raising bilingual child in spain
 

hi,

any advice on raising bilingual kids? Both myself and my spanish husband have decided to speak entirely in english in our home and hope our spanish born child will learn spanish at school and with his family. Our child is 2, and not talking yet..many people have advised us to use both languages at home although some with experience have suggested us to keep in english so our child maintains this. Did anyone have any problems with their kids learning spanish from birth?

Re: raising bilingual child in spain
 

Why would your Spanish husband decide to only speak in English at home? He's not English.
I have two perfectly bilingual kids although in Italian and not Spanish. I received lots of unwanted advice and ignored most of it. I especially ignored comments like "but you're in Italy so speak Italian. Why are you speaking in English?" The only bit of advice that did make sense to me was not to confine English just to the home in case the kids grew up thinking that mummy doesn't want to speak her own language outside because it's something to hide or because it's embarrassing etc. That doesn't mean that I insisted we spoke English with the Italian grandparents etc who can't speak English anyway, but if it was just us at the park, shopping, walking down the streets, picking them up from school and asking if they had a good day etc, I spoke in English.

My kids were perhaps a little slower to speak at conversational speeds than some of their Italian peers, probably because they were learning two words for everything. To check that they were learning we used to play a game on car journeys: if mummy says milk - what does daddy say? Latte. If daddy says casa - what does mummy say? House.

They made a few mistakes like sticking Italian vowels onto the end of English words ........ mummy have you seen the lovely moona tonight? Mummy can you pass me the spongea please? At pre-school my daughter once said: Che bella maestra! Facciamo painting oggi? I understood that was because she didn't have an Italian word for painting in her head because it was an activity she'd only ever done with me. Doesn't take them two minutes to pick up everything at school though.

I laugh now at all those people who criticised me for speaking English and not Italian. I laugh because now they all want to send me their kids for private tuition as they are not doing so well in English lessons at school.

Don't stress over it. Let it all come naturally. It will.

Re: raising bilingual child in spain
 

There is a school of thought that says that "One Parent : One Language" is the way to go.

https://bilingualkidspot.com/2016/10...-one-language/


I am the father of two bilingual children and can attest that it is a remarkable journey. There can be problems with biculturalism - not least the question of identity. "Am I English or Italian ?" in the case of my children "Am I Scottish or Bulgarian ?". For us it was complicated by the fact that my children spent some years in Saudi Arabia. At school the eldest daughter's role model was their teacher from California.

Re: raising bilingual child in spain
 

It's normal for a child to be a bit later in speaking when they're learning two or more languages at once - friends of mine here are doing what you're doing but with thee languages, with catalán in the mix as well. The children understand what is said to them in any of the languages, but the speaking part seems to come late. It's nothing to worry about, they will catch up.
Keep going with the two languages, use both languages at home in equal measure.

Re: raising bilingual child in spain
 

Our granddaughter is being brought up in a bilingual household. She took a bit longer to speak but now at 4 switches between the two with no problem. Certainly useful as she is/will end up teaching her mother her fathers language!

Re: raising bilingual child in spain
 

My granddaughter is Spanish,Papa Spanish Mum is English,grew up here as bi-lingual.Where I live,a small town with some 80+ nationalities,there are very many intermarried families.Some of the children at a young age can speak fluently at least 3 languages.It's the way forward to be able to understand others,so I can't understand why you haven't let your child have access to both languages already.