Language Strategies - Best Methods for Your Multilingual Family 

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Hi Andrea. Your videos are very helpful so far :). I am due in a month, and I want to make sure I have the best strategy in place for my baby girl. My partner is Portuguese, I am French, and we live in Ireland. We usually speak in English together as we are not fully fluent in each other's languages. Would you have some tips for me?

Hello. Your video is such an useful tool for parents. In my case , my wife speaks Spanish and I speak Spanish and English, I would like my daughter raises bilingual. We live in Colombia. I hope you could give me some tips. Thank you.

Thanks for these helpful videos! My husband and I are expecting our first child and are wondering what strategy would be best for us as a family. His mother tongue is Arabic and mine is German but we both communicate in English with each other. We’d like our child to learn both, Arabic and German, so we’d like to use the Opol method but wondering if that will work when we’re having discussions as a family all together or whether we can then also introduce English. Additionally, we live in Luxembourg where the daycare is in French. I’m worried that our child will be confused with an all-day exposure to a language that is not spoken at home, from 9 months old already, and whether she’ll be able to pick up our languages properly.

Hi Andrea, my husband and I are really enjoying your videos and language strategie. They are very helpful and we are so greatful with all contents that you share with all of us. I would like to share with you our situation seaking for guidance 🙏🏻🙏🏻 I, myself was raised in a bilingual family (my father is Jordanian and Mother Spanish: my parents used the OPOL method) speaking arabic and spanish. Also with fluent English, and basic French. Currently I Live in Madrid Spain, and I'm married to an Italian. The relation language with my husband is Spanish. And Community language is Spanish as well. I'm pregnant now, due to delivery and we were watching your videos with a lot of interest. I would like that our Child can be trilingual and Learn Arabic Italian and Spanish at once at home. I thought about the OPOL for Arabic and Italian at home, and Spanish will be passivley transmitted as it is our relation language, and also the community. Is this correct, or should we use any other methodology? Thanks a million in advance. Sara and Alessandro 🥰😚

We are expecting a baby with my fiance and we do not know what strategy to choose. I am Polish, he is Spanish. We live in Poland. I absolutely would like my child to know two languages. Please help! There are so many methods and pieced of advice that you can go crazy! :) * my spanish fiance doesn't speak polish at all. I speak spanish fluently. Not perfectly like native, I would say c1. We speak with my fiance spanish. Eliza

Hi Andre, nice to know you and your channel. I have been research around 3 weeks about how to raise multilingual children. I found your channel and it's little bit brighten my mind. I wanna ask you about my case and i like to see your advice. My case I am indonesian (speak indonesia language and english, married turkish who brought up in netherlands since he was born (he speak dutch as his strongest language, and his english is better than his turkish, little bit arabic that he is learning now). we have 5 month old baby now and what we have to do ? 1. which language or which method we have to use if we want teach our child indonesia language, english, turkish and arabic (dutch language our child will get from school) ? 2. Is it really important to speak our mother language or the strongest language to our children instead of english (because we are wondering that since I and my husband speak english at home, so we think english is more important than our own language. and we both dont really like our own language for any reason) ? thanks in advance Andrea :)

Hi, I do not have children but was raised speaking some German at home. I'd like to do the same with my kids some day. I'm curious- if I speak German and my partner does not understand it, would the "accessory" option would best? I worry that if we tried one person one language, my partner would not understand what I was saying to the child and this could be problematic?

Hello. Me and my husband speak different languages. I plan to use the OPOL method with our son. However when attending family functions at my in-laws', should I switch to my husband's language? Thank you!

Hi Andrea, I am so happy to find your channel. I hope you will guide me in my journey of raising a multilingual baby. My son is 1 year and 9 months. We live in Uzbekistan. The majority or surrounding language here is Uzbek. However, my mother tongue is Russian. And we live with my parents. I would say our family's strongest language is Russian, as all of us studied in Russian-speaking schools, kindergartens and so on. And Russian is the second language of Uzbekistan. All my closest friends speak Russian. My husband is Turkish. But he lives and works in Turkey now. And I speak English with my husband. Moreover, I am an English-Russian interpreter working for the UK, dealing with the UK's native English speakers. So, what would be your plan for us? As for now, I speak English to my son. His dad and his family speak Turkish when they visit us. And during their visits I often switch to Turkish too in speaking to my son. My son's got 2 nannies. One of them speaks Russian, the other one - Uzbek. My parents speak both languages - Russian and Uzbek (as our family is originally bilingual, and I have been raised as a bilingual child, Russian-Uzbek speaking child). I know you always advise to speak their strongest language to their child, which is Russian in my case. But I am afraid, in that case my son would not have enough exposure to English as we basically do not have native English speakers in our town. No English speaking nurseries or schools. There are international schools and universitites in the capital whose communication language is English. But that means my son will not have exposure to English speaking environment till he reaches a specific adult age if I follow your advice.

This video helped me understand all the different techniques. Thank you so much! I grew up in Turkey speaking turkish, but went to a german school at the age of 12 where everything was taught in german and learned German there. (I learned English later on ) I am currently living the US and my wife speaks English only and over the years, English has become my 'strongest' language also. My German is still pretty good but not native level. Is there a way my child can speak turkish and german? I am assuming he will pick up English at daycare/school etc. Thank you very much again!

Andrea ,what is your mother tongue

Hi Andrea, I would like your advice on our family language strategy. We live in Hungary, I speak one week Russian and one week English to my child. My husband speaks Hungarian. My husband and I communicate in English. I would like to introduce Ukrainian as well. Do you think the accessory method would work in this case? And should I start now (she is 2,5) or wait until the other languages develop a bit more?

hello and thank you soo much for your amazingly helpfull videos.. here goes our situation.. baby maya: hope to have her in 5 months... :) me (husband): native turkish + C2 english my wife : native ukrainian + B2 turkish + B1 english realtionship language: turkish community language: migrating to usa very soon our goal for maya: english + ukrainian + turkish my strategy (which i summed up from your videos) for the first year of baby's life is : - OPOL for 4-6 years.. - First 6 months: expose baby to english with some songs and youtube kid videos.. (5-15 min. everyday) - Second 6 months: send baby to 3 hours american daycare to expose her to english directly.. do you think thats a good plan ? thank you in advance.. have a nice day. ps: you should immediately add super like or smthg like that to your channel.. ;)

Hi Andrea, we live in an English speaking country. My 2 primary languages are french and creole and my husband's are Norwegian and spanish. We (husband and i) speak english to each other. The kids speak french to me from birth (they are fluent). Now im homeschooling them in English. Dad wants to speak Norwegian to them, that is his mother tongue. We are not sure what method to use for dad.

Hi Andrea. We really need your help! My husband and I want to raise our daughter bilingual. We both have spanish as mother tongue and it is the mayority language too but we have always spoken in english between us. We both feel confident with english, but I prefer spanish to build a relationship with my daughter, so OPOL is not an option. Does the last method work well with babies? Can they actually tell I`m putting something on? Would it work to have the night time routine in english for example? Thanks in advance!

Hi. I just found your channel and I love it. I am pregnant with my first baby. Therefore, I am looking for strategies and methods to raise my baby multilingual since my husband also I speak several languages. Let me explain the situation. I am from Hungary. However, I speak German, English, and Portuguese (I learnt those languages later in my life). My Husband is Brazilian. However, he was raised in Mandarin and Portuguese. Besides that, he speaks English, Spanish and a little bit of German. We are living in Brazil but we speak English to each other. Our goal is that our children learn Hungarian since my parents and many family members only speak Hungarian so it is important for my family. And, we would like to teach them Mandarin. I am familiar with the OPOL method So, I thought I would speak Hungarian to the child, my husband Mandarin, and the child would learn Portuguese in daycare, creche, and then in kindergarten. I do not worry about Portuguese. My worries are more about the family language since my husband and I speak English and we both speak it really well, I think that will be naturally our family language later on. However, I am still not sure what is the best method to implement that. Do you think it is a good idea to use the OPOL method and at the same time when we are all together we speak English so it would be the OSOL but as soon we are alone with the child we switch back to the OPOL method? Besides us speaking the languages. My parents and my family would be the major source for Hungarian. However, they are not living with us so this would happen online on the weekly basis. My husband's parents and grandparents would speak Mandarin to the child as well on the weekly basis. However, here we have a small issue that I speak to my husband's family in Portuguese. So It might be a little bit messy for the child in those family situations. What do you think? In addition, I thought that we might hire an English-speaking nanny or we would bring our child to a bilingual (English, Portuguese) daycare, etc. And of course other different sources like books, music, movies, games, etc. in all languages. What do you think about this situation and about my strategy? What would you make different? Thank you for your help and please keep making videos :)

Hi Andrea, thank you so much for your videos. They are really helpful. I have a question. My partner and I are both Dutch, we speak English very well and are currently doing an intensive course Italian as we are moving to Italy soon. We do not have a child yet. When we live in Italy, we would like to raise our child multilingual: Dutch, English and Italian. Italian will be the community language. Would you advise us to use a combination of the OPOL and MLAH? Where for instance the child speaks Dutch with my partner, English with me and we all speak Italian outside of the house (of course the child will also go to Italian daycare)? I look forward to your view on this!

Thank you so much for your clear and informative videos. I wonder if you have any advice for our situation: My partner and I live in Israel - where the majority language is Hebrew. Secondary languages are English and Arabic. I am English, from the UK. I speak English as a mother tongue, and Hebrew as a second language. My partner is from the Masalit tribe in Sudan. He speaks Masalit as his true mother tongue, Arabic with fluency and English and Hebrew as secondary languages. We speak English together. Hebrew, English and Arabic have different alphabets. Masalit exists predominantly as a spoken language. I'm worried that our children won't learn any language well. Do you have any tips for us outside of what you've already raised in your videos?

My husband and I do not have children yet, but we would like to raise them bilingual. Your videos have answered a few of my questions. Thank you!

Hallo ich habe sie Kontaktiert auf der web seite :) würde gern einen Termin mit ihnen ausmachen für ein austausch würde mich freuen auf eine Antwort ❤️ lg Nejla

With OPOL, what language do the parents speak to each other? Is it different if the child is around?

Very very well done!!!! Life saver! Thank you so very much!

Another question, does the accessory technique work with older kids?

Your video was so helpful. I would like some advice, my husband is Russian, I was born in the US but was raised with spanish but I live in an English speaking country and I been studying Russian for a very long time, I am not fluent however I am pretty advance at a B1 but my son just turned 4 Russian is is primarily language however when I go visit my family, I switch to spanish, I am homeschooling and in homeschooling I am introducing him to english and he understands English pretty well. But from both English and Spanish, he is pretty shy in trying to speek them at times with people looking at him but if we do some English lessons or Spanish lessons he is fine, I usually have to tell him what to say and he repeats for Spanish and English. At home I speak only Russian with my kids,( I have another son who is 1) and with my husband I speak English, and Spanish with my family, on the phone, in person, my sisters kids speak Spanish so my son knows when we go with them I will speak Spanish and to him as well. What method do you think would be the best for me and my family? And if you have any suggestions or advice I am all ears, thank you!!

Hi Andrea, I really like your channel. It's extremely helpful to understand the different options I have in raising my child multilingually. Still I have a question I am not sure about yet. My family situation is as followed: my partner and I live in Austria, the community language is German. I am Austrian and my partner is from Ecuador. We speak together in English(both c1-c2 level), which is the second language for both of us. I speak Spanish fairly well (b2-c1) and my partner speaks German well as well. As German is the majority language I am more concerned about Spanish and English. I would like to keep on speaking English with my partner(as this is our relationship language) and would like the children to learn it passively(furthermore the likelihood of the children learning English is very high due to exposure in school and relatives (grandparents and aunts/uncles live in the us). But with spanish I am undecided. Should I speak to the Baby in Spanish even though my Spanish is not perfect and with a clear accent? I am worried that my children wont pick up spanish solely by the dad speaking to them(as I am most of the time at home). But because my Spanish is not perfect and with an accent I am worried that this might harm the speech development of the children as well. What do you and the community think? Which method would you recommend in our communication? Thanks a lot!

Thank you for your presentation

Hello Andrea. Your channel is so amazing and I learn a lot from your video. I have a question about mLaH strategies, I think it is a very useful way for monolingual family lives in other countries,, but it seems that this strategy could only raise children bilingual(minority language at home and majority outside), how can this case of family raise children trilingual?