Raising bilingual kids?

Question

I know it’s a bit early for me to worry about this (currently 6 weeks) but I always wanted my my kids to be bilingual. 
I grew up in Germany and lived there till I was 18. Then I moved to the US and now I’m almost 31. So German is my native language. I hardly ever speak it now, except when I’m on the phone with my mom. 
I’ve heard a lot about the one parent one language method. Basically each parent speaks their language with the child. 
My fiance is American and considering our kid will grow up here, I guess English will always be the preferred language. 
But it’d be nice to give my child the gift of speaking another language from the beginning. 
Has anyone here done this? I’m especially curious about languages that aren’t spoken by a lot of other people in the country.

Answer

I grew up bilingual and it was definitely a blessing. My mom is from Greece but was adopted and brought to America when she was a baby. Her adopted parents (my yiayia and pappou) were 100% Greek and 100% Italian, and first generation Americans. My mom also knows her birth family, and we talk to them weekly and we all visit each other. That being said, both Greek and English were spoken in my house growing up. I went to Greek school Tuesday and Thursday evenings when I was little, and Sunday school during liturgy at my Greek Orthodox church, which was a block away from my house. I was basically fluent when I was little. I was able to read both the Iliad and Odyssey in Greek with my mom. Now, at 23, I’ve lost a lot of it because I don’t use it unless I’m talking to my yiayia on the phone or helping out my boyfriend’s yiayia and pappou (he’s half Greek like I am, but his grandparents are immigrants). Other than that, I baby talk to all our animals in Greek. 😂
Knowing Greek really helped growing up, because most words have their roots in Greek and Latin. Because I already knew the word parts, I was able to piece together more advanced words and understand their meanings. It really helped in both English and Science class. I say absolutely go for raising your children bilingual. Immerse them in their culture. They’ll thank you for it!

Answer

my family is bilingual we speak English and we use asl. im hard of hearing and on my bad days we sign to each other. my 5 year old picked it up quick at age 1 and my 3 year old is delayed so he cant speak but is learning to sign quite quick

Answer

we are a bilingual family :) the important thing is just to use both languages with the  child.. my husband is from Chile and I'm American and our 21 month old knows several words and phrases in English and spanish...  names for things in both languages and can follow 1 and 2 step direction in both languages.. just make sure they get a good balance of both languages..

Answer

We have a bilingual family, and I would suggest that you do a lot of mommy talk (heavy repetition and answering your own questions) so that your child understands how to respond to you and begins to develop a vocabulary. In Minneapolis we have a German immersion school, and multiple families from my church are German. If you have a language community, your child will be more receptive to the other language.

Answer

I’m not bilingual although I did understand a fair amount of French as a kid (my dads side speaks French and I’m also Canadian where we have both national languages) but i lost it as I got older. It’s never too early to start with another language! Kids are sponges and they soak it up so easily. It’ll benefit them in the long run in so many ways!

Answer

I know plenty of people in our area that teach their kids both English and Spanish. I also have a friend whose husband is going to do spanish and she will do Russian. Idk how the trilingual one will work out but she seems optimistic lol

Answer

We will do the one parent one language. I will speak English my my SO will speak Ewe and French so our child will be trilingual. I hope it works! But giving your child the knowledge of more then one language is definitely a gift!

Answer

I speak to my kids in english and my husband speaks to then in spanish! He gets really mad at me thou because they cant speak very good spanish thanx to me. Im the one mostly with them all we do is speak english. So when they need to tell him something in Spanish they ask me to help them lol

Answer

I have a friend who mainly speaks to her 3 year old in Russian. Her husband doesn’t speak it, he speaks to her in English.

Answer

My little man is going to be raised with both English and Turkish if everything goes to plan. Hardest part for getting people on board is telling my family no baby talk (we say baba for baby in baby talk, but baba in father in Turkish).

Raising bilingual kids?

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