Q&A Library
Here you can find hundreds of helpful articles to help you successfully raise your child to speak more than one language.
Click through the topic which interests you.
- How to motivate a bilingual / multilingual child to speak a family language
- The trilingual+ child
- Choosing the right family language strategy
- When a bilingual / multilingual child goes to school
- Being the parent in a multilingual family
- Moving to another country with a bilingual / multilingual child
How to motivate a bilingual/multilingual child to speak a family language
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
Q&A: How to introduce a family language to older children?
Question Hello! Thank you for the helpful articles! My husband’s mother is Finnish, and all her family is living in Finland or other parts or Europe. Fortunately, they all speak English well so we all can communicate well. However, my parents are Korean...
Q&A: How to convince a 3-year-old to answer in the minority language?
Question Hello I'm British, living in France for the past 13 years. I speak French to my French husband, and we have two girls, a 3-year-old and a new-born. Our 3-year-old was a late speaker (first words at 17 months) and I am the only person who speaks English...
Q&A: How to help a small bilingual child with the community language?
Question Hi! I am worried about my daughter who is three and a half years old. She was born in Sweden, but I raise her by myself and we speak only Dutch at our home. Her Dutch is fluent, and she has been very talkative for a long time, she speaks in long fluent...
The trilingual+ child
When a child grows up with three or more languages the challenges can be more pronounced than when only two languages are involved. For example, how to adapt the family language strategy when circumstances change and a third or fourth language is added? The solutions that work well for bilingual families, such as using the one person, one language family language strategy, are not straight-forward to apply if a child grows up in a multilingual environment. Nevertheless, children do grow up to successfully speak three, four, or even more languages. It can be done.
Q&A: How to choose the right trilingual family language strategy?
Question Hi Family Language Coaches, Thanks for sharing so many useful tips and resources – I just discovered your website's Q&A section and I really love it! I have a question about raising a trilingual child. I was...
Q&A: Bilingual or trilingual – how to choose the languages for a baby?
Question Hi there, First of all, thanks for all the answers to similar questions and your effort to help parents deal with this delicate issue. I have read through several but still have some questions which hopefully you can help me with. First some context:...
Q&A: How to support a child’s minority language which you are not fluent in?
Question Hi! My question might be a bit complicated. I have a 17-month-old daughter. I speak Hungarian to her, my husband speaks Spanish and we speak in English with each other. We currently live in Hungary and the main language of the community is Hungarian....
Choosing the right 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 choose the right trilingual family language strategy?
Question Hi Family Language Coaches, Thanks for sharing so many useful tips and resources – I just discovered your website's Q&A section and I really love it! I have a question about raising a trilingual child. I was...
Q&A: How to pass on two heritage languages and an additional language to your children
Question Hello! My name is Caroline and I am a native English speaker who has since become nearly fluent in Spanish. My husband is a native Korean speaker who speaks English as his second language. I have been studying Korean and am at an intermediate level....
Q&A: How to prioritise family languages and raise a trilingual child?
Question Hi, I would like some advice about how to raise our daughter speaking multiple languages. She is only five weeks old but I think we should work out what we're doing now. We live in an English-speaking country. I am English but also fluent in Spanish...
When a bilingual/multilingual child goes to school
A crucial point in a bilingual child’s life is when they start attending nursery or school in the majority language. At this stage, there is a tendency for the school language to take over and become the child’s dominant language. The child may start to use less of the family language and may even stop responding to it. Because this is such an important phase, it is important that parents know how to prepare for it and how to tackle the potential challenges. However, the nursery or school choice can also be a supporting factor for a child’s multilingual language development.
Q&A: How will having different school languages affect the sibling relationship?
Question Hello, We are a trilingual family and our situation is quite complicated. My husband is Japanese, I am Taiwanese/Australian. We have two children a 4-year-old boy and a 7-year-old girl. I speak native Mandarin and English and conversational Japanese,...
Q&A: How does a third language through daycare affect a child’s minority language?
Question Dear Rita and all the Family Language Coaches, Let me begin by thanking you for providing such a fantastic resource for multilingual families! I would really appreciate your input on developing a family language strategy for my 15-month-old son. I was born in...
Q&A: About choosing the language for day care, stuttering and mixing languages
Question Hello, I am Macedonian living in Finland and my spouse is Finnish. I speak quite good English but at home we speak Finnish almost all the time. We have 2,5 months old baby for whose future I'd like her to speak Macedonian and Finnish and to...
Being the parent in a multilingual family
Some things parents of bilingual children experience seem to be universal. As a parent of a bilingual or multilingual child, you become more aware of your native language and you may also consciously try to improve your own skills. In today’s world, there is an infinite number of things parents can potentially worry about or feel pressure for. Adding another language to that brings a new dimension to parenthood. You have to ensure that your child gets enough exposure to all languages and be on a constant look-out for language resources. To make up for the lack of materials, you probably end up being more creative than you thought you would ever be.
Q&A: Do bilingual parents have to choose one of their languages to speak with a child?
Question Hi, I am Wadha from Kuwait. My partner and I live in Kuwait (Arabic is used in the community) and are bilingual parents: Arabic native speakers, but we both speak English as a second language. We have a two-month-old child and are planning to send her...
Q&A: Should parents of bilingual children not speak the majority language at all?
Question Hello! We are Americans living in Kuopio, Finland (for over 10 years). We have a daughter who is almost 19 months and goes to Finnish päiväkoti (=kindergarten). I was told by the neuvola doctor (paediatrician) to not mix languages and only speak...
Q&A: Should parents raising bilingual children avoid code-switching?
Question Hello, My name is Benedicte, and my husband and I are expecting a baby boy in the next few weeks. We live in France and are both bilingual French-English. My husband was raised by an American father and French mother. I was raised by French-speaking...
Moving to another country with a bilingual/multilingual child
A crucial point in a bilingual child’s life is when they start attending nursery or school in the majority language. At this stage, there is a tendency for the school language to take over and become the child’s dominant language. The child may start to use less of the family language and may even stop responding to it. Because this is such an important phase, it is important that parents know how to prepare for it and how to tackle the potential challenges. However, the nursery or school choice can also be a supporting factor for a child’s multilingual language development.
Q&A: How to maintain a five-year-old’s English when the majority language changes to French?
Question Hi there, My daughter Ophelia is five years old. She was born in the French Caribbean, I am English, and her father is French. She attended a French nursery until last year and could speak French very well (for a 4-year-old!). She has always spoken...
Q&A: How does moving to another country affect a child’s identity and languages?
Question Dear Rita and the Multilingual Parenting Team, Thank you so much for this invaluable resource! I came across it today after a long discussion with my wife about our one-year-old son and our future plans, and wondered if it would be possible to help us...
Q&A: How to juggle several languages in the home – what if you move?
Question Hello, congratulations for the excellent website! It's great to hear about the experiences of other multilingual families and be able to get advice from a Family Language Coach, as it is often difficult to decide how to handle this subject. I would...
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