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.
Question Hello, I am currently pregnant with our first child and my husband and I are trying to make a family language plan. I am American so my native language is English, but I also know a good amount of French and a few words and phrases in Ewe. My husband is...
Question Hello, I have a question regarding raising a trilingual child. I was raised bilingual by my German father and English mother. I grew up in Germany but have spent a substantial amount of time living in the UK also. My husband is French and we live in France...
Question Thank you so much for your website and for the opportunity to ask a question. My French husband and I have a 4-month-old daughter who we would like to raise bilingual in Australia. English is my first language, and my French is average. My husband and I...
Question Dear Coaches, first of all, thank you for a very helpful website! I have also read the book Rita wrote about raising a bilingual child, which I found very helpful when starting on planning the way with the languages in our family. First the facts about...
Question Hello, I'm very glad I found the article about the 2 parents, 2 languages (2P2L) family language strategy as it touches on some questions that have been bugging me ever since my daughter (18mths) was born. My husband (Spanish) and I (bilingual English/German)...
Question Dear Rita and Multilingual Parenting Team, First of all, I would like to thank you and the rest of the team for a great website, it has been very useful since I started investigating about multilingual education. I am sending you our questions because I could...
Question Hello Family Language Coaches, I have a question on one parent passing on two languages: I was born in the US to Korean parents. My parents spoke English to me instead of their heritage language, even going so far as to read to me in English every...
Question Dear Rita, Thank you for all the knowledge you share. Your page has been an invaluable source of information. I have one concern I wonder you might be able to help me with. I was born in the US but raised in Italy by Italian parents. My English pronunciation...
Question Hi, thanks for sharing important information on your website and being a reference for the parents who are lost in the sea of advice... We have a very specific question regarding our first daughter, who has some speech delay and is exposed to three languages....
Question Hi Rita! My husband and I are scouring the Internet in hopes of finding some guidance and we'd love your thoughts! Our son is 13 months old. My husband is Iranian and I'm not. He speaks both Farsi and English fluently and I'm fluent in English and...