Question Hello, I am a native Hindi-speaker and so is my husband. We live in USA and are fluent in English, too. Our nanny is Romanian but speaks (non-native) Spanish. Our 7-month-old daughter spends majority of time with the nanny and my parents, who speak...
Nick Jaworski
Q&A: Questions about teaching a toddler two non-native languages
Question Due to the length of today's question it has been stuctured slightly differently with the answers being added after each subquestion. Nick has answered the main part of the query and Rita has responded to the rest [the name of who has answered will be given...
Q&A: Literacy for a bilingual child: How to teach reading in similar languages?
Questions Hello, I have been recently thinking how and when to teach my girl letters / reading. I find it a little bit difficult or think that it can be confusing for my girl. My girl is Polish / English bilingual kid. For example English word: Octopus. Letter: "O" in...
Q&A: Does a toddler need prepping for immersion daycare?
Question Hello, I'm a native English speaker, and speak Portuguese, French, and Spanish at intermediate to advanced levels. My husband is a native Brazilian Portuguese speaker, speaks English fluently, and has some basic French. We speak English to each other and live...
Q&A: Choosing the language of childcare for a bilingual toddler
Question Hello, We are a trilingual family with me speaking in German to my son, my husband in Spanish and between my husband and I we speak in English. We have recently moved from Germany to New York and are now wondering which child care option to choose. They have...
Q&A: How to choose between four or more family languages?
Question Hi, I just found this website while I was looking for an answer to my question on how to introduce a third language to our 18 month-old daughter, who has just started talking in the two languages that her father and I speak to her. Your website looks very...
Q&A: Should we change our family language strategy from OPOL to mL@H?
Question Hi, I currently live and work in China. I am from Australia and English is my mother tongue. My wife is Chinese. We have a 19-month-old son, Daniel. When it came to deciding which approach to choose in order to raise Daniel as bilingual, OPOL seemed to be the...
Q&A: How to reintroduce a minority language to a school-aged child?
Question I have a unique situation as many bilingual families tend to have and could use some advice. Here is my background: I grew up in Latin America with a Spanish/English bilingual mother and a Spanish-speaking father. Spanish was my first language but all my...
Q&A: Daycare in a third language – how to handle and maintain all languages?
Question We are a French-German couple living in Germany, and expecting our first child for January. Our family language will be French (we met in this language) and my husband is fluent. We are quite clear on using the OPOL system, so I will speak French to the...
Q&A: What to take into consideration when raising a trilingual child?
Question I would like to ask about trilingualism. I’m Italian, my partner Japanese and we live in NYC where we have a 2-month-old daughter. I speak Italian to her and my wife speaks Japanese. Our common language is English because she knows no Italian and I speak no...