One of the biggest challenges parents of bilingual children encounter is finding ways to motivate their children to speak the family’s minority language. Children are pragmatic, so they use the language they feel most comfortable with. When they realize that they can choose their language and still be understood, they often pick their strongest language if they know that the other person understands it. This is when parents should find ways to motivate children to use the family language, to make sure that the child maintains and develops his or her multilingual skills. For a child to choose to speak a language, the child must WANT and NEED to use it. The motivators differ depending on the age, personality, and fluency of the child. These motivators can and do occur naturally, but parents have the possibility to create or enhance these motivators for their children to encourage them to speak a family language
Question Hi, We are a family of four living in Germany. Father is British, mum is Norwegian but moved to France at 16. Kids (girl 10 and boy 7) are in a French school, but are also thought German every day as a mother tongue. They are completely trilingual,...
Question Hello, I am a French mum who has been living in England for 20 years. During all these years, I hardly spoke French unless I was returning to France to see family on average once a year. I now have a 7-year-old daughter who has always refused to learn...
Question Hello, I am after some advice. I am Lithuanian, my husband English. Our son is 4 1/2 years old. My aim was to bring him up as bilingual but somehow it didn't happen. I spoke to him in my native language but not consistently enough. He doesn't really...
Question Hello! Great website – thank you for taking the time to do this! We have two kids raised from birth bilingual in Italian and English. BUT dad speaks only one of the languages (English) and we're living in the US where foreign languages are fairly...
Question Hello, I am German and, my now, ex-husband is English/Australian. The kids spend half of the week with him and the other half with me. I used to talk German to my son from birth onward, but when he was diagnosed with a speech delay which was luckily...
Question Hi, My question is, do you need to set aside time for language lessons either by parents or professional for the minority language? My 3-year-old daughter speaks Spanish (we live in Spain) and English (minority language) and she is well on her way to...
Question Hello, I wonder if you have any recommendations. My daughter is seven and has lived in Italy since she was 8 months old, however she didn’t start going to school till she was 5. At home I (mom) speak to her in English only and everyone else (including...
Question Hello! My father was born and raised in Germany. He came to America when he was 17. When people hear that he is from Germany, they ask if I speak German as well. Unfortunately, he never spoke to me and my siblings in German when we were small, so...
Question Hi Rita and team, Could you help me with advice on an upcoming dilemma? We're a family with three languages in the house but every family member's ability and willingness to speak them vary greatly. Dad is Spanish, is fluent in English and understands...
Question Hi Rita We're a monolingual (Spanish) couple living in Spain. Nevertheless, we're are raising our 4-year-old daughter multilingual. I always speak English to her and to my husband. But I speak French to her one hour a day. My husband speaks Spanish to her and...