Raising a QUADRILINGUAL child
Jun 6, 2018 16:13:34 GMT 9
Post by Andrea on Jun 6, 2018 16:13:34 GMT 9
Hi everyone,
My name is Andrea and starting at the beginning of the new year, if everything goes well, my family will have one monkey in the house. I am Italian, my wife is Greek, and we've lived in The Netherlands for a year or so.
I bought the book about bilingual children and have already started to read it to prepare ourselves, as we would like to raise our child as bilingual. Actually, I believe we want to stretch this goal even further, so am seeking for advice here. Let me tell you the situation:
- Dutch will be the majority language and will be taught in school and spoken everywhere on the street; English is a common second language on the street and almost everybody where we live speaks it easily
- Italian will be the first minority language and will be spoken on a daily basis in the family, both by me and my wife
- Same goes for the second minority language, Greek, but in this case will be spoken mainly by my wife with little support by my side
- My wife and I speak Italian together
- We don't know Dutch at all, but we are planning to start taking lessons when the baby is born; I am also planning to learn more Greek as my wife teaches the kid the language
- I also know Spanish (C1 level) and English (C1 level), a bit of Greek and French (beginner / survival level)
- My wife speaks - on top of Greek as her native language - Italian almost as a mother tongue, English (B2/C1 level) and a bit of Russian
So my idea would be to teach the kid the following languages:
- Dutch of course, that he would learn at school
- Italian and Greek, that he would learn at home
- Spanish and English, that he would learn at home - dedicating a limited amount of time
The good thing is that I am a big fan of the Greek and Spanish culture, so we watch a lot of TV and we listen to tons of music in those languages. I work in English, so most of the time I switch easily from Italian to English even at home. And of course we also both read books in English and listen to music in English.
I would like to understand what the best way to proceed here is. Should we dedicate one day per week per language? Say, for example, that we spend one day listening to music and doing exercises in English, another day in Spanish, with the underlying theme that my wife would speak in Greek with him/her 90% of the time, and I would do the same in Italian?
Basically here, we are talking about raising a quadrilingual child!
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts! Best, A.
My name is Andrea and starting at the beginning of the new year, if everything goes well, my family will have one monkey in the house. I am Italian, my wife is Greek, and we've lived in The Netherlands for a year or so.
I bought the book about bilingual children and have already started to read it to prepare ourselves, as we would like to raise our child as bilingual. Actually, I believe we want to stretch this goal even further, so am seeking for advice here. Let me tell you the situation:
- Dutch will be the majority language and will be taught in school and spoken everywhere on the street; English is a common second language on the street and almost everybody where we live speaks it easily
- Italian will be the first minority language and will be spoken on a daily basis in the family, both by me and my wife
- Same goes for the second minority language, Greek, but in this case will be spoken mainly by my wife with little support by my side
- My wife and I speak Italian together
- We don't know Dutch at all, but we are planning to start taking lessons when the baby is born; I am also planning to learn more Greek as my wife teaches the kid the language
- I also know Spanish (C1 level) and English (C1 level), a bit of Greek and French (beginner / survival level)
- My wife speaks - on top of Greek as her native language - Italian almost as a mother tongue, English (B2/C1 level) and a bit of Russian
So my idea would be to teach the kid the following languages:
- Dutch of course, that he would learn at school
- Italian and Greek, that he would learn at home
- Spanish and English, that he would learn at home - dedicating a limited amount of time
The good thing is that I am a big fan of the Greek and Spanish culture, so we watch a lot of TV and we listen to tons of music in those languages. I work in English, so most of the time I switch easily from Italian to English even at home. And of course we also both read books in English and listen to music in English.
I would like to understand what the best way to proceed here is. Should we dedicate one day per week per language? Say, for example, that we spend one day listening to music and doing exercises in English, another day in Spanish, with the underlying theme that my wife would speak in Greek with him/her 90% of the time, and I would do the same in Italian?
Basically here, we are talking about raising a quadrilingual child!
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts! Best, A.
