Ask Sinews

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I have a two year old son, and I have always wanted my children to be bilingual. I’m from Venezuela and I have a bit of a foundation in English from when I spent 6 months as an exchange student in the US and during several visits later on. But since I have spent the last 8 years in Spain my contact with English has lessened. When I went to the US for two months this year, I realized that I had lost much of my English. On the other hand, my husband speaks no English. As I’ve already told you, I have a great desire for my son to be English, so I have been trying to speak English to him from the time he was born. This is becoming difficult because it is much more natural for me to speak to him in Spanish and sometimes I mix both languages. Sometimes I realize I’m not sure if what I’ve said is correct. My son also watches cartoons and movies in English, he knows the alphabet in English and can distinguish each letter, he knows his shapes and colors, can count up to 20, has a vocabulary of about 130 words in English and says some sentences in English. My husband has a terrible level of English and I try to keep him from speaking English to our son, but it’s hard. I don’t know if what I’m doing is right. What else can I do to help my son grow up bilingually? There is a bilingual school in Vigo, but we can’t afford it. I have thought about visiting my family in the US for two months each year and sending my children to camp or some other activity which would allow them to be immersed in English. I see that children come here from Russia and the Sahara and speak Spanish after a month, so why shouldn’t my son also speak English if I make an effort to take him to the US every year? My son also loves it when I let him watch videos with flashcards which help him learn words in English. He never gets bored.

Ancari

Dear Ancari,
I loved your question because it touches on two fundamental issues:

What are we willing to sacrifice so that our children can become bilingual?
and Do our children need to have a native-like dominance of a language or do they simply need to be able to work or communicate with others in that language?

The answer to the first question should never be “anything at all”. In fact, we should never sacrifice the quality of communication between a child and his parents. Speaking to a child in a language that we feel uncomfortable speaking and which is an imperfect tool for transmitting more complex messages with nuances can have great disadvantages (of course, this all depends on the parent’s level in that language, since there are many people who became bilingual later in life and who feel very comfortable speaking their second or third languages).

So when the sacrifice is too great, it is important to choose a different strategy. Of course, if the language is not present at home and/or at school from the beginning your child won’t be an early bilingual, but we shouldn’t forget that there are other kinds of bilingualism.

Like me, for example. I am a late bilingual with a clearly dominant language: Spanish. But I’m a psychiatrist who works in English with the international community in Madrid on a daily basis, and I have friends I speak to exclusively in English (because they don’t speak Spanish) without any problems. Sometimes I can miss out on popular expressions or I can’t find a certain word, or perhaps I may lack specfic vocabulary for specialist terminology (legal or construction terms, for example), but I make a living in English and I can effectively communicate in English, thereby opening many doors for me and broadening the geographical scope of my relationships. What’s my secret? My parents, both Spanish, sent me to camps abroad and invited English and North American exchange students to our home for the summer when they couldn’t afford to send us abroad. When I was a university student and even afterwards I always looked for opportunities to study in other countries (England, Holland, the United States). If my parents had hosted a foreign university student or if I had had family to speak with on a daily basis via SKYPE, I’m sure I would have become even more fluent in English. You are right when you say that it’s never too late and it is not essential to make sure a child is bilingual from an early age in order to give him the opportunity to learn other languages later on.

Of course, all of this will depend upon each child’s linguistic abilities and his preference for languages.
For more ideas on how to stimulate a second language when both parents are monolingual, be sure to check out this response to a previous question: “Help! What can I do to raise my daughter to become bilingual?”

Best of luck,
Orlanda

Dr. Orlanda Varela is a Child Psychiatrist and the Coordinator of the educational project for Bilingual Families at SINEWS Multilingual Therapy Institute in Madrid. SINEWS organizes bilingualism workshops for parents in Madrid, as well as personalized speech therapy sessions to bilingual families with specific language development problems. For more information, please visit sinews.es.

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Hello,

I have two children, one is 4 and the other 17 months. We have decided to speak Spanish as a family and English at school. I never speak English to the children, but my Irish husband speaks to them in English if there is no one else around or if they are alone in the supermarket (without me).

My question is about my 17 month old, who is starting to speak. For now all of his words are in Spanish, but next month he will be hearing more English when I go back to work. I work from home for about 23 hours a week, and someone will be taking care of my son in the house.

I enjoy the fact that my 4 year old always speaks to me in Spanish, and I’m worried about the little one mixing languages (I think this is normal) and the older one trying to speak English with me. How should I react if my child says “water” to me instead of “agua”? I have read many of your previous responses, and I know you say that children only speak a language if they see a need to speak it. If I react when my child says “water” he may not feel the need to say “agua”.

Mónica Amaya

Dear Mónica,

The emotional aspect of communication is so important, isn’t it? I understand your concern about keeping your communication with your kids in Spanish, but you don’t need to worry. I understand that you live in Spain and your husband is Irish. Even if your children go to a 100% monolingual English school, they will probably speak to one another in Spanish. They will probably watch tv in Spanish and they will need to use Spanish if they want to buy candy in a shop. It is highly like that Spanish will be their dominant language and that they will want to speak to you in Spanish.

It would be very odd for a child to choose the minority language to communicate with a parent who speaks the majority language to him. It is so unthinkable that in all our years of working with bilingual families, we have never seen a case. (This doesn’t mean that it is impossible, since there may be a child somewhere who has decided to behave this way , but it would be very strange.)

On the other hand, it is common for children who have been exposed to two languages from birth to mix words in both languages (between the ages of 18 months and 3 years). They may do this because they have heard the word more in one language or because they like the way it sounds, but that doesn’t mean the child is choosing to change the language he speaks with you. This is just a normal phase in the learning process.

You should not be concerned about this at all, and if you respond to these “mixed words”, you are in no way reinforcing a language change. This won’t happen because children can sense your strongest language and they will unconsciously speak to you in that language. This is a very interesting skill in children. Even if you make an effort to speak to them in a language that isn’t your strongest, they generally respond in what they intuitively feel is your native language.It’s as though they have radar.

Your goal is not about individual words (like “water”), but rather it is about finding the most effective way of communicating with a person. And in your case your child will choose Spanish to ask to you push him on the swings or to beg you to let him stay up late with the grown-ups.

There will be mixing, but don’t be too concerned. Your younger child will react like your older child did. Children don’t tend to become too confused in these cases.

Dr. Orlanda Varela is a Child Psychiatrist and the Coordinator of the educational project for Bilingual Families at SINEWS Multilingual Therapy Institute in Madrid. SINEWS organizes bilingualism workshops for parents in Madrid, as well as personalized speech therapy sessions to bilingual families with specific language development problems. For more information, please visit sinews.es.

A fabulous interview with Sinews Multilingual Therapy Institute co-founder Orlanda Varela was just published on the El País blog, “De mamás y papás”. As always, Orlanda gives some excellent advice about raising bilingual children, what to do when a child refuses to speak one of his languages, foreign language education in schools and much more.

She also mentions Barbara Zurer Pearson’s amazingly practical guide for parents, Consigue que tu hijo sea bilingüe. Many thanks to Orlanda and blogger Cecilia Jan for helping spread the word about the benefits of bilingualism!

Reminder: The experts from Sinews are also available to answer your questions in the “Ask Sinews” section of our blog! Just send your specific questions about raising bilingual children to info@bilingualreaders.com and be sure to visit our blog to read expert advice from Sinews.

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My grandson, 1.5 years old, is learning three languages (English, Spanish, French). He appears to understand all three quite well, with words, sentences, and phrases at his level. He appears (clearly to me) to be muttering short sentences that no one quite understands. Would this evidently delayed speech be considered normal to you? AND should his parents focus on one language first? (We are looking into a visit with a speech therapist.)

Daniel Geery

Dear Daniel,

From your question I understand that your grandson is receiving enough exposure to all three languages. If this is the case, he is acquiring three languages simultaneously in an early and natural way. That’s wonderful!

Now to the matter at hand. First I will say that your grandson is going through a completely normal process. During the phase in which a child who is exposed to several languages begins to make meaningful sounds a completely normal mixture of languages takes place, which makes what the child is saying more incomprehensible at first. In order to help you understand this and allow you to see for yourself how your grandson is going through this process, I will explain a bit about how language develops in bilingual (or multilingual) children.

Learning a language integrates two very important aspects which directly influence one another: reception (comprehension) and production (expression).

These two facets are constantly evolving and there are periods in which the child makes huge advances in one area and seems not to advance at all in another, or viceversa. However, comprehension is always ahead of expression. And this makes sense. In order be able to give names to the objects, qualities and concepts of our world in a conventional way (I mean by using the same terms generally used by other speakers of the language), we must first understand the combination of sounds which make up the word which identifies a certain something.

Once these sounds are identified, a child practices moving his lips and tongue to make the same combination of sounds which have the meaning we want them to have. This is why it takes children at least a year to speak their first words. Until this point they are trying to understand the relationship between sounds and the things those sounds refer to.

Now you say that your grandson is able to understand words and sentences in his three languages and that he is beginning to “speak” a few words and even sentences. Although these first utterances are still unintelligible for most adults, this does show that he is moving forward along the path of language acquisition.

So let’s move on to the other matter which worries you. Is there a delay in speech? In order to ease your mind I will tell you no. All children, whether monolingual or multilingual, go through a “trial” period for each of their expressions. It is as though they are practicing until they are able to produce the exact sound just like an adult would.

But at this point, I will point out a difference between monolingual and bilingual (or multilingual) children. Those children who are exposed to just one language from an early age only need to perfect the sounds of one language, beginning with the easy sounds and ending with the more difficult ones.

Children who are exposed to more than one language must “practice” a much broader range of sound combinations. And throughout this process they are allowed to “play” with all the kinds of language combinations which seem simple to them. This doesn’t mean that the child is confused, but rather it shows that he is using what is known as the economy of language. He takes the sounds from the language he is most comfortable with and uses those sounds to produce sounds which are similar in another language.

This is where the so called phonetic-phonological interferences come in to play. These are absolutely normal in the preschool phase (up to three years old). Although we can get the impression that the child speaks poorly, this is actually a trial and error mechanism.

As the role models we are, at this point we need to be a good model of how to correctly use the language. Instead of correcting the child we should reformulate the word by repeating the word that was used poorly in a correct sentence (If the child says “kuyu” and points to a yogurt, say, “Do you want some yogurt?”).

All of the linguistic stimuli we provide for our children in their early years is extremely important, since what a child hears will be the starting point for producing language later on. So we encourage you to stimulate your grandson by singing songs and playing games which will give him more opportunities to use “trial and error” in each of his languages. You will be giving him a wonderful opportunity to learn three languages naturally. Many families around the globe have been able to achieve this in the same way.

Good luck!

Mariana Lombardo is an experienced children speech therapist. She does clinical work at SINEWS with bilingual families in the expat community in Madrid. Mariana is in charge of the workshops for bilingual families offered by SINEWS and she also gives personalized speech therapy sessions to bilingual families. For more information, please visit www.sinews.es.

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I am a mother who speaks three languages (Spanish, English, Norwegian) and some French and Portuguese.
My daughter is 3 years old, and although we are Spanish, I try to teach her English in different ways (songs, books, movies, cartoons) but as she is getting older she is asking me more and more to speak and listen into Spanish. So, what can I do? She is still interested in it, but lesser. Her father and I talk in English sometimes and that makes her curious.
I am a bit frustrated that my child will not be bilingual or that she will struggle too much learning languages in the future. She goes to a “bilingual” public school here, but the bilingualism is kind of a joke in the public system here.
What can I do to raise her bilingual within my possibilities?!
Thank you for being there and your help!

Best regards,
Constanza Niell

Dear Constanza,

We really liked your question because it goes straight to the point and reflects a very common problem for Spanish parents with a strong level of a second or even third language, which they would like to trasmit to their children.

After spending so much time, effort and love teaching another language to your children, it’s very frustrating to see them resist using that language or even ask us to please speak Spanish. But this reaction comes as a result of your child’s intelligence, her emotional intelligence.

Your daughter sees you speaking Spanish to many people throughout the day, so she knows that you not only understand it but are also extremely capable of communicating in Spanish. On the other hand, when your daughter wants to communicate with you, show you something, etc, her main goal is for you to understand her and she expresses herself more easily in Spanish.

One thing is clear: even if a child doesn’t want to use the language we are exposing her to, we are still giving her an important passive learning process. With just a little push, your daughter will have a much easier time speaking this language than another child who was not exposed to it at an early age.

It’s simple: children see language as a tool for communicating and they don’t see any advantage to using another language they are less comfortable with and which is less effective in helping them achieve their goal of communicating. They don’t realize just how useful the language will be for them later in life.

So what can we do? That’s the million dollar question, and the answer can be found when we analyze what is missing from the current situation:

1) Your daughter doesn’t see the NEED to use her more “uncomfortable” language in certain situations.
2) Her active proficiency in English may be lacking. Though she understands it perfectly, it may be easier for her to communicate in Spanish than English.
3) She has clearly identified you as a native Spanish speaker so she prefers to use Spanish with YOU. She is showing her frustration at having to sacrifice an easier way of communicating with her mother.

Possible solutions:
Increase her need for using the language by exposing her to situations in which she simply can’t use Spanish:
-Send her to a monolingual English school (not everyone can afford this, since they’re often very expensive).
-Take her on vacation to English speaking countries and organize stays in hotels with activities for chidlren. You can even enroll her in a day care center in the mornings.
-Join a playgroup with other children and parents that only speak English.
-Sign her up for after school activities in English with teachers that only speak English (If you live in Madrid, you can find a long list at www.kidsinmadrid.com)
-If you have English speaking family, invite them to spend some time with you at least twice a year (at least two weeks at a time would be ideal).
-Later on, when she’s a bit older, you can arrange an exchange with an English speaking family through an international organization (she would travel for a month and another child would come live at your house for a month during the summer).
-Some families sign up to be Host Families for foreign university programs in Spain (housing a university student).
-Hire an English speaking nanny for several hours a week and take advantage of some “couple time”. Or you can have an English language au-pair come to stay with you. You can learn more about this kind of services at www.soschildcare.com

Another great advantage in these situations would be for your daughter to see you speaking English with other people besides her.

You can increase your daughter’s overall exposure to her second language so that she feels more confident and comfortable with it. This can only be achieved by INTERACTING with her in the language, so watching TV or listening to songs is not enough. It’s also important NOT TO CORRECT her mistakes in the language, because this may make her think “of course, I’m much better at speaking the other way”.
-You can read books together and ask your daughter questions about the book such as “Who did Little Red Riding Hood meet in the woods?” Your daughter will say “the wolf” and you can encourage her by saying “that’s right!”
-It’s also a good idea to play games in which she has to answer easy questions with short answers, so that she is almost always right.

You can associate English with SPECIAL activities with Mom, which will prevent your daughter from considering English an obstacle which keeps her from communicating with Mom:
-Use a cartoon character doll from the cartoons you daughter watches in English to play English games that are always played wit the same doll. If she wants to play that game, it has to be with Elmo because Mom “doesn’t know how to play”. For example, Elmo plays hide and seek, and he talks about where he’s looking and asks for clues. “If María would just tell me where she’s hiding…I don’t know if she’s close or far away. Are you very far away María?
-Books are very useful for reading together and talking about what happens in the stories, especially if you only buy her favorite books in bilingual or English language editions. Go to the bookshop and let her choose!
-Use movies to help you play fun games. For example, every time someone says the word “you”, you jump. Every time someone says the word “I” you squat down. Every time the witch comes on the screen you shout, “go away” and stick out your tongue…When your children are older you can take them to see their favorite movies at the movie theater, but only if they watch the movies in their original version.
-When they are older you can play family board games together in English…

These are just a few practical suggestions for helping your daughter to stop rejecting her second language without damaging the mother-daughter relationship. We hope they are useful!

Thanks again for your question,
Dr. Orlanda Varela

Dr. Orlanda Varela is a Child Psychiatrist and the Coordinator of the educational project for Bilingual Families at SINEWS Multilingual Therapy Institute in Madrid. SINEWS organizes bilingualism workshops for parents in Madrid, as well as personalized speech therapy sessions to bilingual families with specific language development problems. For more information, please visit sinews.es.

Our friends at Sinews have written a great article on raising bilingual children on dirigirenfemenino.com. As always, the experts at Sinews have great advice for all those parents who are struggling to give their kids the gift of bilingualism.

Hello, we have a five month old daughter and we were considering hiring a British nanny who would only speak English to her in the fall. I would like to know if it is too soon, since I have read information about how it may be necessary for a first language to be more established in a child’s brain before starting with a second language. It would also be great if you could recommend any books on this subject. Thank you. María.

Dear María,

From what I can tell based on your question, both you and your partner speak the same language. If this is the case, I think it’s an excellent idea for you to look for outside help for teaching your daughter a second language. A nanny is a phenomenal idea!

We’ll be addressing two main issues in order to answer your question. First, there is the matter which probably concerns you most: what are the consequences of teaching such a young child a second language? And second, how much time would your daughter need to be exposed to her second language?

Let’s start with the first important question. There are several reasons why early or simultaneous bilingualism (when two languages are learned at the same time from birth or at a very early age) is considered to be the best and most natural method. Here I’m going to mention a few of the reasons which would apply to a child your daughter’s age. At 4 or 5 months old, your baby is already able to distinguish the melody and sounds of two different languages. And since she’s right in the middle of the process of developing her mouth and throat function (lips, tounge, soft pallette), she’ll be willing to imitate the sounds we adults produce as though it were a game, regardless of which language we use.

At around 7 months she’ll be able to combine these sounds based on the phonetic repertoire of each of the languages she’s been exposed to. These are essential steps for a child to begin building and structuring language networks in the brain. This is why the earlier she is exposed to a second language, the more likely it is that she’ll have an accent (which is just a combination of melodies and sounds) like a native speaker.

However, the main advantage of this type of early bilingualism is the natural way small children learn languages without being aware of even making the effort to do so. They learn a second language in the same way they learn a first language, since they are really learning two first languages at once.

And now for the second important question. In order for this sort of language aquisition to take place in the most natural way, your daughter would need to receive enough exposure to her second language. This means that she should be in contact with her second language during at least 20% of her waking hours.

If this is not possible or if it would mean sacrificing other more important things, like spending time with her parents, then wait. She has her entire life ahead of her. In this case she wouldn’t learn a second language like a native speaker but rather she would learn it well enough to communicate, work, study, etc. Many of us are late bilinguals and we can express ourselves fluently in second or even third languages. It is never too late.

You asked for a few book recommendations. Since your question was submitted in Spanish, please click here for a list of Spanish language books on the subject.

We especially recommend the recently published Consigue que tu hijo sea bilingüe by Barbara Zurer Pearson. The English language version, Raising a Bilingual Child can be purchased on Amazon.com.

We wish you the best of luck!

Mariana Lombardo is an experienced children speech therapist. She does clinical work at SINEWS with bilingual familias in the expat community in Madrid. Mariana is in charge of the workshops for bilingual families offered by SINEWS and she also gives personalized speech therapy sessions to bilingual families. For more information, please visit www.sinews.es.

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I’m from Barcelona, and I’m bilingual in Catalan and Spanish. I currently live in Italy with my Italian husband, and we were wonder which languages we should speak to our future children, since all three of these Latin languages are very similar and we don’t know any other Catalan/Spanish speaking families here in Italy. I know that Spanish would be more useful, but I would hate for them to miss out on Catalan and all the stories, songs and games I know in Catalan. My husband speaks Spanish (more or less) and understands Catalan. Thanks for your help!

Dear Mommy,

What you’re expressing when you say “I would hate for them to miss out on Catalan and all the stories, songs and games I know in Catalan” is the reason why we always encourage parents to speak to their children in the language they’re most comfortable in. This is primarily due to emotional reasons. Language is so much more than signs and symbols–it’s the instrument we use to transmit culture, experiences and the affectionate exchange between parents and children. So we feel it’s not a good idea for you to feel forced into establishing a connection with your child through a language that doesn’t feel natural to you.

In order to respond to your specific questions and doubts and to better plan a strategy for your bilingual home, we should first discuss several things. Based solely on your question about which language each parent should speak, the One Parent One Language (OPOL) model would work well for your family. You could speak Catalan and your husband would speak Italian. In this way you can create an environment in which your child would learn both languages naturally and each parent would feel comfortable speaking his or her own language.

With regard to Spanish, I’m wondering which language you and your husband speak to each other. If you generally speak Spanish together, that would be a great way to expose your child to his third language. This would be a passive way for them to learn, since they would acquire sounds and words passively, which would make it easier to activate their use of Spanish when they need it. Learning two languages from the very beginning will make it easier for your child to learn a third language later on in life. If all three languages are romance languages (Latin roots), the process will be even more simple. In fact, the entire process of language acquisition (no matter which language we’re talking about) is incitially a passive experience which later becomes active.

If you and your husband don’t generally speak Spanish to each other, don’t worry about trying to change that. There are many ways to expose your child to a third language, so I think your first priority should be for each of you to use the language which allows you to communicate freely with your children. Your children can learn Spanish by traveling to Spanish speaking countries, attending summer camp in Spain, etc.

Above all, bear in mind that languages are learned as a result of motivation and the child’s need to communicate.

Good luck with your trilingual family!

Mariana Lombardo is an experienced children speech therapist. She does clinical work at SINEWS with bilingual familias in the expat community in Madrid. Mariana is in charge of the workshops for bilingual families offered by SINEWS and she also gives personalized speech therapy sessions to bilingual families. For more information, please visit www.sinews.es.

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I am Scottish and only speak to my daughter in English. Her mum is Spanish. She’s now 2 years and 4 months and produces long sentences and understands everything I say to her. However, I don’t know if I should be forcing her to say more in English as she obviously knows, or let her speak more in her own time. She normally speaks to me in Spanish and I translate everything into English.

Joseph O’Donnell

Dear Joseph,

Before I respond to your question, I’d love to ask you a few questions such as: How often is your daughter exposed to each of her languages? What need does she have to communicate in each language? In which language did she speak her first words? In any case, I will do my best to give you the most helpful response to your particular case.

First I’d like to say that it’s great for you to continue to ask questions and answer your daughter in English even when she answers in Spanish. This is very consistent with the OPOL model you’ve chosen (you always speak in English and her mother always speaks in Spanish). But be careful about “translating” everything she says because that could have a negative effect. On the one hand, this is a “dangerous” way of telling her that she doesn’t need to make the effort to speak to you in English since you will formulate those sentences for her. This is also a fairly unnatural, more academic way of communicating. Your daughter has the great advantage of learning two language at once as all children learn their native languages, by using them, based on trial and error.

Based on what you’ve told me, it seems like your daughter is able to answer you in English from time to time, which leads me to believe that she does have a certain control of English.

What you need to remember is that English is your daughter’s minority language, so she probably feels more comfortable speaking in Spanish. Most children her age are in the midst of the process of EXPRESSING their language. Until now it was more important for her to develop her ability to understand and analyze adult speech in order for her to begin to express her own ideas and needs in words.

It’s important for us to understand that learning a language is not a matter of force or correction. It’s about feeling the NEED to communicate with others. Children use language when it is USEFUL for them to satisfy their needs. This motivates them to keep using it since they see language as a useful tool for achieving their objectives.

In order to further STIMULATE your daughter to use English when she communicates with you without “pressuring” her, I would suggest you use activities that she likes. At your daughters age, you can use children’s songs to sing and dance together, games with puppets (which are great for getting rid of inhibitions and can often help with expression, since your daughter will be speaking to a character that his not her father and “only understands” English), storybooks, etc…In this way you’ll not only be reinforcing your daughter’s English, you’ll also be sharing valuable quality time with her.

In some of the larger cities, there are also playgroups where parents get together to play with their children and do other activities (dance, crafts, theater) in their native languages. These groups would also allow your daughter to see that there are other people who speak English and help it feel more natural for her to use her English. This kind of activities will allow her to see another model: “There are lots of people who speak in English with Daddy.” For this same reason, it’s very important to maintain contact with your family and friends in your home country. Frequent visits are a catalyst for important advances in the minority language.

There are many options for helping your daughter to express herself freely and comfortably in English, but you must always remember that the greatest stimulant is to create a perceived need for her to do so.

Mariana Lombardo is an experienced children speech therapist. She does clinical work at SINEWS with bilingual familias in the expat community in Madrid. Mariana is in charge of the workshops for bilingual families offered by SINEWS and she also gives personalized speech therapy sessions to bilingual families. For more information, please visit www.sinews.es.

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I have a 27 month old son, who is currently doing a great job learning two languages. He learns Spanish from me and English from his mother (I am Spanish and she is British). I can see that he hasn’t had any problems with this arrangement to date. My wife and I have been wondering if it would be a good idea to teach our son a third language. Is that a possibility? Would this affect his first two languages or put too much pressure on him? Is he ready for this or should we wait? We look forward to your response, since we’ll be basing our decision on your professional opinion.

Eloy

Dear Eloy,

Of course it’s possible to teach your son a third language. If you can create enough exposure in that language, your child could even become trilingual. Unless your son has some sort of developmental problems (which doesn’t seem to be the case if he is already speaking Spanish and English at 27 months), he should have the necessary capacity for learning several languages at the same time as long as he is given enough learning opportunities in each language. There are many trilingual children in the world who are proof that trilingualism is possible.

Your fears about putting too much pressure on your son are the key to deciding whether or not to start teaching him a third language at this point. The best option would be for your son to learn his third language in the same way he has learned his first two, by having enough exposure to the language so that he’ll acquire it “naturally”. If he’ll be learning his third language in more of a classroom type setting, it may be best to wait a bit until your son’s first two languages are a bit more grounded. This would put less stress on your son, and you wouldn’t risk any interference with the development of his first two “mother tongues”.

Here’s an example, which might clear things up for you:

If you are able to expose your child to the third language during at least 20% of his waking hours (because one of you has a high enough level in the language or you plan to hire a nanny who speaks the language or are enrolling your son in a school which teaches in that language), then go ahead and start right away. But if you’re thinking about taking your son to classes once a week or watching television in the other language, without giving your son the opportunity to really speak with anyone in that language, it might be a good idea to wait. In this case we’re not talking about developing the third language like a native speaker would, so your son should be able to learn a third language in a classroom setting when he’s a bit older. Many of us have learned to speak a new language very well as older children or even adults, so it’s never too late.

Here are a few suggestions on how to start with the third language if one of the parents can speak and read the language well:

-Reading books in the new language are a great option. It can be useful to choose books for younger children with illustrations, tabs and other special features for you to discuss with your son. The parent who decides to read to the child in the new language should always read in that language, so that the child associates reading time with the new language. If you can find bilingual books in the new language and the language the other parent speaks, that would be a wonderful resource. For example, an English speaking father could read a book in German (the third language) and the mother would read the same book in Spanish. The child will first become familiar with the story in one of his native languages, and then he’ll enjoy the story in the third language.

-A new character or doll that only speaks the new language. This system will allow you not to break the “one parent, one language” rule because you can use the stuffed animal as a new voice. If possible, you might even try to find a doll based on one of the stories you’ve begun to read him (this may be possible with some well known characters). The doll “only knows how to speak” the thrid lanugage, so you could begin to play with your child using a separate voice for the doll in the new language.

-”Only in the new language”. Children have a great understanding of exceptions. If you have a no television during the week rule at home, you could make an exception for television or movies in the new language. You can also use dvds your son already loves and allow him to watch them with the audio track in the new language.

Sometimes it can be difficult to get a child to see a new language as something natural, so creating situations for your son to interact with monolingual people in the new language is one of the most useful things you can do (during family vacations, with a native speaker nanny or an exchange student at home…) The best of luck!

Dr. Orlanda Varela is a Child Psychiatrist and the Coordinator of the educational project for Bilingual Families at SINEWS Multilingual Therapy Institute in Madrid. SINEWS organizes bilingualism workshops for parents in Madrid, as well as personalized speech therapy sessions to bilingual families with specific language development problems. For more information, please visit sinews.es.