Bilingual Children
Schmiznurf
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Has anyone on here raised a bilingual child?
My son is being raised bilingual and at the moment he is 30 months old. The only words he says are Mama, Dada and Baba (which is close to the Polish for nan). I'm not sure if him having a dummy will have slowed down his speech development either, as he has only been off it completely for a few weeks.
I'm a little worried about him not speaking more, so i'm looking to see what your experiences with bilingual children are and when they started speaking.
My son is being raised bilingual and at the moment he is 30 months old. The only words he says are Mama, Dada and Baba (which is close to the Polish for nan). I'm not sure if him having a dummy will have slowed down his speech development either, as he has only been off it completely for a few weeks.
I'm a little worried about him not speaking more, so i'm looking to see what your experiences with bilingual children are and when they started speaking.
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I will be interested to see how soon he picks up English at nursery.
Here are some links you may find useful to check - http://www.babycenter.com/0_raising-a-bilingual-child-the-top-five-myths_10340869.bc
http://www.babycenter.com/0_warning-signs-of-a-toddlers-language-delay_12293.bc
From what I know, I started speaking quite early and didn't have any problems with speaking either language. However, all children are different. May be worth speaking to your doctor if you are worried.
Children adapt very well to speaking more than one language and if it is part of natural speech learning, they soon use to distinguish which language they are using.
Are you speaking one language at home? The reason I ask is my OH is French, so we are 'one parent, one language'. Living in England, her English is more advanced, but I would say she is relatively fluent in both. If you are speaking one language only at home then I would expect slower progress in the other language.
Does your child seem to understand and follow instructions in both languages?
I think most children talk more than you have suggested at 2 1/2, so it is worth checking out - however I know my sister (monolingual) didn't speak until then - to the point my parents had her hearing tested and she turned out fine. In fact, she hasn't shut up since
One of my nieces only said yes and no well in to her twos..... Why? Because she was only ever spoken to or asked questions that required a yes or no answer. So if she was crying, rather than ask 'what do you want?', she'd be asked 'do you want a (x/y/z)?' etc.... It wasn't until her little brother was born and she had to start getting attention for herself that her speech developed.
I always speak English to him and my wife mainly uses Polish. With each other it's English. His grandparents are Polish so that's what they speak when they see him.
Understanding wise he pretty much understands perfectly in both languages. Sometimes we'll even ask him to do the same thing with both to see if he does, and he does. If he doesn't though, it only takes us telling him one or two times for him to understand it.
British friends with very young children born here have seen the apparent acquisition of English words almost halt when the toddler has gone to Maternelle (kindergarten) - from about 2 / 2.5 years onwards - and apparently very little use of French at first at Maternelle. The child is very quiet and could be perceived as withdrawn if it isn't for the fact they're happy and confident interacting with carers and other kids, etc.
Then it's almost as if both languages and the links between words of the same meaning need to be forged in the brain before the kids suddenly start speaking both languages almost in a rush. The floodgates open and both languages are acquired and used with equal ease - subject to the age of the child, obviously - a three year old still has a three-year old's vocab... but in 2 languages.
Other friends' kids are pretty much tri-lingual: Dutch father, English-speaking mother (Eire) and at a French school - they're 5 and 7 now.
I think this sort of brain activity can only be good providing there's plenty of support at home and if there do seem to be difficulties with acquisition of the school language, additional help is sought to get them gently up to speed.
One thing I have noticed is that British kids in French schools speak English well but their spelling and written grammar is appalling. Obviously it's not an issue when they're tiny but as they get older, keeping an eye on writing ability in both languages is vital - bi-lingual includes written competence too.
For some reason English has become his dominant language (perhaps it's easier to learn?) and he is now managing to put sentences together so we can have a conversation. His French is somewhat behind. His speech development has been slower than that of other children (probably delayed by approx. one year I would say) but honestly what do you expect when they not only have to learn three times the vocabulary but also learn to separate out the languages etc. I think within a few years he'll have caught up and I am not worried at all.
I recommend you wait another year and see how it goes. We saw a big jump in his language ability after his third birthday.
She will be in her late teens now. I hope she does speak French as well as English.
This is purely anecdotal evidence though!
I didn't learn English properly until I was a few years old (my parents spoke to me in my mother tongue), and it didn't affect my pickup of English. So I think it is actually less confusing to learn one language, and then another a little bit later.
All children develop at different rates. Another poster made a good point about yes/no questions - does the child have plenty of opportunities to expand their vocabulary? Do they play word and number games, get asked lots of questions?
I've met very chatty bilingual children who aren't yet 3, and monolingual children of that age who hardly speak. Everyone is different - but sooner or later they all seem to catch up to one another!
Before a child starts speaking, they have to understand. When children are young they need to hear then name for something several times before they start to recognise it - for example a cup. It takes even longer before they start to say it. They look at it, they recognise it, they know what it does - but they need to hear the name 'cup' several times before they start to use the word 'cup' expressively. Now imagine that the child sometimes hears the word 'cup' and sometimes hears the Polish translation. It's going to take a lot longer for those tracks to be laid in their language system from recognition to naming if half the time they hear 'cup' and half the time hear something else.
There's also the issue of speech sounds - expressive speech is composed of phonemes. Different languages use different phonemes, so if English and Polish use different speech sounds (I'm not sure) then your child also has to learn more ways of making sounds than if he was just hearing one language. A dummy can also slow down this stage, as to make speech sounds he has to put his lips, tongue, teeth etc. in particular positions - which is harder to do if a dummy is in the way!
Being raised bilingual or trilingual doesn't have long-term ramifications but the earlier stages of language development can appear slower, which is understandable based on what I wrote in my second paragraph.
If you're concerned you can see about a Speech and Language Therapy appointment and they can arrange a translator so he can be asssessed in both English and Polish so they can see if there's anything to be concerned about. Based on what you've said it sounds like a typical expressive language delay which is typical for bilingual children, although proper assessment will clarify that.
You can PM me if you want to discuss it more - I am a Speech and Language Therapist, working in paediatrics, so I know what I'm talking about!
Coming back on this on two points, related a little:
1) The above is certainly true and interesting - I have to say, my little one had a dummy and we used to tell her to remove it when she wanted to speak - which she did with great effect - reminded me of an old man removing his pipe or cigar to make 'the point of the century'
2) Different sounds are tough - my little one still can't say 'th'. She still says 'I fought we were going to de park'.
Actually a third point - my OH has had to be very diligent about ensuring she speaks the second language. She understands but is lazy (goes for the easy option) by replying to him in English. He makes her repeat in French. She had a good 6 months of saying 'I don't know how to say it in French' which is probably due to lack of exposure to as much vocab.
I would say persevere, persevere. I think being bilingual is a great advantage to have - especially when you think how hard it is to learn a language as an adult.
Not only are different sounds tough, children acquire them in different stages. 'p' 'b' 'm' and 'n' are some of the earlier ones whereas 'th' comes later. And then you factor in regional variations, such as in some areas of Ireland 'thr' tends to be pronounced 'tr' (e.g. '3' is pronounced 'tree'), or how in some places vowel sounds are much lighter and higher than in others - 'hair' could be pronounced 'hur' or 'hayer' depending on the speaker - it certainly makes my job interesting!
I love the sound of your little one removing the dummy with a flourish!
My grandchildren are bilingual (Dutch and English) Father speaks Dutch to them and Mother English. They are now 6 and 4 and totally bilingual. The older was a bit behind at school but has caught up and apparently is quite normal with bi-lingual speaking children. They soon realise who they need to speak English to and who to speak Dutch to They also have an 8 month old who is being raised the same and his vocal chords sound perfectly fine
I wouldn't worry as he will be fine and is more common than you think. My daughter knows several families where they are trilingual and it doesn't seem to slow the children down much
ETA when in Holland the 6 and 4 year old translate for me when speaking with non speaking Dutch (which lucky for me is very few!). It's fascinating to watch
He is most probably fine, but I would just check out a few things. One is to ask him if he can put his tongue out. My son was late speaking (although he was speaking in short sentences at nearly three), and it was later found that he was tongue tied. Apparently, if it had been found as a baby, the doctor would have just done a little snip and that would have been it. As it had not been done, and by the time it was discovered he had overcome the difficulties, we decided to leave things be. However, I would just have a look at his tongue.
Another thing is that autistic children are very late speaking or don't speak at all. Does your son spin himself round and round a lot? or does he rock himself? I have a nephew who is very mildly autistic and it was discovered after his speech didn't develop. He also used to make himself understood by little noises and hand actions.
It may be worth just looking into this. I know it can be very worrying, but it is better to know if there is anything wrong and then something can be done to help.
Let us know how things go on.
That's why reading a book with children is so beneficial.
Rather than just read to them get them to interact by asking them to describe any pictures and talk about the story.
This. My daughter is raised bilingual (Russian/English). She is 3 and half and is a chatter box in both languages. She fully distinguishes between the two and knows who to speak to in what language. I cannot over-emphasise the need to read books to your child in both languages. It teaches them vocabulary and sentence structure and produces brilliant results.
I was raised trilingual (Russian/German/English) and I'd like to think I'm fluent in all three. Getting me to shut up has always been a great challenge for my parents.
Being tongue tied doesn't have any impact on the age at which language develops, only potentially the sounds that the child is able to produce when speaking. If a child is late learning to use language, this won't be the cause.