10 Things Non-native Bilingual Parents Might Experience | Raising Multilingual Children 

MERCI MERCI MERCI ! I am raising my children in Louisiana Creole which is a francophone and is my heritage language ! This is a big encouragement and I am so glad to see someone doing Chanel like this !

Always feel so motivated and encouraged by your videos! I’m ten months in to raising my daughter in my non-native language Spanish and there’s been such joy to see her begin to understand and respond using signs to what I’m saying to her. A fun one recently is I’ll say “cuán grande es la bebé?” And she’ll lift her hands up above her head with a big smile and I’ll respond with “tan grande!”. If others try to get her to do it in English she doesn’t get it yet. I know English will come easily to her so I’m not worried about that at all right now. It just makes me feel good to know that front loading Spanish to her now is starting to pay off and she really is understanding :). Thanks for all you do to share your experience and encourage others!

Thank you for creating this channel!! I want to raise my children bilingual. Both my fiance and I are Dutch and I want them to know English too as English is spoken all over the world and Dutch not at all at most places haha The thing I struggle with the most is being around other Dutchies, because everyone understands English so I feel like they can really judge me when I make a mistake or whatever. The story about the playground in Quebec helped me so thank you 😊 Also it feels so good knowing you're not alone in this. Keep up the great work everyone! 🤗

I found your channel because I'm thinking about how to raise my future kids with my boyfriend in the Netherlands. My native language is Dutch, his is Bulgarian and between us two we mostly converse in English, as his Dutch is between A2 and B1 level and my Bulgarian below A1. One Language One Parent seems interesting yet challenging if the minority language parent works fulltime, but from what I've seen it seems the most appealing way to do it in our situation. I have to admit I was also one of those 'politely judgy' people when I watched another video of yours about the OPOL method, but you're doing it all so consciously that I can't do anything but admire you for it. You've clearly put in a LOT of thought into this and that's wonderful!

I really wanted to say thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences ❤ I live in quebec and my son is learning French at school. my native language is Spanish and I speak English to my son. My husband is a Spanish speaker and he speaks Spanish all the time to my son. I wish people were more open-minded and respectful. I always get critics from relatives for not speaking my native language to my son and I feel really uncomfortable. People think children will get confused and they will not use the minority language in the future. I believe kids need exposure to different cultures and I know he will have enough exposure to be able to speak the three languages

Thanks for your videos they are very helpful and allowed me to be more serene about taking this step toward raising my daughter bilingual (French majority / English minority ). Especially since I’ll be the sole minority speaker for a while. I found a lot of my anxiety addressed in your videos. So thank you so much.

Thank you for this!! I have probably around a B2 or C1 level with Mandarin, and just started speaking it with my 9mo yesterday. Your videos give me so much confidence that I can have a positive impact on my daughter and raise her to be bilingual! 🎉

Great. And one could say also that the children could learn to read and write since they are two year old. You could start with simple words like "mama" in big and red letters.

What an incredible gift for 2023! A new video from Stephanie :)

Thanks so much, your videos are so inspiring

Great video as always. This is sooooo relatable, all of it (even the experience of traveling to Quebec and using non-native French). My baby is only 16 months so your videos help me know I'm doing the right thing. Oddly enough, I feel most self conscious about speaking French around people I know but who aren't that close more than anyone else, including native speakers. French is the only foreign language I speak very well - that's why I speak it to my daughter - but it can be perceived as super bougie in the states lol. That just kills me. I have to learn to get over that the most.

Finnish immersion pre-school! Dang, that's niche! I mentioned your channel in a Refold livestream recently because people had questions about raising my kid in Swedish. Great to see you're uploading regularly! I definitely recognised some of these. I've actually had nothing but super positive reactions about it from Australians, to the point that I sometimes feel guilty because I'm not actually as committed as you have been. Although I have recently become more motivated since Austen (my almost 3 year old) was saying "Hej då!" to all the kids at his preschool as we left haha.

Love it! My son actually often spontaneously translates what I say to him in German (non-native, minority language) into English (native, dominant, majority language). He’s very competent at it.

I’m super excited to have a kid and go through these same experiences!

Music is something I think about all the time. As a child I loved children's songs (until a late age, arguably even until now) and I collected so many different tapes and CDs and learned hundreds of them. All of them in English. When I wake up in the middle of the night I think "Is it better to make up new lyrics or to have some kind of OPOL-exception for singing?" Like you, my impulse is to do the former. But I live in fear of my child singing that song in front of native speakers and them finding something wrong with the lyrics and knowing, as a result, that they were just made up by me lol At the same time, my translations of American children songs are something I don't think 'my native speaker' wants to look at eek

Your videos are so helpful and inspiring! Thanks for all the hard work. I think you mentioned it and I may have missed it. At what age did y’all introduce the third language?

I studied Spanish for 4 years in high school, studied abroad in Mexico, and visited several other latin american countries. I love the language and the culture. But I get a bit self-conscious about speaking it with my child as I'm not a native speaker. My spanish-speaking friends don't have as much availability to spend time with us so I'm hoping to make new friends soon to help encourage more use of the language inperson. So far, I only watch RU-vid vids in spanish with my son.

Stephanie, I enjoy your posts. I really appreciate that you put a video of your child speaking French, really gives us an idea. I've been doing Spanish since my 8 yr old was born, and 6 month ago have started French. I am an ophthalmologist, and I find that there are ties between language acquisition and amblyopia treatment (when vision is not poor due to lack of a proper focus or lack of use of the eye during critical times of development). Recent studies have shown that the dosing of treatment, patching the good eye, does not have to be as high as previously thought. I would love to know what is the "dose" of language needed. I am looking into that. I have taken the liberty to paste an idea I have regarding a better way to do language in schools, better than the immersion method, in my opinion, and much less resource intense. I've posted it below, I apologize if that is not welcome. I'd be interested in your thoughts on it. Language learning consisting of 2 years of immersion followed by tailored language classes Standard language immersion might be thought of as the gold standard in language learning in the United states. We feel that it has many advantages but feel It Is too resource intensive for many schools, inadvertently devotes too much time to comprehension learning, and not enough to speaking skills. Additionally, it is our belief that excessive immersion of the language, in science, math, and history, for example, does not lead to further language gains. Comprehension has already been established and those activities do not expressly work on speaking skills, thus the time is not effective for language advancement. The excessive Spanish immersion can lead to the student feeling that Spanish is an intrusion in their day. We propose a new style of language learning that uses immersion learning In kindergarten and first grade and then transitions to Spanish classes In second through 8th grade. The Spanish classes in second through eighth grade differ from traditional Spanish classes in that students have already obtained comprehension of the language and thus are able to participate in many different language activities not possible in standard language curriculums, allowing access to more activities and advancement. Those activities are divided in two main categories one-on-one conversation and learning with native speakers on online platforms multimedia activities in group language class (similar to activities that we adults partake in when learning a language, tailored to grade level) Resource sparing: In this plan one bilingual teacher would split time between kindergarten and first grade, where instruction will be 50% in Spanish those 2 years. One other Spanish teacher will be needed for Spanish class for 2nd graders to 8th graders in this program; this Spanish teacher will also teach Spanish to the students not in this pathway. No additional teachers will be needed for this program, but one kindergarten / first grade teacher will need to be bilingual. This program also uses online platforms that have native language instructors via Zoom or Google meets and these instructors generally cost $10 an hour. We estimate that each student will use these platforms 90 minutes a week. (15$x 33 weeks of instruction=$500). (Students can continue sessions with their online instructor during summers if the family chooses this.) More time devoted to speaking skills using what stimulates the child: Excellent comprehension is gained during 50% immersion during kindergarten and first grade, allowing for effective Spanish classes in subsequent years that will maintain and build comprehension and fluency. Half of the time will be spent talking with and learning from Native speakers on online platforms: Attached is a short video of my daughter talking with her teacher from Venezuela online. Her teacher engages her in conversation and follows a curriculum. The other half will be group practice with songs and multimedia activities varying with the age of the patients. An example is a video (will be) attached of my nephews (in immersion Spanish schools) and daughter (learning Spanish from me at home) doing a lesson on the song “Shiny” in the movie Moana. Kevin Miller kmgalveston yahoo

Dear Stephanie, I just found your RU-vid videos and they are wonderful❤! I am also a mom (almost 2 year old daughter) raising my child in my non- native language. Because of my unique situation, I’m doing it slightly differently than you are though. I was wondering if we could have a chat or consultation about it, because I have some questions. Or, can you recommend an expert that I can have a video consultation with? I want to use whatever method is most effective to bring up a fully bilingual child and I’m not sure how to proceed. Thanks in advance for any help you can offer 😅

The irony of your feeling embarrassed in Québec, is that in Québec native speaking parents would most likely think it was normal for non-native speakers to speak French with their children (i.e. they are assimilating to the majority language). It is more embarrassing (theoretically speaking) if you are speaking French with your child in front of a bunch of Québécois parents at a park in the US, because that is more likely to be perceived as unnatural (i.e. you are anti-assimilating)

Hi. I love your channel. I speak to my baby in English (non native minority language). My level is B2+ almost C1. Do you think it will work? 😬