Question

Hello,

first I would like to thank you because your web help us a lot.

Our situation is the following: I am Spanish, my husband is Catalan and we have a daughter of 2.5 years old. We live in China since she was 6 months old. She goes to a Chinese kindergarten since she was 13 months so she speaks more Chinese than anything else.

She speaks the three of them without much problem. I speak Spanish and my husband speaks Catalan to her but I would like to know what is the ideal amount of time that each language needs, and also when it would be the right time to start to teach her the letters and to read.

Should we do Spanish and Catalan at the same time? or first one and then the other? is it better to make some kind of difference so she knows they are different languages?

Thanks a lot,
Soledad

Answer

Hello Soledad,

Thank you for your question and for your feedback – I am happy you find our site useful!

You clearly have a trilingual in the making here, congratulations! It is fantastic that she can already use all three languages without much problems at the tender age of 2.5 years. You have done a really good job with her, so you should be proud of what you and your husband have achieved.

As she is attending a Chinese kindergarten, she will definitely be getting enough exposure to Chinese. At home you are using the one parent, one language approach. By the sound of it, whatever you are doing is working well – otherwise she would not yet be using both Spanish and Catalan in the home. My best advice is to try to keep the exposure to both of the language balanced and keep an eye on how her language skills progress. If you notice that either language gets significantly weaker for her (which I do not think it will), then you can increase the amount of exposure she gets to it.

With regards to reading, there is no set time which is right for every child, as all kids are different. The best advice is to start when the child shows interest in knowing the letters. What you can do is to follow the words in a book with your finger when your read, so she gets used to the connection between the letters and the sounds. My daughter learnt to read Finnish through an alphabet puzzle, so I never actually “taught” the letters to her. Finnish is generally easier, though, as it is a very phonetic language, i.e. spoken exactly as it is written.

Your daughter clearly already understands the concept of a mummy’s language (Spanish), a daddy’s language (Catalan) and the language at kindergarten (Chinese). When she shows interest in letters, there is nothing to say that you cannot do both Spanish and Catalan at the same time. Just like she knows there are different words for things in the different languages, she will understand that the same goes for letters. If she asks how to say a certain letter, you can use “mummy says…” and “daddy says…” and if she for example says the Catalan sound when she is with you, then just confirm that “yes, that is how daddy says it, mummy says…” – in the same way you would do with words and phrases.

I hope this helps and please let us know how her language skills develop!

Kind regards
Rita