Pasta & Patchwork
  • Home
  • About P&P
  • Patterns
  • Recipes
  • Projects
  • Product Reviews

Alphabet Soup - Our approach to raising a trilingual child

7/16/2014

16 Comments

 
Sometimes I think that alphabet soup was invented especially for families like ours. A cup of muddledness, defying all logic and rules and regularity. 
Picture
Image by Amy's Kitchen
First there are the nationalities and cultures: I was born in Belgium but raised in England. Mr P&P was born in Brazil but raised in England, and now has British nationality. The Bean was born in Italy but has Belgian nationality, like me. I know. What?!

And then there are the languages.

I speak Flemish (which is the same as Dutch) to the Bean
Mr P&P speaks English to the Bean
Mr P&P speak English to each other
The Bean goes to a regular Italian nursery

Which means that he is being brought up trilingually, making him either very lucky or very confused. I don’t know, and we’ve had many a discussion about whether or not we are doing the right thing. We worry about whether three languages is too much, whether he’ll speak none of them properly and hate us for ever and ever.

We did, in the end, decide we had to try. Both Mr P&P were brought up in bilingual environments and have really benefitted from it. Both of us learn new languages easily, and between us we now cover 7 to varying degrees of competency. As a translator, languages are my bread and butter. How could we not at least try to give the Bean these same skills?

Our approach so far has been:

1. Be consistent
Each parent sticks to their own language when talking to the Bean. We have asked the nursery teachers not to speak to him in English, so that the distinction between the languages remains clear. When we’re with Italian friends it does get a bit confusing for all of us, but I generally stick to this rule: if I’m only addressing the Bean, I stick to Flemish.

2. Be creative
We try to stimulate his interest in talking and language in various ways: reading books (always on the present wish list!), singing songs, watching cartoons. He is starting to like activities involving the naming of objects and matching things, so puzzle books like this are really fun to do with him:
Picture
3. Be relaxed
Though I would love for the Bean to pick up all three languages, we can’t force him. We decided early on that we would never pressure him, never admonish for speaking the “wrong” language to one of us, never make a fuss. All we can do is encourage, gently, and take our cue from him.

4. Be flexible
We can’t predict how the Bean’s language skills will develop. We know that some multilingual children start to speak at a much later age than is deemed “normal”, that some of them mix their languages for years, that some have a clear preference for one language over another. It may well turn out that we need to change our approach at some point, or abandon one of the languages altogether. Time will tell, but we are certain that we don’t want to doggedly enforce something that isn’t working.

As you’ve probably guessed, coping with this patchwork of languages is still as much of a learning curve for us as it is for the Bean. So far, his understanding of all three is very good, and he’s surprised us by starting to talk quite early. He’s very, very keen to talk, but then he has always been a sociable baby.

I would say that the predominant language is currently Flemish, but he’s pragmatic, this boy: he pick the words that are easiest from each language! 

Unsurprisingly, his first words were ones that sound similar in Flemish and English:

Boo (boek/book)
Bea (beer/bear)
Meh (melk/milk)
Wa-wa (water/water)

There are also words that he mixes, as in:

Aapey (aap+monkey)

Funnily enough, we have little idea of how many Italian words he can say. It could be that we’re not listening out for them, but I do get the impression that he knows Italian won’t get him very far in our household!

It’ll be very interesting to see how things progress over the next few years, and especially whether we will manage to stay relaxed about it when he needs to start reading and writing at school.
Are you raising a multilingual child? What's your approach? Do you worry about them getting confused? Have they surprised you in any way? I’d love to hear your story!

Picture
16 Comments
Seychellesmama link
7/16/2014 05:34:23 am

It's amazing that your little bean is being raised trilingual what an amazing gift to give him!! I don't think he will ever hate you for it, I'm sure one day (might nit be till he's all grown up) he will be so thankful for it!!

Reply
Eline @ Pasta & Patchwork link
7/17/2014 03:22:15 am

I hope so!! Though you're probably right about him not realising till he much older.

Reply
Kasia Ferreira
7/16/2014 06:06:29 am

No Portuguese?

Reply
Eline @ Pasta & Patchwork link
7/17/2014 03:24:02 am

Not for now, no! We thought about it but as Mr P&P moved to the UK when he was just a toddler himself, he's really much more comfortable in English. Plus I think four languages would have been too much for any of us to cope with!

Reply
Sarah link
7/16/2014 09:12:33 am

I think it's awesome that you are giving Bean the opportunity to learn all three languages - I know it would have been a lot easier to have learnt another language from a very young age rather than trying to learn another at 35 like I did!

Reply
Eline link
7/17/2014 03:25:44 am

You're telling me - I had to start learning Italian at the age of 30 and it was so hard!

Reply
Donna link
7/16/2014 09:13:16 am

Just the thought of teaching a baby more than one language makes my head want to explode! It sounds like you're doing a fantastic job with the languages and definitely going about it the right way - You'll definitely be thanked be Bean later in life! x

Reply
Eline @ Pasta & Patchwork link
7/17/2014 03:26:38 am

Haha, sometimes it makes my head want to explode too! I honestly don't know whether we're going about it the right way, but we're doing our best :-)

Reply
Jenny link
7/16/2014 09:37:11 pm

I think is an amazing idea to teach them at a young age as many languages as possible. They are capable of learning as many as you teach them as long as they are all in full and consistently being spoke to the child. I am teaching my kids spanish and we live in england so they know english but I am american and I teach them all the words we say in america too which you think two english languages are almost the same but it is COMPLETELY different and we speak differently so my kids will learn how we speak depending on what country we are in or who they are speaking to They are doing realyl well with it and yes you will get a little mixed up and crazy sentence with all three languages in it but that would happen to a toddler trying to learn one language and mixing his words up. I think it's fantastic what you are teaching and they will thank you for doing when they are young and sponges instead of trying to learn it when they are older and it's harder. I wish I knew more languages fluently. Thanks for linking up to Share With Me #sharewithme

Reply
Eline @ Pasta & Patchwork link
7/17/2014 03:29:43 am

Good for you for teaching your kids Spanish, it's such a useful language. I agree with you about teaching them the regional variations as well. My husband's best friend lives on the East Coast and from the (admittedly little) time we've spent there we know how many words are different. There are lots of difference between the Dutch spoken in the Netherlands and Flemish too, and I do worry that M-Little will only understand the latter.

Reply
Carie link
7/17/2014 02:17:51 am

I think it's wonderful that you're giving him the chance to learn all three - and even if he seems to prefer one over the others now, if you've sewn the seeds he might find it easier to pick it up when he's older!

Reply
Eline @ Pasta & Patchwork link
7/17/2014 03:31:21 am

That's certainly the idea, and something my in-laws saw with their youngest son - he never liked speaking Portuguese at home but when he turned 18 he suddenly developed more of an interest. It helped that he already understood everything.

Reply
Trilingual Mama (Maria) link
7/18/2014 07:53:17 am

Happy to have found your blog! It's lovely! Me too, I'm raising four trilingual kiddos! ;)

Reply
Eline @ Pasta & Patchwork link
7/21/2014 07:55:53 am

Thank you Maria, glad you like the blog! And kudos to you for raising four kids, multilingual or otherwise...

Reply
Pat
7/15/2015 10:53:50 pm

I worked with a lady over 20 years ago and she was Chinese and he was Polish and they lived in Australia where it is all English. I tried very hard to convince her to teach the children to speak them the languages of their parents. English during the week when everyone was rushing off to work and school and her language on Saturday and his on Sunday. But she said she couldn't do that. I tried pointing out that her children were missing out. But she wouldn't have a bar of it.
My sisters and I learnt English, Italian and Shakespearian English as toddlers from our bilingual father. We don't speak much Italian now (but I am going to have to learn it again as my youngest is marrying into an Italian family) but the SE gave two of us a great base for learning German when were teens. The eldest tried French but didn't do well at it.
Even though I do not speak multiple languages now, I feel that learning them at a very young age is a great start to life.
Keep up the good work.

Reply
Diana
7/26/2015 05:12:18 pm

Hi, have only just discovered your blog - so quite a late contribution to the discussion.. Anyway, I'm pretty sure you're doing your child a great favor by giving him all these language opportunities. I have a bilingual daughter myself - I come from Prague, Czech Republic but live in Belgium ;-) We live in Oostende and my husband speaks only Flemish to our daughter and I Czech. When addressing each other, my husband and I still tend to speak English, even though I speak Flemish now so we try to eliminate that. But apparently that was not a bad thing either. Our daughter is 7 now and today she flew for the first time alone to Prague. At the airport she shocked me by being able to ask a Canadian lady to keep an eye on our stuff (there goes my belief she did not understand us when we spoke English!) and once in Prague, she spoke Czech to me on the phone (whereas she usually replies to me in Flemish at home). Till this day I had similar doubts about multilingual education but no more!
Dus veel succes met jullie globetrotting - ik ga jouw blog blijven volgen.
Groetjes,
Diana

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Picture
    Hello! I'm Eline, and I've recently moved to a new corner of the internet: 
    www.emmyandlien.com/
    ​
    Do come and say hello!

    Read more:
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    Archives

    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013


    Hookin on Hump Day
    Picture
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.