch or Flemish). My brother & sister-in-law have done the same with their two kids & they've turned out okay. They still tend to borrow words from one language but I'm sure that will get better as they grow older as their vocabulary for each language grows.
in HK, we always mix english with Cantonese, because it is somewhat easier to express thought as some words can't be translated directly. for the critical period, academic languages and "naive-like" languages are not the same.. I still believe learning in young age would have a huge advantage in language proficiency
My family speaks spanish and my husband's family speaks arabic (Egyptian). We speak English at home but are hoping our son learns other languages with his grandparents when they care for him during the week when I return to work. Hopefully he learns and adapts to speaking a language with each grandparent.
We speak danish and english at home with our 3 year old daugther. I had trouple learning english growing up, but after engaging in conversations in english with my daugther, i have become better myself. She is so good at speaking two language and i am a proud mother for that :)
You speak with her danish and english at the same time? How you make her distinguish between them? Are you fluent in English? Bc I'm not fluent in English and I want to speak with my 3 months old baby girl my native language plus English.
@@emanmohammed30 by All mean i'm not great at english, but by talking often with my daughter who does not question me i began to learn it and I became better. The father is halv british and he correct us when it is needed. I speak so much more freely after practicing for some years know 😊
I have 2 years old son and he is learning 3 languages. I speak Serbian with him, my husband Hungarian and in Kindergarten he learns German. He understands everything on all 3 languages but can say only 22 words mixt on these languages. The doctor said that we should give him more time and that in a month or two he will start talking more. Thank you for all your videos they are so useful.
Wow! 3 languages is awesome! If you ever need more support in helping your son talk more, I recommend this resource: The Steps to Help Your Child Learn To Talk: online class: www.learnwithadrienne.com/steps-to-help-your-child-learn-to-talk
Wow, so pleased your video popped up in my feed! With a 22 month old who is learning French from his Dad, English from me and Spanish from his minder... I was not sure if we were confusing him! So reassuring and great to have discovered your channel!
Hi I speak 2 languages. I speak English as a native and I also speak Japanese at a beginner/intermediate level. こんいちは！私の母国語は英語です。でも、十一年間に日本語をべんきょうしています。日本語を話すことがすこしでします。
I speak mandarin and English. Thanks for this video, very informative. It did happen to my kid when she was young, she started a little bit late. Now I know the reason why😊
I speak 3 languages fluently: Bahasa Indonesia (my 1st language), English & Dutch. I would love to have my daughter to speak at least 2 different languages since early age. However, I’m not sure how to do it. I’ve read and heard so many confusing opinions about this topic. Thank you for this video, it is really helpful knowing which are the myths and facts.
I used to have dominant languages based on scenario. Anything school related beyond the age I left France I can only really do in English (I really struggle to read research papers in my field in french, just have to stop half the time to think). Until I moved to uni alone however I would struggle with anything home related in English. I wouldn't remember how to say "broom" for example
Great Video Adrienne! This is actually the first time I've heard anyone say that OPOL isn't a necessarily superior way to bilingualism! I'm really hopeful now because I really felt I was diluting my toddler's language environment because I was speaking to him in 2 languages (English: dominant; Vietnamese: to keep minority language alive). Thank you! Hope you could expand on why the OPOL approach isn't necessarily superior in one of your videos later, because I'd love to learn more. I still can't help think it is, just because there would be more exposure + time given to cement a language. ♥️
That was very interesting thank you! My husband and I are both from Quebec and speak French together. Since he was raised bilingual, we're planning on using both French and English at home, even though I want French to be the one we truly focus on. We live in Berlin so I do wonder how things will go (I'm due in October). We only have German friends so the baby will hear German very early on and attend a German school if we stay here. I learned English and German in my teens and as an adult and it's opened so many doors. I also think that being able to communicate with people in different languages makes you more open-minded towards other cultures :)
Hi Adrienne, thank you so much for your video. You really answer my question of which language I should talk to my baby. I speak Cantonese. When I grew up I learnt Mandarin, Japanese and English. My dad used to speak Portuguese to his family but he never spoke to me so I never had a chance to learn Portuguese. It really reinforce my idea as long as I interact with my baby it doesn't matter which language I am speaking to him
Hi Adrienne, thank you so much for all your videos. My daughter is 2 years-old I talk to her in Arabic and English and my husband in English. She started 2 weeks ago to say mama. She understands both languages and she express herself but without talking. She knows all the names of her Toys and she knows the nose, the ear, the mouth, the hair... she builds her blocks and she sorts the objects by colors and shapes with no problem. She is almost fully potty trained during the day. Do I need to be patient or start speech therapy?
It calmed down so much since my family moved back to France but after spending 5 years in the UK conversations with my dad and brother would be mainly code mix. We still sometimes code mix now, but they do it less since they moved back so I stepped back too. Some words make so much more sense in one language than another
In India our kids learn 3 languages right from birth , mother tongue, language of the state they are living in and the national language,hindi .Fourth is added when the child goes to school viz English .
Sequentially learnt my 2nd language (Spanish) at school at around 9 years old. Now looking at how is best to get my 2 year old to start learning too 😊 thanks for the vid!
Thanks for the video! My son is learning lithuanian and italian, but hears us parents talk also in english, and outside we speak with others in german. I don't worry about german, italian and english, but wish that among them he will keep good lithuanian and even learn russian which is my strongest language and his grandmas'.. (yet, when i started after birth to speak to him russian after 1 month i swiched to lithuanian cause something was missing in our connection, even though my lithuanian was much poorer, but mother tongue).
Would you recommend to read to him or speak sometimes also in russian?? I feel like among others i should put all my affort for lithuanian, because it's complicated language and almost useless where we live in Germany.. (he is 2.5 yo, + his sister 3 monthes old)
Thank you for your video, it's really interesting. I teach Hungarian and English to my 3 years old son (or trying), and it isn't easy. I get lots of advices from lots of different people, but only a few worked, and they wasn't so professional like your video 😊
I am happy I found your video. My son been through something similar to what you described with sequential bilingualism. He spoke English well and then we moved to France and he he went silent for 4 months. We thought he was autistic and ran so many tests. Over a year later, he speaks French and English with the grammatical errors you mentioned. But is a chatter box nonetheless.
Thank you for your video. I am bilingual and my husband speaks English only. Our son does have a speech delay unfortunately some words are just not pronounced clearly. And I was afraid if I keep talking to him in Spanish that it would make it worse. Thankfully we are now working with a speech therapist and things are going well.
We speak English, French and Spanish at home. I'm Spanish native speaker and my husband is a French native speaker but we live in Toronto, Canada. We adopted the "one parent speaks Spanish exclusively and the other French exclusively" when speaking to my son since he was born. He started to go to the daycare at the age of 2.5 years old and he absorbed English so much faster than Spanish and French. Even now that we've been in lockdown for 2+ months he is still speaking way more English than Spanish or French. But, for his age 3.5 he struggles to put a sentence together and he'll mix all 3 languages with some sort of a baby talk. Last year he said I want juice de manzana Rouge, when asking for a juice pouch that had an image of a red apple on the front. Since then on, he'd mix all 3 languages and he has a great accent in all 3 but again, he cannot put a full sentence together as any other kid his age would.
Also, he speaks French to his father and Spanish to me with the words he knows. Today he was talking to me about a car engine which is motor both in French and Spanish. He told me motor with Spanish accent and then when his father showed up in the middle of the conversation he told him motor with the French accent. I'm amazed by his little mind.
Understanding another language has as many benefits as speaking it. My bilingualism has enriched my life like no other learning experience because a language is a portal not only to another culture but also to a different way of seeing life
I hear three languages at home and we all siblings are blessed that we can communicate so easily with different cultures and can speak three languages proficiently.
You are so right, my grandson speaks Chinese and English, even he is only 20 months ! We are so happy that he has no problems to learn both languages! Thank you!
I was a little worried that my 2.5 year old isn’t as articulate as some kids but I realized she often knows the same word in two languages. She also seems to distinguish between English and Turkish pretty well, although occasionally she’ll use English words and Turkish word order. It’s fascinating to watch her learn. I’m so glad she’s learning as a child because I’m really struggling with Turkish as an adult.
I speak Cantonese with my mom, Mandarin with my nanny, and my hometown dialect with my dad. I don't remember I had any difficulties in communicating with different people. And now I come to the U.S., I can speak English well too! I found being raised with multi-lingual is very useful and inspiring for me to learn another language.
I speak Portuguese and French, I was raised in France and I learned Portuguese with my mother, as she is Brazilian. At home I would speak Portuguese, and I would speak French at school and with my father (he is French). I learned English at school initially but when I was 20 years old I moved to London to study, and lived in the Uk for 10 years. So today I speak Portuguese, French and English. I have twin boys they are 2 years old. I spoke to them both languages French and Portuguese since they were born.
My husband was raised here and he totally mixes English and Spanish we called it Spanglish. So we talk to our kids in English,Spanish and Spanglish. We are fluent in those three hahaha
I loved this video Adrienne, thank you so much! You solved almost all my doubts. I speak to my daughters(2 year and 4 months old and 10 months old) in Greek mostly but sometimes some Spanish words and phrases are coming out more naturally. Needless to say, I was feeling guilty about it because I thought that I am confusing them. My husband is Spanish and we live in Spain and we speak to each other in English. My 2 year old speaks a lot in Spanish and in Greek, sometimes mixing languages, immediately translating words when she speaks to my husband that doesn´t speak Greek. it´s magical to see a little human doing this. I enjoy this phase a lot. Thanks again and keep up the great work!
So true, I am in the same boat with you. I live in Spain with my Spanish husband, I speak dutch to my 17month old and he speaks Spanish with him (between us mostly English), it is amazing how my just 17 month old tend to translate something I tell him to dutch to Spanish, he seem to prefer to speak Spanish he pronounces the Spanish words better, yet My goal was for him to at least understand both.
@@LaFamiliaABZ I speak Dutch with my 2 year old twins, my husband speaks English (he is Zambian) and we currently live in France. The boys are going to a French nursery. I am happy to hear that it is a myth that you have to speak consistently the same language, because i sometimes forget to speak in dutch. The boys are choosing the easiest word like jas instead of jacket and shoes instead of schoenen. Very funny to hear! Do your children speak already 200 words at 24 months? That sounds like a lot....
do they understand english too?
Trilingual that’s amazing I speak two and I wish I knew more
Thank you for this, such valuable information for me! I speak Spanish to my 2-year-old and my partner speaks English to him. At daycare he hears Dutch, we live in the Netherlands. He's started speaking all three languages and knows who to speak every language to. He asked me for "agua" the other day and ran to his dad to ask for "water". It's so cool! I can't believe how quickly and easily they can learn! In the beginning, it did feel a bit forced for me to speak Spanish to him as I hardly speak it here in the NL. I'm from Spain. I'm so glad I took the decision to do it, now it feels natural to speak to him in Spanish and I'm already seeing the results. I was raised bilingual (Spanish and English) and went to a German school. Speaking these languages has allowed me to learn and understand other languages quite easily.
INCREDIBLE!! What an inspiring story! Thank you for sharing this with me!
Awesome! I was a bilingual public school teacher for 15 years, mostly first and second grades. I was amazed to see Spanish speaking only children learning to speak and read English in a single year in my classroom, while continuing to enrich their native language through content area instruction in Spanish. One of the secrets of my success was the use of the 1987 Riverside Basal Reading program that systematically taught high frequency vocabulary in interesting stories with repetition of the target words. I now do private tutoring using the 1938/1957 Alice & Jerry reading program. I also taught SEE (Signing Exact English) to my bilingual students for reinforcement.
We now moved from Brazil to France a year ago. I am noticing my boys pick up more French words than Portuguese. We established with my husband to speak at home in Portuguese. I am speaking to them in both languages, but my mother keeps telling me that I can only speak to them in French and my husband can speak to them in Portuguese. But it’s feels inatural to speak only French with my boys. I was raised with Portuguese all the languages of love was in Portuguese to me and it feels strange to say it in French. I loved your videos it really clarified a lot for me thank you!!!
Wow Adrienne I'm so glad I stumbled across your channel! Thank you so much for your videos and free guide! What a wealth of great resources for parents wanting to raise bilingual kids. I've been trying to work out the best way to do this with my 9 month old.
I am native in and most comfortable with English, I also speak French and Arabic. French comes more naturally than Arabic, especially language around the home. I want to be able to connect with my bub on the languages that feel most natural. The thing is, we are living in an Arabic speaking country until he is 2.5 years. I see this as a great time to introduce him to a new language. I know I'm spoiled for choice here I just can't work out if I will confuse him by speaking French, Arabic and English over the next critical two years. His dad and older siblings speak English with limited Arabic. My 10 year old wants to learn French too.
I speak fluent Mandarin, Cantonese, English and conversational Japanese. Bi-lingual and multi-lingual's benefits definitely reach beyond the language itself and open doors to different cultures! And the fun it brings to your life is infinite.
Wow! So many languages! Awesome. I love that you mentioned that it opens so many doors to different cultures and adds fun to your life. So inspiring!
We Indians speak multiple languages, we speak Kannada at home, I speak Telugu with my parents, we speak a lot of Hindi with friends and we obviously speak English all the time.. my daughter who’s 11 months now is probably picking up all these languages from us.. we are yet to see how she’s gonna learn all these languages!!
How do you say, "Where is the bathroom/street?" in Hindi, Marathi and Tegulu?
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Odockivvkifjjgcjifkdgi egg vf ffc kcfj ed 9frod lo DC lddid8cxof MDO fm1😆😆🌻🐑😂🥰😂🦄🎤🎹🎹🎤
It's been 3 years since you commented. Can you please share what your kids picked up? Even mine is a mixed Telugu/Tamil household in Karnataka. Would love to hear your experience
This is so useful! I am raising a bilingual little one and have loved learning from your channel (and the Hanen Centre's resources) so far. My 21 month old is doing so well and is super chatty in both English and German and it's so great to know there are just so many benefits. Thanks for all the advice! :)
Hi! I have a question for you is there a website where my nephew can learn how to speak German? His mother is German but isn't in communication with him much. He would like to learn
I’m from Korea and my husband is Canadian and we live in canada. I was excited to talk to my daughter in Korean at home and raising bilingual. But her speech is delayed and pediatrician recommended only talking in English for now as her social development is delayed as well. So that’s what we are doing. Can’t wait for her to communicate with us better soon. Your channel helps so much!
Hi Eunjin, I am from China, and my husband is French Canadian, so we live in Canada as well. We are speech 3 languages at home with our kids. My daughter is also speech delayed, I had my doubt too. But our pediatrician and therapists and my daughter's school are SUPER supportive for us to continue 3 languages at home. She is still behind but is making amazing progress in all 3 languages right now. So I am very hopeful that she will be able to catch up soon. And Adrienne has an amazing channel to learn all the SLP strategies! :)
Thank you so much for this video! I really needed this. I speak five languages and my husband speaks two. We were afraid to "confuse" our one-year old boy. I'm happy to know that mixing words is normal in bilingual children :-) I've been worried about this for quite a while, so I feel relieved!
I grew up with simultaneous acquisition (only communicated with my dad in french and mom in english, also went to a french elementary school). My older sister grew up with sequential (started French school in 5th grade then dad started speaking only French to her). I notice a difference in terms of grammar, verbs and pronunciation sometimes when we both speak French. However knowing this language has helped me to teach myself Spanish and learn some portuguese as well! 😊 Love your channel! ❤
I’m bilingual. My first language was spanish and English is my second. I felt that my spanish was taking a big hit when learning English but I would and I still watch novelas to keep up and understand the language.
hi Adrienne! I have recently begun teaching bilingual children from Japan and Vietnam. Your video was chock full of interesting stats. I couldn't stop watching it. Thanks for sharing 🙂 -Rob
I cried when I saw that you gifted your plan and lessons on how to help kids learn to talk. My daughter went to speech therapy for 5-6 months and had made some good progress. But her therapist decided to relocate. I personally feel like she was the best therapist there at the rehabilitation center so I didn’t pursue working with someone else. I have been trying to practice with my daughter and to motivate her to talk with no avail. It’s been devastating to me. Because I can see her try but words don’t come out right. I feel so bad for her. I really hope that once I get on with your lessons that she’ll improve. Thank you for giving me hope.
I am so glad that my resources are helpful for you and giving you hope! You sound like an awesome parent and I am thankful to connect you with resources to help your daughter make progress toward her communication goals :)
How old is your daughter? My son is the same , he is 20 months old but still doesn’t say anything words :(
Thank you for a great video.
My mother language is Polish but I live in the UK and have a British speaking partner. Our 17months old son can hear both language on the daily basis:)
*Very informative, I speak 4 languages and chose to speak Dutch with my 17 month old son from birth (since I was born in Holland), his father is Spanish, we tend to mix at times and I was worried he will be confuse and talk late. But he started saying words pretty early on and has a pretty broad vocabulary for his age (between the 2 languages together), I must say even though he understand both he seem to prefer Spanish and pronounce the Spanish words better (maybe since we live in Spain).*
I speak 4 languages. I live in Aruba, a tiny island in the Caribean. At homr we speak our native language which is Papiamento. Besides that at school we learn Dutch. Then when we are older English and Spanish. There are many tourists that come visit Aruba from all around the world and they teach us to try the comunicatr with all these people. Now my child will be bilingual from home, my husband is from Venezuela, he can speak 4 laguages too. His native language is Spanish and mine, as I mention earlier is Papiamento.
That is amazing!!! So many languages!
My husband is Turkish and mostly speaks to him in Turkish and I’m American and only speak English to him.. we are taking the simultaneous way of teaching our 2 year old son English and Turkish. Our son can only babble “ma ma” “da da” that’s it. We are currently in an early intervention program for him because we are concerned about his speech and some behavior sensory issues.. we hope he starts talking soon! I’m downloading your paperwork’s right now!!! Thank you for the video 👌🏻☺️🙋🏻♀️🤩💜🙂
Hey! I love hearing about all the languages you are speaking and how you are using the simultaneous approach. Glad you are in an early intervention program...such a great resource for you and your son. I hope you enjoy my printable downloads!
Thank you for your professional advice! This has given me the encouragement to continue speaking two languages to my baby boy...I hope and pray for him to grow up to be multi-lingual. Thank You again!
Wonderful!!!
Good video!! And awesome resources linked. My parents choose the route of only speaking Russian at home because growing up in the US they were confident it was only a matter of time before I picked it up proficiently. It totally worked and now I speak both fluently and cross code all the time as an adult. I am very grateful!
Wow! So amazing! Thanks for sharing your experience, Yelena! I love your name, by the way...it is beautiful!
Great video! I speak English,Spanish,Italian and Portuguese, my 3 year old daughter is learning English and Portuguese simultaneously.
I assume you're from Canada. Growing up in Toronto, multi-lingual households were the norm. Growing up in the 90's French classes were simply an academic milestone; virtually no one actually learned french from those classes or the french immersion school. I ultimately learned to speak french once I left the country, but grew to appreciate how culturally rich and diverse the Canada I grew up in was.
Hi, this is Pope from Thailand (literally that is my real name though it has a different meaning in Thai). My mother tongue is Thai and I speak English fluently. Few Americans have said that they thought I came from America.
This VDO was the first time I learned about simultaneous vs sequential language acquisition and which got me thinking about the plan for my 1.5 year old to be trilingual.
Here’s the current situation: Currently I speak English to him 95% of the time (very few exceptions where I feel it’s more natural for me to utter certain words in Thai). My wife speaks Thai to him 95% of the time too. We also have a nanny who is Karen (Burmese hill tribe, not the American slang) who speaks Thai to him with an accent. The nanny is with him 24/7. As of now he doesn’t speak yet but he knows equal words in Thai and in English (about 10-15 words each).
I have a plan for him to be trilingual (Thai, English and Chinese). In terms of priority we want him to master English and Chinese, and know just enough Thai to communicate with his other family members like the grandparents.
The current plan in my head is I want to continue what we are doing till he has a grip on both languages which I understand to be 3-4 years old. Before he turns 5, my wife will start teaching him Chinese (her Chinese is basic and she will need to brush up her vocabs) and he will go to a Chinese immersion school (English & Chinese) where he will have Chinese lessons.
I’m not sure if that is the right way of installing the 3rd language when neither of us can speak it. Will the third language come too early or too late? For Chinese, Will relying on school and some home use be sufficient for him to pick up if he continues his Chinese education till about 15 (or longer if he doesn’t hate it)?
We speak 3 languages at home and our 3yo code mix like us. He is fluent on all 3 languages 😊
Thanks so much for this!! So informative and even peaceful 💚 I live in England with my English husband who only speaks English but as a Latina Italian (born in South America, raised in Italy) I exclusively speak Spanish to my 11 months baby because speaking Spanish at home is what is natural to me. I speak English only when talking to my husband. My proficient language is Italian though and I only speak Italian with Italian friends on the phone, I was worried that I couldn't teach my baby Italian too for the time being as I don't interact with Italians here in England but I've just understood that I can introduce the language later, even after 3 and that I should do what is natural to me. We also read and sing in Arabic to my baby (both my husband and I are studying Arabic). I'm glad to know that I'm not confusing and hurting my baby with these languages. From my own experience, like you explained in the video, a child can master a completely new language even after 3. And there's no need to speak the language of the place you live in at home in order to learn it.
Both my husband and I are bilingual in different languages. For me it’s Spanish which is what I spoke at home but then learned English from school. My husbands is Arabic and he learned English in school as well. My 3 year old is trilingual and knows words from all three languages. When I got married I made a point to learn Arabic and living in the Middle East for 5 years helped me. My husband picked up Spanish very quickly since he is Lebanese and they have a lot of French influence. When we moved back to the states we decided to become members of his Maronite Church and listen to mass in Arabic to make sure our sons are exposed to the language. When we lived in the Middle East we attended the Spanish mass since we didn’t have a lot of Spanish influence there. So far this has worked well for us.
I speak Portuguese from Brazil and I am teaching English for
my todller. Thank you for this vídeo! It helped me a lot.
I speak Hungarian and English. I’m currently 7 months pregnant, I am already trying to speak to her in both languages. My husband only speaks English, so I really hope I will be enough and able to teach her “mother tongue” Hungarian and she will be able to speak, read and write like a native. I started learning English in 4th grade, but I didn’t get fluent until I moved to the US 11 years ago.
Thanks for the tips! 🤗
Our whole family is speaking Slovak language, we are from Slovakia. But my baby boy, who is 2 years old is listening to a lot of english baby nursery rhymes, songs and watching english videos.. So he is speaking and singing in english a lot, I would say maybe more than in slovak. He is code mixing a lot. But me and my husband can speak english so we are really happy to see how he self learned to speak :)
Sorry for the ten million comments haha. I speak Spanish, English, Haitian Creole, and a bit of Portuguese. My husband is a heritage speaker of Cambodian, so we are teaching Spanish, English, and a bit of Cambodian to my son. We're working to at least get him speaking what my husband knows since he is biracial, and it is very important to use that he knows both cultures. We tried to facilitate the grandparents teaching him using those first words type books, but it didn't work, since they weren't accustomed to teaching language through books and repetition.
What a wonderful video!! I am native Dutch from the Netherlands and married an American. I wish I had you, the internet, and UA-cam’s resources back when I was raising my two children. While I did teach them some Dutch vocabulary, I worried that speaking Dutch with them all the time would confuse them. We now have a grandson and I feel more comfortable speaking both English and Dutch with him. He is also learning sign language, so that’s tri-lingual! 😄 Thank you!!
Great content! I have a bilingual musical baby who at 15ms already passed 30 words in each language Spanish & English.
At almost 2 he is already stringing together words and phrases in both languages and has over 50 words in each language.
I educate parents on the benefits of music and multilingualism and interestingly they both tend to be very similar when you look at it from a neuroscientific perspective.
The combination however is even more awesome!
My family & I speak English as r primary language, my mom speaks a little French & a little Irish, I took Japanese as my foreign language in high school. I can say thank u in 6 languages but that's all. My daughter was slow 2 talk so we learned sign language, I'm still learning so I can still teach her even though she doesn't use it as much anymore. She's 4 now & in preschool where they don't use it, but r teaching her a new letter every week. Im planning 2 do ur 300 signs class 4 both of us 2 learn. I will as soon as I can afford it I'm in-between jobs atm.
I’m Brazilian and I was born in Brazil but raised in the US so Portuguese was technically my first language but I didn’t learn to read and write in Portuguese until I was in high school. We spoke it at home often but English was the first language I learned to read and write in. I’m currently pregnant and looking into if I should speak Portuguese with my baby and have my husband speak English. He doesn’t know Portuguese only some words!
This is so interesting. I speak only English but I’m trying to teach my daughter some Spanish since she is half Spanish so I think it’s important to allow her to embrace that side of her heritage
Yes, so important to embrace our heritages! :) Love this comment!
Alway excellent information! I promote and pass your videos to many of my parents. (Pediatric SLP for a really long time, began in 1988.) Thank you for quality production.
My daughter is (almost) 2 and she is learning: English, Spanish, Nahuatl, Hawaiian and ASL. She was pretty quiet and used mostly ASL until about a month ago. Now she says words in all 5.
This youtube logarithm is connected to my brain. I'm so happy that I found your channel I will go bench watch all the videos
Haha! Right?? How does UA-cam read our minds? Welcome to my channel! :)
I speak two languages to our 2year old daughter...Spanish and English. Sometimes she does mix the two. She comprehends a lot in both. I have noticed her communication has been a bit slower compared to kids her age. But, also in the last couple of weeks her communication and vocabulary has taken off since turning 2!
I believe in only speaking to your child on your mother tongue.
Hello Adrienne. My name is Gabriella , I am Brazilian , I will be helping toddlers with English at a private school here in Brazil. Thank you a lot for you videos . They are amazing and helpful .My native language is Portuguese and I know English and French .
❤️
I speak two languages simultaneously with my child - English and Spanish since birth.
Me too.
But which one are is your mother language ? My sister does the same with her kids , portugues and Japanese ... conclusion they understand but they answer in Japanese . 🥺🥺🥺🥺 Conclusion it's very hard to my talk to my nieces.
@@bectinha My mother tongue is neither English nor Spanish. I’m sorry that it’s hard to communicate with your nieces right now, but it will work out as they work out what suits them best. They know both languages and will speak both in time. My son chose English over Spanish but I still speak Spanish to him, he understands perfectly. 🙂
I always enjoy your videos. The topics are so relatable, eloquently addressed, and easy to understand and execute. I followed a lot of your advice related to teaching and conversing with my son using sign language when he was an infant and it helped a great deal. Now I am looking to your advice on bilingualism. It’s something I feel strongly about cultivating for my son. Your “myth busters” really helped quell my fears about whether or not my approach was right. It’s helped me gain more confidence on how to help support my son on the path to bilingualism. Thank you so much for your thoughtful and cogent breakdown and advice. I learned a lot!
We are Portuguese but are also fluent in English, both me and my partner so it feels natural to raise our son bilingual. He watches cartoons in English and we comment along and in our daily life we speak Portuguese.
I’m from Indonesia where multilingualism is very common. I speak at least 3 languages and understand (but speak very little to none) some other languages/dialects. My husband is a Greek and he speaks 2 languages. Now my daughter is 19 months old and she speaks/mixes 4 languages. There was never a delay in her speech. She even spoke more than 50 words at the age of 14 months and uses short sentences now. But yes, she uses 1 language more dominantly and is less fluent in others.
I speak 4 and understand reading in 3 more! I was an advanced child in maths in school, but all that faded away pretty soon.....languages is something you keep and use for the rest of your life!
Thank you for your video, as it clarified some doubts. I have my little boy, who is only 1 year old. We talk to him in Spanish, English, and Russian.
I am a native Spanish speaker and my hubby is from Russia. We both speak in English when we are all together, but when I am alone with him I speak in "span-English", as I tend to mix these languages. I am trying to speak just in Spanish to him but sometimes is impossible as my mind has a mixture of languages :D... We are trying to do our best for our little one ....
I speak four languages English, French, Kiswahili, Pidgin English. I learned English and Pidgin from childhood. French as I grew and Kiswahili when I got married. I'm teaching my daughter three languages except pidgin. She'll learn that later on. She's 11 months now and understands Kiswahili since I've spoken that to her from birth.. Ive just introduced French and English now.
Excellent video: Hello I speak English & I’m learning French on Duolingo. I’m currently a resident of Côté d’Ivoire Africa where the dominant language is French. My wife & I are expecting a baby any day now & we wanted to know a healthy approach in teaching our child. Your video is very informative & thanks for sharing.🖐🏿
Thanks for these great tips! I speak Spanish first, English in primary school second, some Mandarin Chinese in College and self teaching American Sign Language. Teaching these to my children, niece, friends and grandson. I love it!
Myth six breaks my heart!!! My husband was a result of this, and he often has moments where he can't fully communicate with his own parents because they mixed languages so much growing up, with the emphasis more on English, despite them not being very proficient, because the mom wanted to learn English.
Also, I taught Spanish and saw a lot of heritage speakers learning for the first time for this reason as well. Most of them were quite angry having to learn
in school.
Thank you so much for doing this video! This is so encouraging and helpful! We speak English at home, but live in Turkey. Our babysitter speaks Turkish to our daughter and I as well speak to her in Turkish when we are with Turkish speakers! My husband and I are still learning to speak Turkish and also mix words at time! :)
Spanish/German/English we code mix all the time
Thank you sooo much for this video!! This was very helpful info! I am fluent in English and Vietnamese, some Korean, some Mandarin. My baby is half Korean, half Vietnamese, and he’s frequently exposed to those languages plus English. Thank you, I feel rest assured that it’s ok to code mix and delay slightly but still be within the normal range. Language allows us to connect with other people, I hope that my baby with grow up to connect with many people as a trilinguist. He really likes interacting with people more so than playing his toys! ^^
Hi Adrienne, thank you for your video! I’m a mother of a almost two years old girl. I speak Chinese and English. Chinese is my mother tongue and English is my second language. I learned French for 4 years in college but can’t speak fluently since I don’t have enough practice. I’m teaching my daughter both Chinese and English but since my husband only speaks English so her first language is definitely English. I’m trying hard to speak as much Chinese as I can, it’s a little difficult to switch language between husband and daughter. Still learning!
I speak English and Mandarin, it was sort of a mix of sequential and simultaneous acquisition, because I moved from China to the US when I was 2.5, and was speaking Chinese sentences already, but technically was exposed to English before age 3. Anyway, English is my dominant language now, but I still code switch all the time, I even mix English and Chinese into the same word (eg: -Chinese adjective-ness). TV shows and other forms of entertainment helped me keep up my language skills. I learned French in high school in an immersion classroom, which worked so well, after 3 years I could read books and understand French news, but that was a decade ago, I’ve forgotten most of my French. :( Now I’m picking up Spanish due to my work environment. I’m also trying to learn Cantonese because that’s the primary language for my husband’s extended family. Languages are so much fun!
I speak English and Mandarin, I speak English 99% of the time with my daughter, because I’m most comfortable speaking English. My husband speaks Mandarin and some English.
My daughter is four now, and she is more proficient in English. She started school in September, and her teacher complained to me that she misunderstand directions given in class. I’m sure with time my daughter will become more proficient in Mandarin, so, only a little bit worried right now. 😅
My first language is Spanish and my second language is English. All my 3 kids are bilingual. My older boys learned English when they started going to school around 4 years old. Actually one of my boys is learning German in school. My 3 year old learned English way sooner by watching movies in English and been around other people who speak English. Me and my husband talk Spanish at home and sometimes English and my kids talk back in English and my 3 year old speaks Spanglish it’s so cute.
English and Portuguese.
I learned simultaneously 😊 & it was easy.
I speak 5 languages, only one of them (German) learned as an adult. I am bilingual in Spanish and Portuguese, with Portuguese being the dominant language. French and English I learned as a child, and English is since 15 years my main language. My 15 month old is being brought up with Portuguese from me, and German from the dad and childcare. At home we speak English as well and I sing a lot in English, Spanish and Portuguese. I find that my son is perhaps a bit delayed in his speech, although he understands perfectly what I tell him or ask of him. He babbles a lot though…
We speak mostly 2 languages at home with our kids, plus one together as couple and plus the constant exposition of the local dialect that is the spoken in the area where we live. Thank you for the information, it is of great value. We have many situations where we have to change the language according to the person we meet, even when I speak at home mostly with the kids in my mother tongue I have always felt comfortable while switching the languages mean while we spoke with other friends, so no one was left without the understanding of the conversation. Regards.
That is wonderful, Natalia! Thanks for sharing your experiences!
Me and my boyfriend are about to raise our still unborn child bilingually, in bulgarian and english, and I was wondering if that would be hard. But your video helped me ease my worries. I am a multilingual speaker myself, but I started learning foreign languages in school and even though i feel very comfortable expressing myself in at least 3 of these languages, i still speak them with an accent.
Thank you for busting myths and reassuring me, I am ok for speaking my native language to my son. I speak Serbian as a native, but I learned also English in primary school, and as an adult I mostly speak Slovenian- (out of home)
Hi Adrienne, thank you for this video, I feel a bit less guilty! I am French but I live in England and English has become my main language. I find it very difficult to speak French with my 2 boys and I feel very bad about it. My older son is 3 and a half and has a speech delay, which is partly why I put French on the back burner. My hope is that eventually, when he catches up with his English, I feel more comfortable speaking in French consistently. Thanks again! Take care. Julia
Every child is different, my daughter can speak 3 languages which my son cannot even speak 1 fluently.
Oooh I’m so happy to see the video, and understand the research behind it. My husband and I speak 3 languages between us and I’ve been really worried about how this would affect our future kiddo(s).
When I was a paraeducator at an elementary dual language school, there was this kinder Indian girl who knew three languages! English, her home language, and Spanish. She was a bright kinder student!
Hi Adrienne, thank you so much for this video & all the other videos which I'm still working through.
I was so glad when I received the e-mail with the link to this video.
We are raising our daughter to be bilingual simultaneously. We reside in South Africa. My home language is English & my husband's home language is Afrikaans (similar to Dutch or Flemish).
My brother & sister-in-law have done the same with their two kids & they've turned out okay. They still tend to borrow words from one language but I'm sure that will get better as they grow older as their vocabulary for each language grows.
Our household is Spanish and English, with Catalan in the school systems as it is the regional language.
in HK, we always mix english with Cantonese, because it is somewhat easier to express thought as some words can't be translated directly.
for the critical period, academic languages and "naive-like" languages are not the same.. I still believe learning in young age would have a huge advantage in language proficiency
My family speaks spanish and my husband's family speaks arabic (Egyptian). We speak English at home but are hoping our son learns other languages with his grandparents when they care for him during the week when I return to work. Hopefully he learns and adapts to speaking a language with each grandparent.
We speak danish and english at home with our 3 year old daugther. I had trouple learning english growing up, but after engaging in conversations in english with my daugther, i have become better myself. She is so good at speaking two language and i am a proud mother for that :)
Wonderful!
You speak with her danish and english at the same time? How you make her distinguish between them? Are you fluent in English? Bc I'm not fluent in English and I want to speak with my 3 months old baby girl my native language plus English.
@@emanmohammed30 by All mean i'm not great at english, but by talking often with my daughter who does not question me i began to learn it and I became better. The father is halv british and he correct us when it is needed. I speak so much more freely after practicing for some years know 😊
@@emanmohammed30 Kids will learn how to distiguise from one language to another by time. When they meet other they just have to find common ground
I have 2 years old son and he is learning 3 languages. I speak Serbian with him, my husband Hungarian and in Kindergarten he learns German. He understands everything on all 3 languages but can say only 22 words mixt on these languages. The doctor said that we should give him more time and that in a month or two he will start talking more. Thank you for all your videos they are so useful.
Wow! 3 languages is awesome! If you ever need more support in helping your son talk more, I recommend this resource: The Steps to Help Your Child Learn To Talk: online class:
www.learnwithadrienne.com/steps-to-help-your-child-learn-to-talk
@@LearnWithAdrienne thank you so much ❤️
Love your videos !
Wow, so pleased your video popped up in my feed! With a 22 month old who is learning French from his Dad, English from me and Spanish from his minder... I was not sure if we were confusing him! So reassuring and great to have discovered your channel!
Glad it was helpful!
Hi I speak 2 languages. I speak English as a native and I also speak Japanese at a beginner/intermediate level.
こんいちは！私の母国語は英語です。でも、十一年間に日本語をべんきょうしています。日本語を話すことがすこしでします。
I speak mandarin and English. Thanks for this video, very informative. It did happen to my kid when she was young, she started a little bit late. Now I know the reason why😊
I speak 3 languages fluently: Bahasa Indonesia (my 1st language), English & Dutch. I would love to have my daughter to speak at least 2 different languages since early age. However, I’m not sure how to do it. I’ve read and heard so many confusing opinions about this topic. Thank you for this video, it is really helpful knowing which are the myths and facts.
Really helpful! Thanks! (my 2 year old is learning English and Swiss German!)
That's great!
I used to have dominant languages based on scenario. Anything school related beyond the age I left France I can only really do in English (I really struggle to read research papers in my field in french, just have to stop half the time to think). Until I moved to uni alone however I would struggle with anything home related in English. I wouldn't remember how to say "broom" for example
Portuguese, Spanish, English and Russian! And so my son :)
Great Video Adrienne! This is actually the first time I've heard anyone say that OPOL isn't a necessarily superior way to bilingualism! I'm really hopeful now because I really felt I was diluting my toddler's language environment because I was speaking to him in 2 languages (English: dominant; Vietnamese: to keep minority language alive). Thank you! Hope you could expand on why the OPOL approach isn't necessarily superior in one of your videos later, because I'd love to learn more. I still can't help think it is, just because there would be more exposure + time given to cement a language. ♥️
You can try OPOA (I think) One Person One Accessory Method
Multilingual Family made a video about it
That was very interesting thank you! My husband and I are both from Quebec and speak French together. Since he was raised bilingual, we're planning on using both French and English at home, even though I want French to be the one we truly focus on.
We live in Berlin so I do wonder how things will go (I'm due in October). We only have German friends so the baby will hear German very early on and attend a German school if we stay here.
I learned English and German in my teens and as an adult and it's opened so many doors. I also think that being able to communicate with people in different languages makes you more open-minded towards other cultures :)
Hi Adrienne, thank you so much for your video. You really answer my question of which language I should talk to my baby. I speak Cantonese. When I grew up I learnt Mandarin, Japanese and English. My dad used to speak Portuguese to his family but he never spoke to me so I never had a chance to learn Portuguese. It really reinforce my idea as long as I interact with my baby it doesn't matter which language I am speaking to him
Yes!!
Hi Adrienne, thank you so much for all your videos. My daughter is 2 years-old I talk to her in Arabic and English and my husband in English. She started 2 weeks ago to say mama. She understands both languages and she express herself but without talking. She knows all the names of her Toys and she knows the nose, the ear, the mouth, the hair... she builds her blocks and she sorts the objects by colors and shapes with no problem. She is almost fully potty trained during the day. Do I need to be patient or start speech therapy?
I’m an adult and I still code mix lol
Yas Al me too 😄
It calmed down so much since my family moved back to France but after spending 5 years in the UK conversations with my dad and brother would be mainly code mix. We still sometimes code mix now, but they do it less since they moved back so I stepped back too. Some words make so much more sense in one language than another
In India our kids learn 3 languages right from birth , mother tongue, language of the state they are living in and the national language,hindi .Fourth is added when the child goes to school viz English .
Sequentially learnt my 2nd language (Spanish) at school at around 9 years old. Now looking at how is best to get my 2 year old to start learning too 😊 thanks for the vid!
That's great!
Wonderful! Thank you! Spanish-English at our home. This was so informative and encouraging :)
Thanks for the video! My son is learning lithuanian and italian, but hears us parents talk also in english, and outside we speak with others in german. I don't worry about german, italian and english, but wish that among them he will keep good lithuanian and even learn russian which is my strongest language and his grandmas'.. (yet, when i started after birth to speak to him russian after 1 month i swiched to lithuanian cause something was missing in our connection, even though my lithuanian was much poorer, but mother tongue).
Would you recommend to read to him or speak sometimes also in russian?? I feel like among others i should put all my affort for lithuanian, because it's complicated language and almost useless where we live in Germany.. (he is 2.5 yo, + his sister 3 monthes old)
Thank you for your video, it's really interesting. I teach Hungarian and English to my 3 years old son (or trying), and it isn't easy. I get lots of advices from lots of different people, but only a few worked, and they wasn't so professional like your video 😊
We speak Portuguese at home!
🇨🇦
I am happy I found your video. My son been through something similar to what you described with sequential bilingualism.
He spoke English well and then we moved to France and he he went silent for 4 months. We thought he was autistic and ran so many tests. Over a year later, he speaks French and English with the grammatical errors you mentioned. But is a chatter box nonetheless.
Thank you for your video. I am bilingual and my husband speaks English only. Our son does have a speech delay unfortunately some words are just not pronounced clearly. And I was afraid if I keep talking to him in Spanish that it would make it worse. Thankfully we are now working with a speech therapist and things are going well.
Thanks Adrianne !!! I’m raising a bilingual baby and he is learning both languages at the same time. Thanks so much for the resources 👌
Wonderful!
We speak English, French and Spanish at home. I'm Spanish native speaker and my husband is a French native speaker but we live in Toronto, Canada. We adopted the "one parent speaks Spanish exclusively and the other French exclusively" when speaking to my son since he was born. He started to go to the daycare at the age of 2.5 years old and he absorbed English so much faster than Spanish and French. Even now that we've been in lockdown for 2+ months he is still speaking way more English than Spanish or French. But, for his age 3.5 he struggles to put a sentence together and he'll mix all 3 languages with some sort of a baby talk. Last year he said I want juice de manzana Rouge, when asking for a juice pouch that had an image of a red apple on the front. Since then on, he'd mix all 3 languages and he has a great accent in all 3 but again, he cannot put a full sentence together as any other kid his age would.
Also, he speaks French to his father and Spanish to me with the words he knows. Today he was talking to me about a car engine which is motor both in French and Spanish. He told me motor with Spanish accent and then when his father showed up in the middle of the conversation he told him motor with the French accent. I'm amazed by his little mind.
I love this! Kids’ minds are incredible! 😍