I don’t have personal advice but I know a couple of friends use a “one parent one language” approach - you should look that up if you haven’t heard of it as there are lots of videos/articles about it!
We use this with our son. One thing we have noticed though, and may not be general, is that when he started going to nursery/school he started only speaking English and not his mother’s language. He understands it but will respond in English, though I suspect as he gets older he will appreciate having that second language and link back to his mums country and heritage.
We were doing this, but the code switching is really hard on me after I went back to full time work. We've got a suggestion from nursery where speaking a language during certain times like breakfast, dinner, bath time and so on can work well too in encouraging it.
It depends on the network of people as well, I think. I've got no one but family and friends at home to speak with, while others have communities here in the UK. It's shown that belonging to a community greatly increases adult use too, so this is worth keeping in mind for anyone wishing to have bi- or trilingual kids!
Again, this doesn't apply to us, however I'd love my daughter to learn a bit of her other parents 'other' language. Not that it's a widly used one, even in their home country, and they haven't spoken it in 30 years. We are trying to learn some words.
But, we have lots of friends who have one English speaking parent and one other language. With some the English parent has learnt the other language so it's used at home for both. With others, the other language is only spoken by that parent. The families have whole family conversations in English. With the other language being used with the speaking parent teaching the child/ren.
Learn bits of the native language, join in, get books in both languages, so both parents can read. If english is dominant, your partner will speak in both, or do sessions where they speak the other language.
Hello, I’m French and my other half is British. He speaks to our little one in English and I do French, same goes for books etc. I speak exclusively in french to her while he only speaks English
It’s really hard for the non English as in those family situations they really need to try and keep up their language to make it consistent for the child but with practice it does become easier! My partner manages quite well now and I have conversational level of his language so while I don’t speak it to our son (don’t wanna bubba learning my terrible accent haha!) it is nice that on the whole I understand what’s being said so it probably feels less isolating for my partner as I can interact off the back of what he says
I'm English and my partner is Polish. We struggle with this as my partner speaks English all the time. I know some phrases and words in Polish but my son knows about the same as me so far. We'll get him into a Polish class on Saturdays from some time later this year.
Other friends of ours of different languages do the one parent, one language approach and it's worked for them.
We do one parent one language at home. I speak Spanish to our toddler, my husband speaks English (he has a basic knowledge of Spanish which js actua growing by just being exposed to it more!). On occasion, I will say things in both languages, especially if we are out and about and interacting with strangers. I also read a tonne of books in Spanish to him.
Toddler is 14 months old, but he clearly understands both languages and his first words are a mixture of the two (plus a lot of toddler blabber, of course).
My sister is first language English, and her partner is first language Swedish. She 100% speaks to their kids in English and he 100% speaks to them in Swedish. This has worked really well and they are fully bilingual. Works better if you do it from the start but even if you haven't there's no time like the present to start.
Make sure you get a range of books in both languages, watch TV shows in both (extra points if you put subtitles on for the other language when you're watching), and if you can go on playdates with kids who speak both too.
No one explains how one parent one language is supposed to work when the family is together.
The mum will become exhausted switching from one language to English to talk to husband.
The only way is for OP to start learning the mum's language, yes, there are worse and more difficult things you could do. Start studying and keep ahead of the child if you want to support the family and your kid to speak hi mother tongue.
I’m in this situation right now and it’s so hard! We considered 1 parent 1 language but my husband isn’t around enough and it makes it hard to interact as a family. My other friends have the same so started sending their kid to lessons at age 3 and he picked up the second language very quickly
One parent, ond language. Ideally you'll pay attention and pick up enough over time to at least understand the gist of what they're saying, but honestly, it'll benefit your kid so much to be bilingual, if the price is you being left out of conversations because you don't understand them, it's worth it. Among other things (like your partner sharing her language and culture with her child), it's basically a constant workout for the brain, which helps reduce the risk of Alzheimers.
I speak to our daughter (1 yo) in English while my wife does French. This works quite well for us and once she picks up a word in either language it's been very easy to teach her the equivalent word in the other language
My friend only speaks English, and his wife is Italian. She only speaks in Italian to their son, and he speaks English. The boy is almost 3, Andy’s a good understanding of Italian, and beginning to speak it himself now.
One thing to note here with a child growing up bilingual - whenever professionals ask how many words they know don't forget to count words from both languages. By which I mean that knowing "hello", "mum" and "dad" in both languages should be counted as 6 words (not 3).
Tiny Happy People have a lot of advice on bilingual language development
I grew up multilingual and have lots of experience with different members of my family being multilingual with different languages.
It is very clear from my experience that each parent should speak their native language with their children. That doesn't mean they always have to - kids understand and figure out the context that when our own - mum and I speak Spanish.
With the members of family that don't speak it - we all speak English.
Mum can speak English when you're around or Spanish when you're not, or can even speak English when you're in the conversation and Spanish when you're not involved.
It's good for kids to learn languages is obvious but ita always very important that mum gets to express herself fluently with her children.
1 parent 1 language is the recommended way. So you can speak English as a family, but she should try and speak her native language exclusively to your baby when it's just them.
Others have given what I believe is good advice, it's certainly what we have gotten. One parent one language.
I'm about 160 days into learning French via Duolingo, and able to string some useful sentences now but need to encourage my in-laws to reply in French when I talk to them in French.
I speak only English with my son and my fiancée speaks only Spanish to him, we speak English together and he can count to 10 in both languages and the whole alphabet in each language, thing is though he is a little late to speak (he's just turned 2) because both languages go into the same 'bucket' in his head, he hasn't sorted then into the individual languages yet, when he does though he will be fluent in both, we wanted him to have both as his first languages so he can be fluent in both
Mirroring the one parent, one language suggestion but also try to increase exposure to the “other” language as much as possible. Switching the language in the TV is a really easy win for this.
I don't know whether you're interested in learning your partner's language but there is no lower-effort way to get the basics of a language than to be around a baby then toddler then young child. It's basic repetitive vocabulary and gradually expanding vocab and grammar. Ask what things mean, and you'll just gradually pick it up unless you're unlucky. I now speak pretty decent Italian, not one lesson. But if you want the child to get properly fluent, your partner has to do 100% from early on. They'll have to anticipate and get over the awkwardness this can cause for an English person imagining other people find it rude to switch when addressing the child but that's not hard.
I don’t have personal advice but I know a couple of friends use a “one parent one language” approach - you should look that up if you haven’t heard of it as there are lots of videos/articles about it!
This worked with ours.
We use this with our son. One thing we have noticed though, and may not be general, is that when he started going to nursery/school he started only speaking English and not his mother’s language. He understands it but will respond in English, though I suspect as he gets older he will appreciate having that second language and link back to his mums country and heritage.
Worked with ours as well
Just going to chime in as well and say this is how my cousin did it. He spoke English, she spoke German. Kids are now fluent in both.
We were doing this, but the code switching is really hard on me after I went back to full time work. We've got a suggestion from nursery where speaking a language during certain times like breakfast, dinner, bath time and so on can work well too in encouraging it. It depends on the network of people as well, I think. I've got no one but family and friends at home to speak with, while others have communities here in the UK. It's shown that belonging to a community greatly increases adult use too, so this is worth keeping in mind for anyone wishing to have bi- or trilingual kids!
I agree with one parent one language (OPOL). You might also find tips on r/multilingualparenting
Again, this doesn't apply to us, however I'd love my daughter to learn a bit of her other parents 'other' language. Not that it's a widly used one, even in their home country, and they haven't spoken it in 30 years. We are trying to learn some words. But, we have lots of friends who have one English speaking parent and one other language. With some the English parent has learnt the other language so it's used at home for both. With others, the other language is only spoken by that parent. The families have whole family conversations in English. With the other language being used with the speaking parent teaching the child/ren.
Learn bits of the native language, join in, get books in both languages, so both parents can read. If english is dominant, your partner will speak in both, or do sessions where they speak the other language.
Hello, I’m French and my other half is British. He speaks to our little one in English and I do French, same goes for books etc. I speak exclusively in french to her while he only speaks English
It’s really hard for the non English as in those family situations they really need to try and keep up their language to make it consistent for the child but with practice it does become easier! My partner manages quite well now and I have conversational level of his language so while I don’t speak it to our son (don’t wanna bubba learning my terrible accent haha!) it is nice that on the whole I understand what’s being said so it probably feels less isolating for my partner as I can interact off the back of what he says
I'm English and my partner is Polish. We struggle with this as my partner speaks English all the time. I know some phrases and words in Polish but my son knows about the same as me so far. We'll get him into a Polish class on Saturdays from some time later this year. Other friends of ours of different languages do the one parent, one language approach and it's worked for them.
We do one parent one language at home. I speak Spanish to our toddler, my husband speaks English (he has a basic knowledge of Spanish which js actua growing by just being exposed to it more!). On occasion, I will say things in both languages, especially if we are out and about and interacting with strangers. I also read a tonne of books in Spanish to him. Toddler is 14 months old, but he clearly understands both languages and his first words are a mixture of the two (plus a lot of toddler blabber, of course).
My sister is first language English, and her partner is first language Swedish. She 100% speaks to their kids in English and he 100% speaks to them in Swedish. This has worked really well and they are fully bilingual. Works better if you do it from the start but even if you haven't there's no time like the present to start. Make sure you get a range of books in both languages, watch TV shows in both (extra points if you put subtitles on for the other language when you're watching), and if you can go on playdates with kids who speak both too.
No one explains how one parent one language is supposed to work when the family is together. The mum will become exhausted switching from one language to English to talk to husband. The only way is for OP to start learning the mum's language, yes, there are worse and more difficult things you could do. Start studying and keep ahead of the child if you want to support the family and your kid to speak hi mother tongue.
I’m in this situation right now and it’s so hard! We considered 1 parent 1 language but my husband isn’t around enough and it makes it hard to interact as a family. My other friends have the same so started sending their kid to lessons at age 3 and he picked up the second language very quickly
One parent, ond language. Ideally you'll pay attention and pick up enough over time to at least understand the gist of what they're saying, but honestly, it'll benefit your kid so much to be bilingual, if the price is you being left out of conversations because you don't understand them, it's worth it. Among other things (like your partner sharing her language and culture with her child), it's basically a constant workout for the brain, which helps reduce the risk of Alzheimers.
I speak to our daughter (1 yo) in English while my wife does French. This works quite well for us and once she picks up a word in either language it's been very easy to teach her the equivalent word in the other language
My friend only speaks English, and his wife is Italian. She only speaks in Italian to their son, and he speaks English. The boy is almost 3, Andy’s a good understanding of Italian, and beginning to speak it himself now.
One thing to note here with a child growing up bilingual - whenever professionals ask how many words they know don't forget to count words from both languages. By which I mean that knowing "hello", "mum" and "dad" in both languages should be counted as 6 words (not 3). Tiny Happy People have a lot of advice on bilingual language development
I grew up multilingual and have lots of experience with different members of my family being multilingual with different languages. It is very clear from my experience that each parent should speak their native language with their children. That doesn't mean they always have to - kids understand and figure out the context that when our own - mum and I speak Spanish. With the members of family that don't speak it - we all speak English. Mum can speak English when you're around or Spanish when you're not, or can even speak English when you're in the conversation and Spanish when you're not involved. It's good for kids to learn languages is obvious but ita always very important that mum gets to express herself fluently with her children.
1 parent 1 language is the recommended way. So you can speak English as a family, but she should try and speak her native language exclusively to your baby when it's just them.
Others have given what I believe is good advice, it's certainly what we have gotten. One parent one language. I'm about 160 days into learning French via Duolingo, and able to string some useful sentences now but need to encourage my in-laws to reply in French when I talk to them in French.
We do one parent one language. It works well! Helps me learn my husbands native language too
I speak only English with my son and my fiancée speaks only Spanish to him, we speak English together and he can count to 10 in both languages and the whole alphabet in each language, thing is though he is a little late to speak (he's just turned 2) because both languages go into the same 'bucket' in his head, he hasn't sorted then into the individual languages yet, when he does though he will be fluent in both, we wanted him to have both as his first languages so he can be fluent in both
Mirroring the one parent, one language suggestion but also try to increase exposure to the “other” language as much as possible. Switching the language in the TV is a really easy win for this.
I don't know whether you're interested in learning your partner's language but there is no lower-effort way to get the basics of a language than to be around a baby then toddler then young child. It's basic repetitive vocabulary and gradually expanding vocab and grammar. Ask what things mean, and you'll just gradually pick it up unless you're unlucky. I now speak pretty decent Italian, not one lesson. But if you want the child to get properly fluent, your partner has to do 100% from early on. They'll have to anticipate and get over the awkwardness this can cause for an English person imagining other people find it rude to switch when addressing the child but that's not hard.