Tremendous Tri-lingual Progress
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July 5th, 2007
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If you speak more than one language in the household you know your children will verbally start communicating later than peers speaking just one language. We're raising our kids tri-lingually and have found out learning three languages is for a young toddler very easy. But actually speaking the languages has proven to be a little more challenging.
Daniel's verbal skills, he's right now just over 3 years old, has predictably been behind his friends. Until now. During the past three months, his verbal skills has exploded and are now on par with his mono-lingual friends. Except that he now speaks three languages (his English is still kind of limited) while most of his friends use only one language.
Our strategy for speaking three languages has not changed from day one. I speak only Swedish to the kids, Sandra only Spanish, and we speak English to each other.
We use this approach after speaking to other couples in similar situations and also doing some research in other places. While some seem to believe we are pushing our children's brains too hard, people who have knowledge of children's amazing capabilities know we are barely scratching the surface of what's possible.
It did take around three years until Daniel caught up with his mono-lingual friends but his learning has now suddenly exploded in the past few months. His Swedish has long been alright after going to Swedish day care but the vocabulary is now great. It seems like he's learning lots of new words every day.
He's now very social which we believe is because of his vastly improved verbal skills He's soooo curious and keeps asking cute questions all day long. "Why Daddy?"come up around about 1000 times a day. Great questions but sometimes hard to answer. The other day he stopped me, looked into my eyes, and asked, "Daddy, why is my little sister so small?"
While the difference in Swedish has been substantial, the largest change is Spanish. He know switches effortlessly between Swedish and Spanish and carry out all conversations with the wife in Spanish. The breakthrough came after our five week stay in Mexico during March/April where he naturally was exposed to the language 24/7.
He started speaking more but the improvement wasn't dramatic. But a few weeks after getting back I worked in Germany for a couple of weeks and MIL flew over for a month. That meant he was forced to speak Spanish all day long. That combined with our long vacation turned ut to be the turning point.
I noticed the change immediately after coming back and the learning of Spanish has since accelerated significantly. Despite Daniel attending his English-Swedish day care on a daily basis. It's great to see him speak so much Spanish, I think my wife previously was a little disappointed he didn't use Spanish with her despite understanding virtually everything.
Attending bi-lingual day care has also improved Daniel's English skills. He clearly understands a lot of English which has complicated our household somewhat. We are used to speaking "secrets" in English to limit his understanding but that's no longer possible. He understands far more than we've previously thought which can be a problem as we're trying to sneak away for some wild sex to discuss whether or not he should have an ice cream after dinner.
If your children are learning more than one language, be patient! Don't fall into the trap of comparing your children with others in the early stages. There will initially be a large difference in verbal skills but the payoff will come later. And there is no hurry.
Have patience and keep speaking the different languages. It may seem like the children don't understand much but they are like sponges and absorb far more than we believe. Before you know it they will be speaking several languages without thinking about it. And that is a gift for life.
AD,
Great progress report on Daniel! As you know Chhimi and I are doing the bi-lingual thing but I notice that I do tend to switch to English at times with Erik. With Chhimi, its more natural for him to speak English. It’s quite hard for me to translate some cute children songs (i.e. itsy bitsy spider) to sing to him from English. SIGH! What do you guys do? Do you sing in Swedish / Spanish with no English versions?
I also noticed that since I’m playing the Dora Dora the Explorer in French for him while we’re driving on the road, he actually learned a french word. “La Carte - as in the map”…and if I ask him “who do we call” in French, he’ll answer “carte”. and if I ask him in English, he’ll answer “map”.
Of course, I also noticed that Erik tends to be a bit shy when he’s not sure which word or language to say and he tends to say it really softly! Is that how Daniel responds at first around the 15 month range?
I’m very impressed that you’re raising your kids to speak different languages. They’ll be miles ahead of the other kids in school.
Hey AD,
My daughter Alleke is just nine-months-old. We speak English at home, but live in Spain, so we speak Spanish on the street.
Do you have any articles or books you recommend as we begin thinking about how to raise her in a bi-lingual environment?
If you could email me any thoughts you have, that would be great.
Thanks!
Hi AD! Greetings from Illinois, USA.
How nice to read the progress of Daniel. Our children are also trilingual Indonesian, French and English, and we’ve been using the method as you. My eldest is also 3 years old, and it’s always interesting to see his progress.
Keep in touch,
Santi
Hi AD! Greetings from Illinois, USA.
How nice to read the progress of Daniel. Our children are also trilingual Indonesian, French and English, and we’ve been using the same method as you. My eldest is 3 years old, and it’s always interesting to see his progress.
Keep in touch,
Santi
I’m really excited to hear this since swedish, english, and spanish are all my first languages as well! I think it really depends on the childs personality how they will use the languages that they know. I was a speaker and used all languages simultaneously at first and then learned to separate them. My sister on the other hand didn’t speak at all for a long time and then spoke each language perfectly. She’s the introvert, and I’m the extrovert. it’s nice to see that some families see the importance of keeping languages alive! Thank You!
Hi AD
Thank you so much for your posting. It gave me a lot of encouragement to
teach my son 3 languages. We are first time parents and have no experience
with trilingual education and know very few people who have had similar
experience. We live in Switzerland, a place known for having many
lingustically talented people. The fact is a common Swiss speaks on average
3 languages. Even though a Swiss speak on average 3 languages, most do
acquire their 2nd and 3rd language at a later stage, starting in elementary
school. For us, we want to start our son from the beginning. We started
speaking Chinese (from me) and German(from his dad) and English (between me
and my husband) to him right after he was born.
My questions are,
1. Did you intentionally teach the third language (in your case English) to
your kid, or is it just consistently spoken between the two of you? Do you
read to him in English, teach him English words or do you let the daycare
and his natural English-speaking surrounding develop his English?
2. Did you get Spanish and Swedish audio video and books for your son and
teach him in your respective language or do you use English material but
speak in your native language?
3. Did you attempt to teach him the other 2 languages (Spanish and English
which I assume you know as well)? What’s your opinion of occassionally
teaching him words in the non-native languages which you know as well?
4. What do you speak when you meet your Spanish wife’s friends who speak
probably mainly Spanish? Do you speak Spanish or English in front of your
son? The reason I am asking is as we live in Switzerland, I have to switch
my language quite often, I speak German when I talk to the locals, English
when I talk to most of my friends, and Chinese with my family, so I am not
sure whether this will confuse my son by me constantly switching my language
in front of him. (By the way, my husband does the same thing depending on
his conversation partner.)
It would be very helpful if you could comment on my questions. Thank you in
advance for your answers and for your great posting.