Bilingual kids.

[Auraji]

We're a multicultural family. I speak Spanish and it's important for me that DD speaks it too. I try to read to her in Spanish and name things in Spanish. Everyone else speaks English, so at 17M she understands and speaks both.

There are certain things she says in Spanish like "ay ay ay", "gato", "agua", "eso (queso/cheese)", "freshaa (fresa/strawberry) and a couple others, she understands more. I don't speak it as much as I should. I've kinda gotten used to English, but I do speak it often.

I think she has always been very verbal, always blabbers and tries to communicate something. She makes specific sounds for certain things and has been making simple sentences for a bit like "go out", "go up", "night-night", "put shoe". It's easy for me to understand her and of course I'm her mom, but I think there's a lot of confusion because I teach her things in Spanish, like numbers, colors, body parts and the nouns for everything. I do speak only in English when we're with others.

I'm not really concerned about her language skills, but wondering if that confused phase is everything every bilingual kid goes through? She's great at following direction whether in English or Spanish and she does say a lot of words everyday, but there are certain things she knows but gets very confused with.

I don't know how to better explain it, but maybe if you got a bilingual kid you know what I mean.

[sapphire_chan]

http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Biling.../dp/1400023343

Get it, read it, learn and be reassured.

You can see parts of it through the Amazon page if you've got an Amazon account.

Basically, code switching (mixing languages) is super common in bilingual toddlers and they grow out of doing it accidentally.

The following assumes you're living in an area where most people speak English.

The strongest bilingualism comes from distinguishing when/where to use each language as early as possible. Ideally, you would've only spoken to her in Spanish from birth, but you can still start using far more Spanish now. Try to use mime and objects to clarify meaning instead of translating. If she uses English with you, just repeat what she said in Spanish. (use proper Spanish grammar, speak a bit more advanced then her, really, just talk to her like you would to a monolingual Spanish toddler and you should be fine.)

There are two problems with using English with her when other people are around. First, and most important, it could set Spanish up as a secondary, lesser, language that you hide away (and the minority language often has that problem in bilingualism even if the parent always speaks to the child in the minority language). Secondly, it takes time away from speaking Spanish to her and decreases her language exposure, how much of a problem depends on how often you have people over and for how long.

Typically, by 2 or so, bilingual kids are pretty good at knowing which language to speak to which people. You might have a English speaking friend over and your dd will do something like (spanish in bold, english in underline) "water please mommy read me a book? thank you! book has kitty! mommy, she read me book!" All at once turning her head towards you or your friend as she sorts out the water conversation and the book conversation.

[Auraji]

Interesting, getting the book. I already had a couple other books on my amazon cart today.

I do speak grammatically correct in Spanish and I don't really use it as translation. I just speak it, but should speak more. I think the reason why I didn't strictly used Spanish is because DP only speaks English and yeah everyone around me speaks English. I use English when he's around as a "let's all be part of the conversation".

I always get my friends on Skype from Dominican Republic and we all talk in Spanish and I involve her. I found a Dominican friend nearby and I'm trying to get together more with her, because I think is different when you only hear mommy speak Spanish and when you hear a lot of people speak it.

Thanks, your post was very helpful

[kismetbaby]

As far as I've heard it's best for the parent speaking the "other" language to try and do so exclusively to the child. My DH speaks Hebrew to our DS, but I only speak English so when we speak together its in English. But he is trying to only address our DS in Hebrew, not in English (although that's hard to do), so that DS will associate Hebrew with DH and English with me.

[Picard]

Code switching happens a lot in our family. We have 3 languages to choose from. I speak one language exclusively to DS, DH speaks English and a bit of German to DS and DH and I speak English together. It is amazing how versatile DS is in knowing what language to speak with which parent. It's a process and I would not worry about your child mixing things up here and there!

[babymango]

I second Raising a Bilingual Child
I read it cover to cover when I was pregnant with my first, it was very helpful. My first language is french, DH's is english, but we both speak each other's language fluently. We are currently in the US, so everything around us is in english, but we are moving back to Montreal soon where it's going to be 50/50.
We've had some interesting challenges, but the book was very helpful, I keep referring to it when I have questions.
It was nice to see that there were other options than the traditional "mom speaks french, dad speaks english" (person specific), like place specific (french at home, english outside).
Our toddler is just starting to talk, a little later than average but im not worried. He has more words in french since im home with him all day, but there are the occasional words he'll only say in english.