UK mum raising a German speaking toddler

Hi Jenna, and welcome to the forum!

I'm a native Spanish speaker (originally from Spain) who has been living in the US since 1996, so it's the country where my now almost 4-year-old daughter was born. I've always known that I wanted to raise my kids bilingual, but now I'm in the process of raising my daughter multilingual. No ML is ever spoken at home between my daughter and I, there are barely any books in the ML there (it's all about her minority languages), and all music/songs/cartoons that she is exposed to are in her mls.

When I was young, I studied German for 7 years. To this day (and with the exception of transferring planes at German airports, which really doesn't count for this), I haven't visited any German-speaking country, unfortunately. As a matter of fact, between the last time I ever took a German exam (or had some exposure to the German language) and the birth of my daughter, my contact with German was...well, none, and yet...I'm using German with my daughter, and considering the input she gets, I'd say she's doing a pretty decent job!

Before I say anything else, I'm also a linguist by training, so I can definitely tell you that unless there are other issues that are not of a linguistic nature necessarily, learning two or more languages WILL NOT hinder your daughter's language development in the ML. I know it's a common fear among parents, and trust me, I see it every day around me (and even I, the linguist, have had my "weak moments" and have wondered whether it might be the case after all with my own daughter), but the truth is that bilingualism/multilingualism doesn't hinder language development. There might be a "language delay" because children have to make sense of more than one language, as opposed to their monolingual friends, but they eventually catch up, and then you begin worrying about too much use of the ML. You can tell your husband that learning two languages is OK. My daughter's pediatrician even said that the more languages she's exposed to/can learn, the better, because it helps tremendously with her cognitive development, so...doctor's orders, ha, ha!

So, as you can see, I'm not even close to be fluent in German, but my daughter is learning it and making progress. Right now, her strongest language is Spanish, her German looks pretty promising, and I don't know exactly how her English is going, but based on what her daycare teachers keep telling me, there's been substantial progress (she'll eventually speak it as fluently as the rest of monolingual kids in her class, I'm sure). I 100% share your thoughts about speaking to my daughter in "imperfect German," and sure, sometimes I've felt frustrated and wondering if I'm doing the right thing, but my desire to raise her multilingual prevails, so similar to your case, my German has got better, and slowly but surely, I feel more confident speaking it to her. There's a lot of room for improvement, but we're both making progress!


It's just my daughter and I, so it's both a case of "minority languages at home" and "one parent, two languages," ha, ha. There are other zoo keepers who can offer their experience about using OPOL or ml@home (the latter seems more efficient to me, but each bilingual/multilingual journey is different), but in my own, ongoing experience with my little one, she's not "confused" because she's exposed to several languages and doesn't speak the ML with mom and/or at home, and she seems to be pretty OK about speaking more than one language (I always joke saying that one day her friends are going to tell her that they only speak English, and she's going to open her big eyes, drop her jaw and say "Wait, people do that? You're telling me that it's normal to speak just one language??"

Where I live, there aren't many German-speaking families, and unfortunately I was unable to register her for Saturday classes in the German school located an hour and a half from our house, but I hope that, in the future, she can attend classes at the Goethe Institute near us, and who knows, maybe go to Germany to take courses over the summer. In the meantime, reading, reading (and more reading), being exposed to cartoons, songs, and conversations with mom will have to do the job. I thought it wouldn't be enough, but it's working better than I initially thought.

Good luck with all your bilingual adventures! It takes time, effort, and perseverance, but it's definitely worth it.

Marisa

Thank you both for these inspiring and encouraging replies.

Marisa, I love your approach of keeping things fun and relevant. I'm trying to do the same - I feel a little bit at sea sometimes because my daughter is only starting to verbalise and sometimes I'm not sure how much she's absorbing so it's really encouraging to hear that your approach has been working so well!

Amy, thank you for the awesome tips and links. I sent your blog article and links to my husband and I'm going to pick up a copy of Adam's book, I think. I'm trying to encourage him to minimise English at home (at least around the Tiny One!) and focus on German, so hopefully I can allay his fears a little. After all, as you said, English is everywhere!

I think at least part of the issue is that he's worried about her not "fitting in" when she goes to school, since he was bullied for being "foreign", but I think times are changing. I've tried to challenge this from an early age by sending her to a daycare where most of the kids have a second language at home, so they're really good at supporting bilingual kids and the idea of kids having more than one language is normal for her from an early age.

Thanks again for the advice and support!

Jenna,

I fully agree with Amy's comments above. "The more, the merrier," so to speak, and there's nothing to be ashamed of when you know how to speak more than one language, even when you might find "external agents" that may lead you to believe otherwise. Trust me, I see it every day around me (the "assimilate, assimilate!" approach is stronger than one might think). In any case, like Amy says, our kids will thank us later for "bringing them in" in our bilingual/multilingual journey, and hopefully they'll do the same with their own kids.


I went through long periods of thinking I wasn't getting the results I was expecting, or whether I was doing the right thing or not (I was at a loss most of the time, sometimes I still am), but reading Adam's book, and learning about the experiences of other parents raising their kids bilingual/multilingual always provides great support and motivation to continue, so...I'm still here! It's not easy, but it's definitely worth it!