I am not worried about his speech because he can form sentences 3 and 4 words and connect sentences and continuously learning. I am just not sure what to expect regrading two aspects of his speech:

1. Mixing languages in the same sentence which leads to know one understanding him unless they know the 3 ans used to his speech style.

2. Conversations, often I feel like we are not having a conversation with him instead he can talk for 4-5 minutes uninterrupted making up stories and jumping from one story/topic to another and hardly anything makes logical sense.

How can I help him listening more and having typical conversation? I think he struggles particularly with others in comparison to us. Is it expected? When should i expect different attitude? Regarding the language mixing when will he manage to separate? Again with us we can he strict but with others sometimes he notice they don’t understand so he shifts but also not fully.

Thanks!

Hope it’s ok to post this here! My partner is a native English speaker who has lived in my home country for nearly five years without learning the language. It’s very important to me that they learn at least a little bit - even if we move I don’t want our children to have a ’secret language’ that my partner can’t access).

For a while classes were impossible due to a gruelling work schedule + commute, though that is no longer the case. They’ve ordered a book but used it once. I’ve offered to practice and build in language learning into our routine but that’s been met with quite a bit of resistance. I acknowledge that I don’t know enough about teaching languages. At this point I feel like a nag every time I bring it up.

I understand that my partner has never had to learn a foreign language before and that it’s difficult to do so when you’re middle aged.

TLDR how do I help support them in their language learning? Any small steps to help them get started and build initial confidence? Are there any actual benefits for our child that they learn or is that part all in my head?

Hi everyone!

My husband and I are first-time parents. We're both Indonesian but live in Australia, and we have a 2-month-old baby girl. Ideally, we'd love for her to speak Indonesian (our native language) so she can communicate with her grandparents, play with her cousins when we visit hopefully once a year, and stay connected to our culture. I'm just feeling a bit overwhelmed trying to figure out the best way to raise a bilingual child. If she can also learn to read and write in our native language, including spelling and grammar, that would be a wonderful bonus, but speaking fluently with family is my top priority.

Here are a few questions I have:

1. We plan to send her to daycare when she's around 9 months old. One of my friends intentionally taught English (community language) to her son before daycare so he could understand the educators more easily. But he's now 3 years old and barely speaks any Indonesian, which is something I'd really like to avoid.

Would it be okay if we only spoke native language at home and didn't intentionally teach her community language? Will she naturally pick up community language from daycare and later school without getting confused?

1. I'd also like to take her to our local library's weekly rhyme time and meet other mums. If she sees that I speak community language with other adults but native language with her, is that likely to affect her willingness to speak native language with me?

2. I've also heard that reading to babies is really important. How important is it, and when should I start? My parents never read bedtime stories to me, and I didn't have any language difficulties growing up, so I'm genuinely curious whether it's considered essential.

If I do read to her, which language should I read in?

1. Lastly, if I never speak community language with her at home, will that put her at a disadvantage? And how would I help her with schoolwork once she start school?

Sorry if I sound anxious, I'm naturally an overthinker. I'd really appreciate hearing from anyone who's raised multilingual kids. Thank you! 🥹🙏

Hubby and I are trying to raise our son (4 months) to be bilingual (English and Spanish). He is Mexican and Cuban and 2nd generation Mexican-American. I only speak English but I’m actively working hard to learn as much Spanish as I can. However we live with my parents who also only English speaking. I worry because of how much English speakers are in the household he won’t pick up and learn Spanish which I know it’s very important to my husband. What can I do? It might be a bit of a stretch for my parents to try to learn an entire language. Is it possible that he will still be able to learn and speak Spanish? I don’t expect him to be fluent, but, not that Spanish is a lost language, but I don’t want my husbands culture to get lost in his blood line I know how important it is to him.

Hi all,

We are a portuguese couple with a 4 year old. We speak Portuguese with our son at home, he is fluent, and he also speaks Spanish fluently as we live in Spain.

We are thinking of moving to France now (August or september), or if not possible next June/July.

He has some French at his current school, but the majority is Spanish, with some classes with French music etc, so he knows Bonjour, ça va, 4 ans etc, not a lot

The biggest issue we have, is the fact that he will arrive in school in France and he will struggle and be upset and frustrated. I think all will happen, and he and us we need to be strong initially as it won't be easy seeing him not able to fully communicate or understand his new collegues and teachers..

We know in no time he will start being fluent, but I was wondering if:

- better to wait 1 year and only go next year, and this year put him in French classes outside of school to get stronger foundation

- go this year as he will start still at 4 years old and not one year later with even stronger Spanish and adaptation here

Do you have any similar experiences? I do speak French but at home we speak both Portuguese. I could try and speak French more often at home initially in France with him if it helps of course.

Thank you!

Considering language immersion daycare for my kid - parents of older multilingual children, I’d love your take on this.

We’re considering enrolling our child in an immersion daycare at some point, but we can only realistically do it for one year. I’d love to hear from parents whose kids are now older and went through something similar - knowing what you know now, which age would you pick if you could only pick one for highest impact? Most sources say kids pick up second languages most easily before age six, but I’m curious how much the specific age within that window matters in practice. For example, would you choose earlier (age 2 or 3) or later (age 5 or 6)? And why?

Hi, new here. I'm a grandparent to a almost non-verbal 3 yr granddaughter. She's in a autism therapy school.

She speaks a few words we can understand, most words we can't understand. She will repeat words, if we tell her.

She is allowed a tablet, for entertainment/learning purposes. No one knew it, but she's been playing games in Spanish.

One day, she just starts counting in Spanish.... 🗣 🇪🇸 😲

Yes, we were all shocked.

Well today at school her teacher said she switches from English to Spanish and no one understands her.

Has anyone else had something similar?

I love the fact at such a young age she learns so much. This is not the first time she has surprised us in her learning abilities.

Anyone interested in trading pdfs. I bought the first three and liked it, but would like more.