image credit: padre e hijos, by jclabbe, via flickr

Hello, I’ve been reading about OPOL (One Parent One Language) and I found this page, which is very interesting by the way. I’m from Argentina and I’m married to a Dutch woman. We live in Holland with our children. I speak to them in Spanish, my wife speaks in Dutch and we speak English to each other. My oldest son is 3 and a half years old, and he understands everything I say to him in Spanish but he answers me in Spanish mixed with Dutch. Sometimes he begins to ask me something in Dutch until I correct him. He goes to preschool three times a week where they only speak to him in Dutch. How can I get my son to speak to me in Spanish? Should I ignore him when he speaks to me in Dutch or is it normal for him to go through a phase of mixing languages?

Thank you,
Marcos

Dear Marcos,

Your question is very, very common in bilingual families.
In your case, first I should clarify that mixing languages is a normal phase and can even be good for bilingual development. At this point you shouldn’t be worried. With regard to your main concern, it’s very common for children to respond in their stronger language (normally the language of the community they live in, since they receive much more stimulation in that language) when their mother or father speaks to them in another native language, regardless of how well they understand that language.
This is due to a very positive reason: your son is learning about communication and he has discerned two fundamental things about learning to communicate all by himself:
-He knows you understand Dutch because he has seen you speak to other people in Dutch and can tell that you understand what others say to you.
-He knows that sometimes it’s quicker and easier to use Dutch if he wants you to give him something or let him do something.

The trick of pretending not to pay attention to him when he speaks to you in Dutch can be useful only sometimes if you don’t use it too much. Use this only to let him know that you prefer for him to speak to you in Spanish because there is no way you are going to fool him. He’s small, but he’s smart!

So, what can you do? I would say the most important thing is to be aware that even if he doesn’t always respond to you in your language, he is learning Spanish in a much more active way (though it may seem more passive) than he would learn in a conventional language class. With a small push towards a ”need” to speak Spanish, he could go from not speaking much to speaking volumes.

The truth is that there is no easy and perfect trick but the following strategies might be helpful:
-The most important thing is to provide stimulation in the minority language so that it won’t be seen as a tool that doesn’t work as well as Dutch (see other responses to Ask Sinews to read about strategies for stimulating the minority language).
-It’s also important for your son to see you speaking Spanish to other people in Holland. This way he will see Spanish as a “priveleged” language for communicating with you. For example, speak with your family via Skype so that both you and your son can speak with each other and your family in Spanish. In any case, he should be present when you speak to your family and should have the opportunity to contribute from time to time.
-Buy games and books in the language you want to stimulate and make sure they are appropriate for his level so that he doesn’t find the experience frustrating.
-Travel with your son to Spanish speaking countries so that he can see how useful Spanish is and can see that Spanish is your strongest language. There it will be much more likely for him to speak to you in Spanish and he may just continue to do so when you get home. Visits from family members who only speak Spanish are almost as useful.

It’s truly important for you not to give up or get too frustrated, since what may seem like it’s not working now can change very quickly with the right kind of stimulation. In any case, your son’s linguistic background in Spanish from hearing you speak to him in Spanish will provide enough input for him to use it easily when he needs it, unlike those of us who learned languages later on in life. The same thing goes for the English he hears his parents speaking at home. Though the active development of this language may be less, an invaluable amount of passive learning is going on and this will be very useful later in life.

Best of luck with your trilingual family project!

Dr. Orlanda Varela
Child Psychiatrist at SINEWS Multilingual Therapy Institute
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

image credit: direction, by ramkarthikblogger, via flickr

Hello!

First I’d like to congratulate you on your website. It’s a very interesting site about a subject which matters to us all.

Our case is as follows: we are both Spanish and we live in Spain. We both speak English and German well because we studied at a German school as children and we have lived in England.

We speak Spanish with our children (a two year old and a three year old), since that is our native language. Both children go to a German preschool. Now we are planning to hire a nanny and we are doubting as to whether to hire a German or an English speaking nanny. On the one hand, a German nanny would reinforce their German, which is the language they speak at school. On the other hand, since we know that children can learn languages very easily, we thought that an English speaking nanny would help them to learn a third language. Would it be better to reinforce their German or to introduce a third language? We could speak with the nanny either in German or English.

Thank you!
Manuela

Dear Manuela,

Congratulations on your multilingual family project.

As you have seen for yourself, both options have advantages and disadvatages but they will both provide very positive results: your children will be fluent in two or more languages from the time they are small! Both options are fantastic opportunities for your kids. As you and your partner were both educated in German schools, you already know the advantages and limitations of studying in another language.

Reinforcing German at home with a German nanny would have the following advantages:
-It would provide a less academic stimulation in which your children will learn those popular expressions that distinguish late language learners from native speakers (things like “that’s cool!” which aren’t typically taught at school).
-Creating a connection between the child and German culture, in addition to the language. A German nanny could sing your child songs from her country and teach them traditional games, which vary from place to place.
-The nanny would be a resource for helping with homework if necessary when you and your partner aren’t available.
-I understand that you and your partner speak more fluent German than English, so listening to you speak with the nanny would be useful and stimulating for your children and would help them to identify you as German speakers. And it will make them see that everyone speaks to the nanny in German because she can communicate most easily in that language.

Introducing English as a third language would have other advantages:
-Early learning allows for a much greater phonetic adaptation and reduces the probability that your children will speak the language with a foreign accent in the future.
-At this time in their lives, your children won’t experience the stress and prejudices of learning a new language which they might experience later. They learn without realizing it. Obviously, this would mean a change and an effort, so it may not be a good idea to do this at the same time as another important change (like starting school, having a little brother or sister, etc).
-Your children will be trilingual! That is, if they receive enough stimulation in each of their three languages (when your dealing with three langauges, you will need to try to maintain at least two hours per day of exposure to each language).

That said, you would need to evaluate the amount of effort (work and money) each option would entail and you would also need to study the children’s linguistic development and the amount of opportunities you would be able to provide in each language.

If you are ever interested, I remind you that in Sinews we do provide counseling for bilingual families on a deeper level, in which we do a more in-depth study of your case through an on-line questionnaire followed by an hour and a half long session in which we’ll ask you for more information and give you a personalized plan, specifically tailored for your family and each child’s needs (total cost: 60 euros) You can find more information on our website: www.sinews.es

Best of luck!

Dr. Orlanda Varela
Child Psychiatrist at SINEWS Multilingual Therapy Institute
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

image credit: strong as a bull, by irene nobrega, via flickr

Hi!

First I’d like to congratulate you on the link in El País digital about your work, which was very interesting. Now I’d like to tell you about my son’s case. I’m Spanish and my husband is English. We live in Sweden. Our son is four and a half years old and I believe that he is now basically trilingual. I always speak to him in Spanish and my husband always speaks to him in English. At home we all speak in English. My son goes to a Swedish school and speaks Swedish there.

I find it interesting that he had never mixed languages and he actually immediately changes languages if he is going to speak to me or his father. One thing that is surely helping him to learn is the fact that his father and I don’t speak Swedish (we understand some but not much), so our son knows he can only communicate with us in Spanish or English. When we go to the UK, he speaks in English with his family, but even when I speak to him in English out of respect for those who are listening to us, he scolds me and tells me to speak to him in Spanish, not English. In Spain, of course, he speaks in Spanish with no problems. When he’s playing in his room at home, sometimes I hear him speaking in Swedish or occasionally in Spanish, but never in English.

We have also noticed that, compared wiht other children his age, he speaks with less fluency or concordance, but we understand that this is not really a problem but rather that he is learning a bit more slowly because he is learning three languages simultaneously.

We might be wrong, I don’t know. My main concern now is reading and writing. He is beginning to come into contact with letters at school and my question is this: should we be doing something with English and Spanish at home? The alphabet is the same with the exception of the three extra Swedish letters Å - Ä -Ö, but the pronunciation is different and he won’t be learning that at school. What is your opinion? Could you please recommend a book about this?

Thank you!
Carmen

Dear Carmen,

First I’d like to thank you for your interest in our work. I’d also like to say that I love how your son “scolds you and tells you to speak in Spanish not English”. This shows just how connected languages are with emotions in relationships. And your son understands this perfectly!

And now on to your question. Learning to read and write.

From my point of view, you can begin this process simultaneously and your child can begin to have contact with the written word in all three languages at once. Of course, this does not mean that he needs to start learning to read and write or that you have to sit down with him to “teach him” to read and write in Spanish, English and Swedish. It just means that you should begin showing him the written word and allowing him to create hypotheses. Just like each language is pronounced differently, each language is also written differently.

One very useful resource are bilingual books, and there are many bilingual books available in Spanish and English. They are great for helping small children to begin to differentiate illustrations from letters and they show both languages in their written form with the same drawing which will help them identify the meaning of the written symbols.

Card games like Memory or Pairs are also an option. Here, instead of just pairing up images, children can also begin to match up written words. One card is written in English and the other in Spanish. Or they may be some pairs in English and some in Spanish. Here you can take advantage of the fact that your son does a great job of differentiating and identifying which language each parent speaks. So the pairs in English are for Dad and the Spanish ones are for Mom. In this way, you can all play together and differentiate each language.

At Bilingual Readers you can find many resources.

There are many ways to naturally and simultaneously introduce the concept of the written word in both languages.

The process is just like when a monolingual child learns to read. First he tries to differentiate the drawing of “something” on paper that is not a drawing. Then he begins to understand that that “something” is different if it pertains to Mom’s language or Dad’s language. Then he will begin to act like he’s reading and speak words in English or Spanish according to the kind of writing he sees. Finally, he will begin to apply the different rules for reading and writing. At first he may mix things up, there may be interferences between one language and the other, but he will begin to read and write without realizing it.

So my advice would be to begin to introduce your son to the written word in stories and games so that he will begin to differentiate between the written word in Swedish, Spanish and English.

Best of 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.

Many of you have written us with your questions about bilingualism for the experts at Sinews, and we often receive questions about when Sinews plans to give a bilingualism workshop for parents in your city. But a group of parents from Cartagena took matters into their own hands and invited our friends at Sinews to visit them and give a workshop. Thanks to their initiative and the cooperation of the Escuela Oficial de Idiomas in Cartagena (which is allowing them to use their meeting space), everything is ready for this special workshop:

May 14th from 10.00 am to 13.00 pm

Sinews presents its “Workshop for parents: Bilingual Children: ¿HOW? ¿WHEN?”
at the Escuela Oficial de Idiomas building in Cartagena (c/ Ronda de Ferrol, 12 A - 30203, Cartagena)

The price for this workshop is 50 euros/parent and 75 euros per couple, and it includes a copy of our fabulous book “CONSIGUE QUE TU HIJO SEA BILINGÜE”, by Barbara Zurer Pearson.

Space is limited, but there are still spots available. If you live in the area (Murcia, Lorca, Águilas, Torrevieja…), this workshop is a great opportunity for you to learn more about raising bilingual children and ask any and all questions you may have. Bilingualism expert Mariana Lombardo (who is also available for on-line consultations with families interested in bilingualism) will be happy to answer all of your questions.

Click here for more information about the workshop.

image credit: don't panic, by patrick hoesly, via flickr

I just discovered your website, which I find very useful and interesting. I’ve been thinking about bilingualism for some time now, from the time my now one year old daughter, Marina, was born. My greatest concern is that we would like for her to learn a second language right away for all the usual reasons: globalization, lack of jobs in Spain, cultural enrichment, the ability to travel with ease…

Our problem is that we learned English poorly: with little or no conversation and too much grammar, without native teachers…We do not feel able to teach her and we fear that the majority of the bilingual schools are not doing much to improve the system (I’m a teacher). On the other hand, the bilingual schools in Valencia (where we’re from) are expensive, especially if we want to have more children and give them all the same opportunities. And there are other disadvantages, like the educational style and the fact that they are far away.

My questions are: What can we do to help Marina learn English? Movies and cartoons in English? Should we save up money so that she can study abroad when she is older? A native speaking teacher at home once per day or once per week? Where can we find an ideal teacher? Thank you in advance for your response.

Miguel Ángel Mascarell

Dear Miguel Ángel,

First I want to encourage you to follow through with this bilingual project for your daughter. Of course, I’ll also tell you that it is not easy and it does require some effort and cost. But first and foremost, you should decide on a realistic project which will not cause you to sacrifice other essential things in your family.

Fortunately, there are now many ways to expose children to a new language. This no longer depends completely on parents or school. But we must always bear in mind that our children must be motivated to learn the language if we want this to happen in a natural way. This is the key, helping your child to feel motivated to communicate and interact in a language.

This is why movies and cartoons can be a useful tool if one of you sits down with your daughter to share this activity and talk about what you’re watching. Like I said before, motivation comes from interaction. Simply watching television can be a source of entertainment, but it is not enough to acquire a language.

I don’t know what your level of English is, but sometimes you don’t need to worry about speaking to them with an accent if you’re just trying to provide support and reinforcement for the language. For many parents who don’t feel confident about their English, it can be very helpful to read stories, so that they don’t have to worry about grammatical errors. If you feel up to it, you can buy bilingual books and have a favorite stuffed animal “read” the story in English when it is time to “speak/play” the second language. This is a shared activity with Mom and Dad, so this is a motivating way to expose your child to a new language.

Of course, this alone will not make your child bilingual. That’s why it is important that you give her opportunities to do activities with people who will only speak to her in English often enough for her to truly learn the language.

For young children, playgroups with parents, children and teachers who only speak English while doing fun activities can be very helpful. The idea is not to “learn” a language but rather to acquire it in a natural way.

Another option which would be appropriate for a child your daughter’s age would be to hire a native speaking babysitter or invite an au pair to stay at your home (you can find more information on this kind of services at www.soschildcare.com).

Finally, the idea of spending some time abroad is a great one. But there will be plenty of time for that. Now you can start with these other resources, while Marina is young and able to learn a second language naturally and effortlessly.

As you can see, there are several options for helping a child to learn a new language. But whatever you do, remember that the most important thing is to give your daughter opportunites to communicate and to create a need for her to communicate in English while having fun.

Best of 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.

image credit: eppny, by woodleywonderworks, via flickr

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.

image credit: innocence, by thedreamsky, via flickr

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.

image credit: number three made of white paint dots, by horia varlan, via flickr

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.

image credit: help point, by mai le, via flickr

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.