Thanks for checking out Multilingual Family on RU-vid!
My name is Andrea Breitenmoser, I'm a teacher specialized in German as a second language with a Master's Degree in Spanish. I was raised multilingual and I also raise my children multilingual.
My passion is helping multilingual families raise and support their multilingual children successfully.
On this channel, you'll find informative videos, ideas, activities, and know-how. I'll share with you my best tips and tricks to make your life easier.
I believe that it is a huge advantage to be able to grow up learning different languages. It's the present and the future!
Are you ready to jump in this boat? Make sure to subscribe to this channel and leave a comment on a video saying hello.
Talk to you soon! Andrea Breitenmoser @multilingual.family
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Hello, Thanks for the video, I am India and speak Hindi at home but with my daughter tried to speak English to keep her base language. we stayed in northern Europe where my daughter learn Russian and now moved Portugal so she need to start learning Portuguese so, how should i maintain her previous language or just focus on English and Portuguese only.?
My friends and I just got on with it and brought up our children with both languages 40 years ago. There wasn't much advice about in those days so we winged it. In fact, we were just emerging from the theory that using more than one language from the start would "confuse" and "damage" the child, so everyone in the same position was experimenting or just getting on unscientifically. We must have got something right because they are now bringing up their own children bilingually. Over 50% of the world's population is bilingual without any effort or theoreticising on the parents' part. It's the norm in large parts of the world. No need to overthink it.
I find it fascinating because me and my fiancé want to move to Scandinavia and we want to raise em speaking German and English but once we move to Scandiavia they would also have to learn that language too😅
I wonder how dangerous it is that the child can not tell the different languages apart and gets really confused if the parents are not consistent in their language use... We don't aim at both languages to be perfect, but that he gets the basics in the minority language urdu at least. And it's hard for my husband, who is the native speaker in that language, to keep talking urdu to our 3 month old son ...he keeps falling back into german. I am also learning urdu... So sometimes we talk in urdu, sometimes german. It's hard to stick to rules like speaking urdu at home or something... I am really worried that in the end, our son won't even be able to tell the languages apart... Any experience or advice concerning our struggles?
I speak Irish with my daughter 99% of the time. She answers in English probably 95% of the time. I repeat her questions in Irish back to her. She just responds again in English. She doesn't like repeating things I say in Irish. She doesn't like children's songs in Irish. Only wants Disney songs she sings with my wife (my wife only speaks English). She understands almost everything I say in Irish. We watch tv in Irish. I read books in Irish every single day to her. She loves when I make up stories with her as a character in Irish. She listens intently and asks me for more stories but still will not use the language actively bar a few odd words here and there. She's 3. It's looking like she'll be a passive bilingual... She'll attend a local Irish immersion primary school at 5. However many of the teachers do not have great Irish (they are 'fluent' but use English phonetics when speaking Irish they do not use the phonetics of Irish a Celtic language which takes away the beauty of the language in my opinion) The lack of active use disheartening as I have been using OPOL strictly since the day she was born. My original goal was for her to be an active speaker. I do not put pressure on her though as it will just turn her off the language.
Your videos are very nice, I like your method of explaining and your way of talking. I have a question, My Sister is expecting a baby this year (InshaAllah) and she wants to raise her child at least trilingual, but she and her husband can only speak two languages (Punjabi and Urdu as we live in Punjab, Pakistan.). Her and Her Husband's mother tongue is Punjabi but my Sister is also good in speaking Urdu but she can't read or write it (only conversational), they live in a joint family and all people in their family i.e. her husband's siblings and parents can speak these two languages and one of them can also speak, read, and write English a little bit. I am fluent in English as I am trilingual i.e. Punjabi, Urdu, and English but I don't live with her yet I can visit her 2 to 3 times a weak. She wants her coming baby to be trilingual like me in at least Punjabi, Urdu, and English. Please consider to reply me with your experienced brains, on how my Sister can get success in her plans. I am telling you this all because you are tackling with these situations since years and maybe are now expert in it (I think). You are good at it, May Allah Give you and your family the Right Path.
I’m an English speaker currently learning Spanish. My bf’s first language is Spanish but living here in the US has really weakened his Spanish speaking. We’re currently living with his parents who speak majority in Spanish. We’re expecting our first baby end of September and I have made a big deal out of making sure our baby knows both languages!
I’m glad that i found u before I decide in which language i need to go with my child.. but he’s almost 3years now n as we live in italy they speak italian.. @ home we talk in English n native language (sri lankan) my child speaks English as well & bit of italian.. im worried, if he couldn’t catch italian because of my fault 😢 now he’s mixing both languages when he talks bt i think he knows the difference between the language bcouse if i ask something in italian he responds in italian language.. bt it will be okay in the future or im doing it wrong?? Im really worried.. help please!!!! Thank u!!!!! ❤
Thank you Andrea! It's a good video. Could you please give me some advices to raise my child multilingual. I am Mexican. Spanish is my native language, I speak English and German too. I work as German teacher. My husband speaks only Spanish.
Hi Andrea! I'm so happy I found your content. I'm going through difficult times and not sure what to do. I'm Portuguese, and my partner is German (we speak English to each other because we don't speak each other languages). We use the OPOL method, but because we live in Germany, his exposure to German is exceptionally high (daycare, daily life, dad, etc). I always speak to him in Portuguese, and he understands, but he never talks to me in Portuguese, and what is worst is that he avoids speaking to me because he knows I don't understand him. :( This is so painful. It's difficult to expose him more to Portuguese because no schools or nannies speak Portuguese in here, and we avoid screen time at all costs. I feel so lost... Any input would be helpful.
hi im so glad you posted this, i have always wanted to raise my children to be multilingual. my husband speaks french, and i speak english, german and greek. i have heard of the opol method and using specific locations to denote the usage of different languages but i have a few questions: 1. is there a uniform language both you and your husband speak? for instance, both my husband and myself speak french and would both of us speaking french confuse our child? 2. we live in France and my husband's family is french, but mine is english. i want my child to communicate well with my parents so i should speak primarily english? 3. my child goes to a multilingual school where they speak french and english so should i speak primarily in german or greek? 4. and last question, should i speak one language in the house and another out of the house? i think this would be a good way to differentiate the languages but i don't wan to confuse my child with four different languages
I love how you’re able to incorporate languages into allll situations of your children’s lives, even consequences! That’s what language is all about. It’s not a performance or a hobby or a school subject. It’s part of daily life!
Thanks for the insight. it is really helpful. Do parents speaking the common language "English" (not important to bring to our kids at the moment), would affectthe learning of our native tongues for our kid. Naturally, we want to learn each other's language, but the learning process is slow. Thanks for feedback.
Some individuals have their parent's second language as their first language, as their parents don't share the same first language. This scenario often results in children having Esperanto as their primary language.
Andrea, THANK YOU SO MUCH for uploading this video. This video help me a lot as a multilingual teacher.. my students are active and energic every morning.. this video is superb and help me a lot!!! 🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷 Love from Bali
Que interesante! Estoy esperando mi primer bebé y también somos una pareja multicultural. Mi lengua nativa es español y la de mi esposo es danés, vivimos en Alemania y el idioma de nosotros como pareja es inglés y español. He leído algo sobre el método que tu mencionaste en tu video y es el método que planeamos implementar cuando el pequeño o pequeña ya esté con nosotros. Siempre tenía la inquietud sobre como manejar el idioma de pareja, la verdad nosotros nunca hemos intentado comunicarnos en alemán entre nosotros... Interesante contenido :)
My child responds in English.. while I speak my native tongue to them. Should I validate the word for "owl" being correct or disregard her response and mention the equivalent name in my language?
You can paraphrase what your child said, modeling the correct way of saying it in your language. But yes, please validate every attempt that your child makes at using languages. Only then will your child want to make more efforts.
Hi Andrea! We will have our first baby this month and I would like to have your advice. My goal is not to maximise the number of languages my baby will speak but actually not to confuse her too much. I am native Portuguese and for the time being we live in Portugal so that language she will be exposed to. Now the trickiest part, my husband grew up in Mauritius where both English and French are official languages and there is also Mauritius creole which is a spoken only language with a French base. His mom being South African mostly spoke with him in English and his dad creole. Between us we speak English and French using mostly French for small chit chat and English for more serious conversations but we include Portuguese and creole words here and there… My husband plans to speak English to the baby but creole will be there as well. Also, her nanny will be Indian and while she speaks a bit of English it isn’t her strongest language so I’m pretty sure she will be exposed to Hindi also. Should we limit her contact with so many languages and focus on Portuguese and English leaving creole for the grandparents when we visit them once a year and phone conversations?
My daughter is 3. English is the community language and my wife speaks English. I speak Irish 99% of the time with my daughter. She understands everything I say but always answers in English. She uses the odd Irish noun or verb but that's it. Probably 95% English. I read to her every day, play with her every day talk to her as much as I can. She spends 35 hours in daycare all in English as we both work full-time. It is disheartening.
Hang in there. The beginning can be hard, most of all if after so much effort you still can't see the outcome. Rest assured that your child is learning tons and the most important thing right now is that you continue putting in the effort - it will pay off. In your situation, it's unrealistic to have the same expectations for Irish as English, because your daughter is getting so much more input in EN right now. Consider immersing her in an Irish-speaking-environment for a while, that can work wonders.
Don’t give up! Me the language you use now with her is a plus she is understanding you! And maybe in the future she will pick it up easier! put tv in irish like videos
Thank you Andrea for sharing your very helpful story! Just curious : it seems like you talk to ChatGPT in English, ask it to write a step in English and then translate it to Spanish or your minority language yourself? Do you find that it does not work as well if you ask it to write a story in your minority language to begin with?
This tip may not be helpful to you, Andrea, as you may already have experimented with this, but I find that ChatGPT is very good at writing in Spanish and certain other non-English languages. My pro-tip for people using it, is I like to give a prompt like "[in Spanish] Please write a story about .... Please make sure the story is written in a natural Spanish, that reflects subtly the culture and traditions of Ecuador." Giving that extra prompt at the end I find actually does make a noticeable difference. I often then ask ChatGPT after it has written a story "Can you update this story to be even more natural in the context of Ecuadorian Spanish?" or similar prompts. It's really interesting to see how it changes.
Wow, Andrea, this is a really fascinating story and I really appreciate your sharing it. I don't know if I would have thought about using ChatGPT in that way, even though I use it in similar ways very frequently.
Im a student at mzuzu university pursuing first degree bachelor of education language,,, I always code switch and code mix please teacher teach us more
Hi Andrea, my husband and I want to raise our daughter in 3 languages. The dad will speek French. Myself Luxembourgish and at the daycare swiss german. My concern is that my husband doesn't understand nor speek Luxembourgish and that our girl might not speek Luxembourgish very well in the end.... also my husband and I will communicate, also in front of her, in French which reinforces French. Do you have any recommendations here for us? Also as I speek fluently high German, but not Swiss German, would you recommend not reading stories in German to her not to risk to confuse her even more as high german and swiss German might be not close enough? Maybe keep my high German for a later age? We would be really happy for any input concerning our situation. I really appreciate your videos.
Hi Marie, I see you have a complex situation. If you want your child to speak to you in Luxembourgish, you need to use every minute you have to develop that language and look for more support as well. The number of days that you put your child in day care are crucial. Too many days in a Swiss German environment will lead to not enough exposure in the minority languages. You can read books in high German, but what's more important in the first years is that you build a solid foundation in your strongest language to your child. To help you craft a solid language learning plan, please consider booking a consultation with me if you need more support: www.multilingual.family/consultationpage
my wife do this: one week chinese the following week cantonese It works really well . I speak just english with the baby but i regret not doing language rotation. we live in a spanish speaking country so she is learning spanish too
Me and my husband are Moldavian, romanian is our mother tongue, but we live in Italy and our kids were born and raised here. When they were little, they only spoke italian, because they knew we knew italian, even though we talked with then in romanian at home and they understood it they would always respond in italian. I brough my mother last year to live with us, she does not speak italian amd i have noticed how they talk in romanian with her, in the beggining it was hard for them, but eventually they learned to communicate efficiently with her. So they definetely always choose the easier path, need drives their learning more efficiently, and i think there should be some aproach in teaching on how to create necessity that children can comprehend to drive their academic growth.
Yes. The parents speak different languages to the child. Then the child knows which language to expect from each parent. The parents can speak one language with each other.
The 2P2L means that the children learn 4 languages at once: two languages are introduced by each parent. This method is quite complex and works well if for example both parents already grew up bilingual.
Alhamdulillah, I used to be afraid to do it. I have three children.And when my two children started complaining about their Arabic lessons at school, I became anxious. I also decided to start training them to communicate in Arabic every day. When I started, everyone criticized me because they thought this would disrupt my child's intelligence. But on the one hand, the Qur'an, my holy book, says that God has equipped humans with linguistic intelligence. So I don't care what people say. And subhanallah, I succeeded in three months, my child spoke three languages, namely Indonesian, Arabic and Javanese. Currently my third child is two years old and can speak to his mother in Indonesian, to me in Arabic, and to his grandmother in Javanese. I also often watch your videos to continue to motivate myself to continue this task.Thank you my sister.
I live in Montreal which is French first language and English second language. I am Lebanese and would like to teach my son my native language although I am no longer very fluid in it. My husband's native language is Spanish and would like to also this that to him. Should I speak only in Lebanese and put a hat on (as a prop) to speak French ? As I am very comfortable in that. Or should I speak mostly French and put a hat for Lebanese lessons? I have family here that can give him some exposure to arabic. Im just not sure whether the first language I speak to him should be french if he learns it at school....But I also find it hard to only speak in lebanese lol but not impossible ...Would speaking lebanese, french (me) and Spanish and french (dad) and english between me and dad and some books be ok? And Should my first language with my 17 month old son be french or lebanese to help him learn it best? Thank you
During the first three years it isn't helpful. Babies and toddlers learn better and faster a language through direct interactions. Later it can support to sobre extend their language development.
