Am I harming my baby by speaking in ml (English)?

Hi Ryoko,

I think you are doing an amazing job at exposing your children to their ml. 2 really important things for you to do is to continue to reach out for support and motivation, as well, you need to continuously work on your comfort level with the ml.

For your youngest, if you have a working ability of the ml, I don't think you have anything to worry about. If you can read baby books, have a simple conversation, and label things around the house/outside, you are providing ample vocabulary for her. If you can sing simple English songs that babies love (ex. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Rock a Bye Baby) that have hand actions/body movements then she will be totally engaged and flourish. If you can't, use YouTube to prompt you until you can do these things on your own.

There are many options to increase your own ability and confidence in the ml. I would suggest starting with a very small, attainable daily goal and increasing slowly from there. If you dedicated 15 minutes a day to your own personal study, you could intently listen to an English radio station online, start reading a chapter book at your reading level (classic children's books are great like: Little House on the Prairie, Little Women, Black Beauty etc).

I love your idea of using your son as "a puppet" for your daughter. I did something similar. My children are a bit older. When we have a baby come in the house, I make it a challenge that whoever can get the baby to say a word in the ml first wins a prize. This quickly motivates them to speak ml words over and over again to the baby. Of course I have to remind them that it takes a long time before the baby says their first word, but the more they speak the ml, the sooner she will say something. So then I started awarding prizes to whoever was speaking the most ml language in front of the baby, who was trying the hardest to teach baby, who sang the most ml songs etc. Basically, I had to keep the motivators high to encourage them to keep speaking ml to the baby because the natural sibling language in the house is the ML.

Keep going Ryoko, don't doubt how valuable your ml can be to your children. If you need extra help, rely on the ml community, either in person or online if ml speaking people are hard to find in your area.

Ryoko, I see this as a very promising situation, too. Of course, I understand your concern about your second child's progress in Japanese, but if you take a longer view, and recognize that his Japanese ability will grow just fine in the years ahead, the fact that you now have this chance to emphasize English for both children and for yourself is a golden opportunity for your language development as a family.

I assume your husband is using Japanese with the children so this provides early input that will flower into active ability once schooling starts (if not before). In the meantime, if you continue to emphasize your use of English, while "de-emphasizing" your use of Japanese, I expect that both children will make substantial progress as English speakers. So I don't think the situation should worry you (and don't let others make you feel worried about it!). Just continue to do your best, day by day, making the most proactive and persistent (and playful) efforts you can to provide your children with exposure to English while strengthening your own English ability at the same time.

If you do, I think you'll look back a few years from now and, as tough as it was, you'll feel deeply glad to have persevered and achieved such rewarding progress as a bilingual family.