Multilingual Children - How To Speak More Than One Language With Your Child 

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I wholeheartedly want to thank you about this idea. I have been using it since the birth of my daughter two years ago. And it actually works! So, now, although we mainly speak Greek at home, whenever I put my blue scarf on, she switches to Russian (ua) and starts speaking whatever words she knows. Thank you once more! All of the best for you and your family!

I live in an English speaking country but was raised Dutch - French myself and would love to share both with my (soon to be born) baby. I was starting to think I'd have to give one language up (OPOL all the way) but your channel has been such an amazing source of information and tools that I'm more confident to give it a go! Thank you so much!

Love the idea!!! I will do the same, thanks for sharing.

Thank you! I hope to try this.

So great tip!!! Thank you!!!

Thank you for this video. This is great.

This method sounds amazing! I am going to try to apply it with my niece. :)

Very informative and helpful video . Thank u for this video

I'm loving all your videos, between my partner and I - we have 4 languages! I'm bilingual in Spanish and French and he's bilingual in Greek and English but we live in Australia. I've always though about speaking only Spanish at home with my kids and my partner will only speak Greek, English will be learnt eventually because we live in a English speaking country but I'm always worried about French, how I'm going to introduce them that language. I think this is a great method that I never thought about! Thanks!!!

wonderfulllllllllllll, what a great method , i really really like kid

You do such an amazing job! Congratulations! I am simply happy that I discovered your videos. I need your advise how to handle a trlingual child.

Soon going to be a father and I can't wait! Thanks a lot for this tip! Going to have to buy 2 hats 😂

Hello dear Andrea, first of all a big thank you for this wonderful idea! I have been practising it for about a month with my soon-to-be 9-month-old and look forward to the Italian hat lessons every day ... the little one always laughs! We live in Austria. My mother tongue is German and I learnt Italian in my youth, then studied it at University, lived in Italy for years etc. I've been misjudged as Italian in Italy for years because I've also adopted the northern Italian accent. I LOVE Italian, it's like a part of my identity and I want to enable my child to pick up as much of both languages as possible in the first 3 years (and after) and hopefully speak Italian later on without having to spend years cramming for it at school. At the moment, I speak Italian with him for about 1-2 hours a day and we meet Italian friends 2-3 times a week. I wanted to ask you how many hours a day you would speak to him in Italian if you were me? (I have read that only 20-25 hours of language contact per week will realistically lead to the child actually speaking the language.. what's your experience with that?) And I have another question about the hat method: do I also have to wear the hat if the little one and I are surrounded exclusively by Italians and only Italian is spoken? And what if his dad, who only speaks German, suddenly joins us in such a situation? Thank you so much for your ideas and help! Mach immer weiter so :))

Hi Andrea! I just found your channel and I wanted to say thank you for such great content which focuses on multilingualism! I am a first time mom and most of the resources I have found really focus on bilingualism, so I had no idea how to address the third language without confusing my 18-month old son. I wanted to ask whether you believe the OAOL method can be effective to teach a minority language? I live in a majority English-speaking country and speak both English and Spanish, but English is my first language and the language that I am most comfortable speaking regularly. My husband speaks Serbo-croatian and English. Especially after watching some of your videos, I am now a bit concerned that we have mixed the languages. My son is in the early stages of speech but he has started to use whichever word is easiest to learn regardless of the language (i.e. he will say fresa instead of strawberry and dog instead of perro). I am hoping that OAOL will help to differentiate the languages without losing the minority languages. I look forward to watching more of your videos!

I've been watching your videos for about one month and I'd like to say that this field of languages fascinates me, I was already mesmerized with this whole thing but when RU-vid introduced me to your channel it just increased my will to work with it when I get older and of course raise multilingual children! Thank you for sharing your experience and advices with us, keep going!

Hi Andrea, at what age would you recommend starting this method? Do you only speak one language to the child up to the time you add the accessory? How long does the child take to understand and engage in the new language? Thank you

Hi Andrea, I have three questions please , I have a 13 months old daughter and I am comfortable in three languages, English , French and Arabic (my mother tongue), I started talking in French with my daughter when she turned one year old because I wasn't fully aware of how important it is to talk to her in the target language as early as possible, I live with my parents and I am the only one talking in French to my daughter. my parents, cousins, everyone she sees daily is talking in Arabic with her, I was looking for a way to introduce English to her without missing things up then I found your video which is very interesting thank you, But: 1) I am not sure if I should introduce English now with 'the red hat/any object method' or just wait until she gets used to hearing more French, since it's been only one month? 2) my second question, do you think it would really work, in long term, if I am the only one talking French/English to her in her environment, knowing that I ,myself, should talk to my parents and everyone in Arabic, and the only resources I can use to help are maybe music videos and books , I can't even find daycare in French or English as I am living in a small town? 3) our local Arabic (that my parents and everybody uses) contains a lot of French words in an unstable way (like if they are talking about cats, they might say the word 'cat' in French in the first sentence then say it in French in the other following sentences), could that do any harm to her language Developpement, and is there anything I can do about it?

Loving your videos, I was wondering what you suggest for my situation. My husband and I have 3 children, 6, 3, and 1. My husband is from Sweden and speaks Swedish and English both very well, Swedish is his mother tongue. I am born and raised in America, Spanish is my mother tongue, however English is honestly my "thinking language" at this point (I am comfortable and fluent in both languages). Him and I communicate in English, obviously, although he does know some Spanish (very little). We live in America and see my Spanish speaking family a fair amount (weekly); his family lives in Sweden. Unfortunately we've had not had an official plan in the past; he's not spoken Swedish with the 6 year old but uses the OPOL method with the 3 and 1 year old. The 6 yr old passively has learned some Swedish and the 3 yr old is fluent in both English and Swedish. I have been very undisciplined and inconsistent in speaking to them in Spanish however they have been exposed to Spanish on a weekly or more basis pretty much all their lives through my family. The goal would be to have ALL children fluent in all 3 languages. I was thinking of using the OAOL method, as you call it, focusing on Spanish. It will take discipline for me to stick to speaking in Spanish, the accessory is mostly for my own reminder, I'm guessing. However when my husband gets home we have to speak English, also the children know English (the 6 and 3yr old) so I'm having to speak in Spanish to them and then translate for them because they do not know what I am telling them to do. So for example "vamos a lavarnos las manos" and then repeat the command in English (with the 1 yr old I am just only speaking in Spanish). I am asking my husband to revert to the OPOL method with the 6 year old and just translate in English what he is saying util she is more proficient and can answer and understand more. I feel like I've missed the opportunity, which would be such a shame, but with the older 2 being past that baby stage, I feel I need them to understand me and do what I am asking from them. Sorry for the long message, but do you have any thoughts on this?

Thanks for an awesome video, very informative! My baby is due soon and we plan on using the OPOL method from day 1. Would it be ok to use also the OAOL method for when we read and sing to the baby or is it better to only introduce OAOL at a later stage? If later, what age would it be 'safe' to start with OAOL?

Thank you for all this content, your advice has been a game changer!! Sorry to bother you with a question, I'll be very specific though: I am considering a large (70cm) hand puppet with moving arms and mouth, that only speaks the third language (English). The child gets English passively from the parents talking to each other, but has nobody who will speak to him in English. Thus the puppet. I would prefer to avoid switching languages as "mum" (as you do with the hat), because my default language (German) is also the minority and I don't want to put that at risk. Question: When the puppet is in play, but the child addresses *me* and not the puppet - do I respond in my language or the puppet language? If in mine, it means I'm switching back and forth between languages (as I'm also the puppet...). Do you think this is a problem? Another advantage of the puppet is that Dad (French) could occasionally do it as well, though he has a much stronger accent than me. I'd be super grateful for your thoughts!!

Thanks for such precious information! I am starting OAOL with my two years old son, and I’m wondering how about the languages of media such as rhymes and videos? does it affect the child? and if it does then in what ratio do i have to provide?

what do you think about raising children in a foreign language? I'm fluent in English and Swedish beside my native language and I'd like to raise my children in preferably one of these languages. Does it work?

Great method! What exactly does OAOL stand for? I didnt quite catch that.

Thanks for the ideas! What happens if your child talks to you in Spanish while you’re wearing the hat. Do you pretend you don’t understand? You ask her to say it in Swiss German? I would think you wouldn’t wanna push them too hard right?

Hello! I loved your video! I’m so worried about how I’m going to make my kid learn many languages because my family and my husband’s family speak different language. I speak mother language Spanish, fluent English and enough Arabic. My husband English and Arabic. So we wanted to give priority to the Arabic language but I don’t feel really comfortable speaking Arabic because I don’t speak it perfectly, so my plan was to make my husban speak arabic with my son and I’d speak Spanish! English will be learn in childcare and school. But I’m worried,I’m worried that my son isn’t speaking yet (he’s still young tho, year and a half so I’m trying to fix what I’m doing wrong) I’m mixing Spanish and Arabic while speaking with him! And now I understand that’s wrong! But if I speak only Spanish with him for now his dad works until late so he won’t have that constant Arabic learning! :( I don’t know how to start this whole process. Would you give me some advice?!

Hi Andrea. Your videos are great. I especially like the rejection video. It is the single most common question I get from friends and relatives about how to prevent language rejection. Your rejection video covers a lot of my experiences seeing other parents in this conundrum. Some parents with this challenge are my siblings. We are raising 2 bilingual boys who are 4 and 10. My 10 yr old, I consider a success story as he is fully bilingual Spanish/English at this point. Yet we cannot lower our guard as the majority language here is English to the exclusion of all others. There is also a significant stigma attached to Spanish speaking, especially in the region where we live. I'm just wondering why you need to be able to switch with your children to the majority swiss-german language, contradicting your own advice not to ever switch? Are you sure u are not somehow shy about using Spanish in public with your children? We have a big advantage in our family that both parents are native Spanish speakers so our children have little option but to use Spanish anytime they address us. Even though we are both highly fluent English speakers, we take great pains to never ever switch languages with them, as it is in my opinion, a common pitfall that leads to minority language rejection. At first, it may seem a tiny bit akward constantly switching languages with your child in a majority language setting, yet I found this quickly disappears and it gives them a good workout in both languages and helps exercising that multilingual plasticity. I was raised bilingual in South America and my experience is that the goal is to establish the habit of speaking to at least one person 100% of the time in the minority language. Once that habit is solid, that anchors a minority language in the child. Yet, what you say is very true, if one gives the child an easy way out of making the effort, they will take it. It may not be a case of giving up once this happens, but I've seen first hand it is extremely difficult if not impossible to get them to talk to you in the minority language again. The good news is that once they reach an age of about 7-10, they will be proficient in both languages and occasional switching by parents is not harmful. Yet doing it too early is very risky, in my opinion. I apologize if I sound harsh or patronizing, but there is no easy way to get this point across. I'm subscribed to your channel. You have very valuable information and tips. I'll continue to comment on other clips, which I promise will be more positive. The fact that you make these videos in English is also commendable as there are precious few youtubers that delve into this topic headlong. You also have invaluable experience being an OPOL household and having been raised bilingual yourself. Thanks and sorry for the long comment

Would a gray hat also work or does it need to be a more exciting color like red?

does it need to be a hat of the same color? Will my child get confused if I sometimes wear a gray hat and sometimes a black hat when speaking german to him? Does it need to be the same hat? With summer approaching I may want to wear a different hat than I was wearing all winter. Can the child think: "when daddy wears any hat whatsoever, no matter the color, he speaks to me in german', other times he speaks the other language. I live in northeastern us close where it is very cold in winter and very warm in summer.

Hi Andrea thank you for your useful videos. I have the following situation I m Romanian and my husband is Turkish in between we are talking English. Soon we will have our first baby and during the whole pregnancy I talked both Romanian and English for me English is as a native language and it becomes easier to use it. Due to the virus situation my husband couldn't be next to us so the only Turkish that the baby heard was from the songs. Now my question is how can I teach my baby both Romanian and English but mostly from me because my husband English is not very good so he should focuse on teaching him Turkish without him.getting confuse. I found the OAOL really helpful but I m still wondering if it will work. Also I speak Spanish fluently and I would love to teach him this language too. When do you think I should start with the 3 language, from which age ? What method should i use ? Still OAOL but using 2 type of accessories? Thank you in advance.

omg... this is excellent (if it is true) Only problem is that I need to never lose my hat and always have it with me! :)

Hi😊 I was wondering so you started to use the had when your daughter was 1,5yrs old. How old was she when choose the pompom? How many times a day you switch to swiss German? Before you started to use the hat, did you use both languages? My son is now 5months, do you think I can already start to use the system? Would the pompom be to small for my son to notice it?

We speak english and Spanish at home to my 5 year old. Mami hable español y daddy habla Ingles, he also learns french at school because we live in Quebec. We do have very much a mixture, should we change? of the 2 but inglish is definitely his stronger language. We also have a one year old, should we change the approach?

Hello, Im Australian living in Italy but im a spanish native speaker as my parents are argentinean. I would like to teach my baby spanish and english and my husband will apply the OPOL with Italian. I want to ask you if it is safe to introudce english using the OAOL method even when they are 5 months old? thank you kindly for your response in advane

Thanks for your videos! My partner and I plan to raise our child in english and german using the OPOL method. However, our families and friends speak german exclusively and I will have to switch to german to talk to my mother for example, who does not understand english. Is it possible for me to switch languages when I talk to specific people around my child or will this hinder their development when they hear me talking in german?

So she started speaking swiss german while wearing the hat at 1.5 years old. But a 1.5 year old already understood quite a bit of swiss german. Did she have to start from scratch (0) in swiss german? She must have been exposed to the language earlier somehow sometime before then?

How to do this with toddlers ? 19 month old .