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Q&A Choosing the right family language strategy

In this section, you can find Q&As to help you choose your own family language strategy.

Why do parents need a strategy to make sure the children grow up speaking the family languages? After all, kids grow up learning more than one language all over the world all the time. This is of course true. If the circumstances are right, children will naturally grow up learning the languages they hear around them. The trick is knowing what the right circumstances are and being able to intervene if it looks like there is not enough input in a language or a majority language is about to take over. A child should want and need to speak a language, and there should be plenty of opportunities to use it. Parents should feel confident in their ability to pass on their language and believe that it is possible to successfully raise children to speak more than one language.

Q&A: How to balance the exposure to two minority languages for a trilingual (-to-be) child?

by Rita Rosenback | Sep 14, 2017 | Coaches, Q&A Choosing the right family language strategy, Q&A The trilingual+ child, Rita R

Question Hello, I have been reading a lot on your website and have found a lot of interesting stories and insights! I am Franco-Chinese with French and Chinese as my mother tongues, my partner is British and we live in London. I am pregnant and I am keen to...

Q&A: Should parents ditch English as the family language to support their child’s minority languages?

by Rita Rosenback | Aug 24, 2017 | Coaches, Q&A Choosing the right family language strategy, Q&A The trilingual+ child, Rita R

Question Hi there! First of all, thank you so much for good work on the subject. I have been looking for such a blog for ages and now my wife found it 🙂 We also have a question regarding raising our son to be trilingual. I have read thru all the other cases,...

Q&A: Who should speak what language when in a family with three languages to raise a trilingual child?

by Rita Rosenback | Aug 20, 2017 | Babies, Coaches, Q&A Choosing the right family language strategy, Q&A The trilingual+ child, Rita R

Question Hello, We're a multilingual family living in France. My name is Teresa and I'm Spanish, my husband is French and our common language is English (we started our relationship in California). Now we can communicate in French and Spanish also but we...

Q&A: Should a bilingual family swap from OPOL to mL@H when moving to a new country?

by Rita Rosenback | Aug 17, 2017 | Coaches, Q&A Choosing the right family language strategy, Q&A Moving to another country with a bilingual / multilingual child, Rita R

Question Hello, thank you so much for this website, it has been such a great resource and source of positive reassurance on our journey to raise bilingual children. I have a question regarding switching the language method in the family. My husband is American,...

Q&A: How to choose the family language strategy for passing on three languages?

by Ute Limacher-Riebold | Aug 10, 2017 | Coaches, Q&A Choosing the right family language strategy, Q&A The trilingual+ child, Ute Limacher-Riebold

Question Dear Rita and all Family Language Coaches, First of all congratulations and many thanks for your website, such a great resource! Like many of your visitors me and my husband have diverse international backgrounds and are currently considering the best...

Q&A: How to maximise the family minority language exposure?

by Ute Limacher-Riebold | Jul 20, 2017 | Coaches, Q&A Choosing the right family language strategy, Ute Limacher-Riebold

Question Hello I'd be so grateful for your advice. I am bilingual French-English. My husband speaks French, English, German and Swiss German. We started off living in French speaking Switzerland so I started speaking English at home to our then...

Q&A: About language exposure, family language strategy, speaking a non-native language and confusion

by Rita Rosenback | Jul 13, 2017 | Babies, Coaches, Non-native language, Q&A Choosing the right family language strategy, Rita R

Question Hello, I am Italian but I know English very well so I really want to try to teach it to my one-year-old daughter. I speak English to her since she was three months old. In the beginning I thought to use the OPOL method but it's really hard for us,...

Q&A: How to choose a child’s school and parents’ common language in a family on the move?

by Rita Rosenback | Jun 22, 2017 | Coaches, Q&A Choosing the right family language strategy, Q&A The trilingual+ child, Q&A When a bilingual / multilingual child goes to school, Rita R, School-aged children

Question Hello! I am currently pregnant with my first child (boy) and due to give birth in two months. I come from Pakistan and my husband is German. My mother tongue is Urdu whilst my husband's is German. English is the common language at home with my husband...

Q&A: How many languages can/should parents introduce to a baby?

by Rita Rosenback | Jun 15, 2017 | Babies, Coaches, Non-native language, Q&A Choosing the right family language strategy, Q&A The trilingual+ child, Rita R, Toddlers

Question Hello My wife and I are expecting and starting to think about how many languages we want teach our kids. Basically, our question boils down to, is it unrealistic to try for Bulgarian, English, Spanish, & Mandarin fluency, or should we just try for...

Q&A: How to support a bilingual child’s community language and maintain the family language?

by Amanda Hsiung-Blodgett | Jun 8, 2017 | Amanda Hsiung-Blodgett, Babies, Coaches, Non-native language, Q&A Choosing the right family language strategy, Q&A How to motivate a bilingual / multilingual child to speak a family language, Toddlers

Question Hello, I have been reading the posts on this site for a while, and they are amazing! Thanks for the effort. I got some questions regarding my son. Background about us: My wife and I were born and raised in Asia, and we're native Mandarin speakers. We...

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