Ciamar a tha thu from Scotland

Welcome Ksenia! From what I understand, your child is only 9 months? If so, I think you definitely don't need to be worrying about her being behind yet...I don't know that I've ever heard of a child who could speak at that age! Just to give you some total anecdata - my daughter started saying mama and papa at maybe, 14 months? Maybe even a bit later. By the time she was 17 months, she had quite a decent vocabulary - maybe 50-100 words spread across several languages. And now at 2 1/2, she chatters easily in the ML (not so well in the mls, but she at least understands them and I know she knows the words, it's just easier for her to reach for the ML words in most situations). I know it's hard not to stress though - and hard not to compare with other children! Funnily enough, most of my friends are bringing up bilingual children and every single one of them has worried about them being 'behind' (rightly or wrongly) - and a few years later, all the kids are just fine.

As for what technique to use, my child is still young so I don't have any firm 'advice', but I can say that I am on a forum for English-speaking expat parents, and I've been struck by the fact that when language use is discussed, the more experienced mothers seem convinced that children are most likely to become truly bilingual if both parents speak the minority language at home. You are at an advantage in that sense because your husband is also a native Russian speaker! Having said that, I do think it makes sense to expose your daughter to some English regularly in order to facilitate the later transition to school. Could you have an English-speaking babysitter every now and then or attend playgroups in English? For some more anecdata: my daughter had absolutely no exposure to what is now the ML (Spanish) until she turned 1, because we weren't living in a Spanish-speaking country. She then started doing half-days at a Spanish-speaking creche, with pretty much no other exposure to Spanish (we have no Spanish books or music at home, no TV, and her babysitter is French). A year and a half later (with lots of long holidays in the middle), her Spanish is easily as good as that of the other children in her creche, who are all monolingual. So if you are planning on sending your child to nursery before she starts school, I think that will be plenty of exposure and certainly enough to ensure academic success in English once she does start school.

Welcome Ksenia!!

Can I also say how lucky you are that both you and your husband are Russian native speakers? I guess it may be because of this that you also worry about the ML. Let me tell you how it worked for us at home with my 3 (soon to be 4) year old daughter. We're both Spaniards, and live in Spain, but we've spoken English to her since birth. We never worried about the ML (Spanish) and I'm convinced it will eventually be her 1st language. Her first word was in Spanish (ML). From age 2 until she turned 3 she only spoke English (ml), although she did understand Spanish. This last year Spanish (ML) has picked up very quickly (she already understood the language, she was just choosing not to speak it herself) and even though English is still her 1st language at this point, I feel I need to protect English (ml) more than Spanish (ML). Parents are everything when you're 2, but friends and school soon become more and more important. In a few years, we'll be lucky if the ml can keep up the pace with the ML. It's funny because it's the opposite of what happened with Nellie's daughter. But my point is that I believe the ML, that is, the language spoken in the country you live, will eventually become their first language and the language you need to worry about is the ml, the one spoken at home.

I can't help with language development, I'm just a mom like you, but I can see why your daughter wouldn't be able to recognize her name if you use 67 different names for her. Did you tell her health visitor about this?


I can't thank you enough for this comment, Nellie!! I'm always worried about this aspect with my daughter. Children her age speak better in the ML than she does in ML or ml, and I can't help but worry. My husband keeps reminding me that she's learning 2 languages. I always wonder whether we speak enough to her, it not being our first language, and how rich our vocabulary is. Our American nanny (whom has been with us this past year) says she speaks as well as the American 3-year olds she knows, but I'm still worried. I hope it's just that I'm over-analyzing because of dealing with 2 languages and not 1.