<p>It’s a long story, but i’ll try to make it short. I have a daughter who is 5 y/o and since her birth, my H and I have been talking to her Mandarin chinese (H) and Spanish (me). DD gets her English from preschool. So far, everything seems to be going well. DD is completely fluen in Spanish and English. She used to be fluent in Mandarin, but now she does not speak as much but understands everything. Dd will start pre-K, and she’ll start an immersion program in Cantonese, which would be her 4 language. I really want to keep her fluency in Spanish and try to improve her fluency in Mandarin. I’m very aware that she’ll be learning a whole new language. So I’m trying to get feedback from other parents who have raised multilingual children (4 languages) or parents who themselves speak multiple languages. How did you teach/expose your children to all the languages? what system did you use? what problem did you face? or if you are a parent? how did you learn multiple languages?
Your feedback would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>My granddaughter was raised in another county, was fluent in that language, but when she came to US and entered K here, she retreated from the language of her birth. Her parents speak to her in the language, and she understands, but she refuses to use it herself. Her English is more idiomatic than it originally was, previously a translation structure from her birth language. The social experience with her age peers is very much driving her language. Even when she is around others who speak her original language, she just looks at them. Her parents are both fluent in English, so that is no problem.</p>
<p>What I have heard from families who have multi-lingual children is much in line with what lorelei writes.</p>
<p>Once children are in school, the language they use with their friends becomes their mother tongue.</p>
<p>I knew of a trilingual family - he is a Dane, she is German, and they live in the USA. </p>
<p>He does not speak German and she doesn’t speak Danish.</p>
<p>Each speaks only their mother tongue to their sons, but they can only speak English with each other.</p>
<p>The boys were about 1 and 4 the one time I met them. The 1 year old was just learning to speak but was already using English to speak to his brother.</p>
<p>I would say it is probably virtually impossible to raise a child to be fluent from a young age in four languages in the US, where only one language is needed in society.</p>
<p>Most bilingual children in the US are probably so because their parents do not speak any English at all.</p>
<p>I raised my children to be multilingual: English, Chinese, French, Spanish. </p>
<p>I would say the d is fluent in English and Spanish only. She is semi competent in Chinese and claims she forgot all the French. (Hopefully she will remember some while traveling in France.) The son is fluent in English and some French and Chinese. He is better than his sister in Chinese and do not know Spanish at all, he claims he dislikes the language. </p>
<p>I think interest drives their fluency. Son is more interested in Chinese and Chinese culture so he retains the language better even they both had the same amount of exposure and learning. D is more interested in Spanish and even studied Spanish as one of her majors in college so she is fluent, whereas her brother disliked the language.</p>
<p>Lorelei and fend rock, thanks for your comments.
Exactly our experience with our dd. I guess she’s fluent in Spanish because the nanny didn’t speak English. Kids are smart. They know parents speak English so they don’t switch to a foreign language.
As fend rock mentioned " need" is the key. If they don’t have need then kids don’t try to speak that language. Hmm Maybe creating an artificial need of the foreign language would do the trick.
Anyhow, I know there are kids who grow up multilingual. I wonder how.</p>
<p>IMO, you will also want to evaluate how your daughter does in English while learning all the other languages because that is the language she will be evaluated in throughout her days in school. Often young people who speak a second language at home struggle some with English. I would also add that most of the young people I work with are not children of professionals or highly educated parents. I am not trying to be nasty, but you do want to make sure that her English is not suffering.</p>
<p>Munchkin, you did a good job. I read that it’s relatively easy to speak a language when the person understands it. So I think your dd will be fluent in french if she spends enough time traveling in France.
When did u start to teach your kids all the languages? And how? School? Living abroad?, foreign language classes? Do you speak all those languages?</p>
<p>Our friends here speak English plus their native tongue. Their high-school aged children all speak the native tongue fluently. The parents typically speak to the children in the native tongue, but by no means exclusively. They also support the native tongue by going to a church of heritage, attending cultural events, socializing with others from that country, vacationing there, having relatives come visit, etc.</p>
<p>From my vantage point, it does not appear to be a problem for them at all. It is, of course, just two languages. The children all study a third language in public school, and seem to be progressing more or less as well as their peers.</p>
<p>Adad, your friends had a good system. I know children whose parents are native speakers but their children are not fluent.
Your comments make me realize that we have additional challenges because our family language is English. H and I speak different foreign languages.</p>
<p>I will add that I have known people whose parents speak a language other than English, but they did not learn it. As adults, they were a little sad that the effort had not been made with the second language. I wish you the best.</p>
<p>I’m a student, but I speak English, Hebrew, Spanish, and Chinese (Mandarin). My situation is a little different, because one of these I did not learn until very late (Chinese), so I’m not totally fluent. The other major issue is that my parents don’t speak these languages other than my mom speaking Spanish. I learned them in outside environments, mostly. Nonetheless, I hope you don’t mind my posting! </p>
<p>I agree that creating a “need” is key. I learned Hebrew when I was quite young, but now, my Hebrew is frankly not that great. Why? Because I have no one to speak it to. My parents don’t speaking it, my sister only speaks a little, so it has faded little by little. My pronunciation, however, is still the best, I think, because I learned it when I was so young. Starting early has great advantages, IMO, but it has to be kept up. </p>
<p>Four languages is difficult, but I think it can be done, especially such an early age. I think the problem comes when you’re depending on getting in language practice from a source such as school - for example, I wasn’t always able to take both Spanish and Chinese classes at school, and Hebrew wasn’t offered. I felt like I was always focusing on one language at a time, and trying to rotate them so that I wouldn’t forget any one, if that makes sense. Again, my situation is quite different, since I didn’t get to practice at home at all, but there are my ramblings for what they’re worth 
</p>
<p>I think it’s great that you’re teaching your child so many languages, though! I love foreign languages, though for now I’ve put a stop to learning any more because I need to focus on the ones I have!</p>
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<p>Thank you. </p>
<p>The children were exposed to English - we spoke it at home, Chinese (babysitters & foreign language classes) and French (foreign language/home) from young. They had French immersion summers in Quebec when older. They learned Spanish in school as a second language in school - S took French and D picked Spanish. They attended a wonderful high school where they offer Chinese as well as French/Spanish/other languages. In high school they took two foreign languages. </p>
<p>H and I communicate with the children primarily in English because when they were young, we were concerned of the issue MD Mom pointed out - "Often young people who speak a second language at home struggle some with English. ". As it turned out our concern was unfounded, as both kids seemed to be very good at English growing up, always reading and writing several levels above their grade. We never forced the children to speak Chinese/French (which I can understand) to us. We just encouraged them and provided opportunities - such as poetry recital competition (Chinese) and the summer camps. </p>
<p>D unfortunately was never too interested in Chinese but at least she did not actively rebel learning the language, as we had seen some kids do. When I was growing up, I had friends who strenuously objected to having to learn Chinese and it was a constant source of friction. Even as adults some friends still would not speak/ bother to learn the language even if necessary. I never wanted that to happen so we never made it an issue but more or less let their interest lead them. </p>
<p>We now live in a community where it is truly advantageous to know Chinese in terms of job opportunities, so hopefully d will eventually be more fluent. I recently overheard her spoke Chinese to someone else, just a short phase (but the accent was perfect 
). It was such a moment of joy for me, as I had never heard her speak Chinese before outside of school. D just finished a summer course in Barcelona and is now traveling all over Europe. Paris and France being one of the places. Hopefully those summers in Quebec and 10 years of French lessons will be put into good use.</p>
<p>CaliforniaDancer, you are so sweet. Congratulations on learning four languages.
““I felt like I was always focusing on one language at a time, and trying to rotate them so that I wouldn’t forget any one, if that makes sense.””
It makes a lot of sense. It is the exact experience i have with my dd. This summer she’s spending about 1 1/2 months in China with my H. And, when I phone her, she’s already complaining that of me speaking Spanish to her. I know her Mandarin is going to be better than her Spanish when she comes back. It is a lot of work to try to keep the same level of exposure for all the languages.</p>
<p>muchkin, i’m sure your dd will come back speaking French. She has such a strong foundation.
how old were your children when they started taking foreign language classes?
you mentioned that they took Spanish as a 2nd language in school. what grade was it? middle school or HS?
muchkin, you really did an excellent job providing enough exposure to all the languages. How old were your children when they attended language summer camps abroad?</p>
<p>muchkin and california dancer, i forgot to ask about the language proficiency. I know that my dd monolingual friends have a more developed language proficiency. Of course, it is easier for a child to acquire one language than to acquire multi languages. So I wonder how long would it take to catch up with the monolingual peers?
Besides, sometimes I think that expressing her feelings through language is harder for her than for monolingual children at early age. Would this be an accurate statement?
Would her self-esteen be negative affected when she’s around monolingual children who are able to express themselves better? (at least for now) I know eventually she’ll catch up. Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>MD Mom, thanks for expressing your concern. But I think the educational level and income of parents maybe the reason why these children are having difficulties in English. A long time ago, when I voluntered to help some low-income individuals to develo business plans, I was really sad to learn how terrible their written English was. These were native English speakers, and they claimed to have an AA degree.</p>
<p>^ They started French in nursery school - so 3 ? After that it was probably one period a day till grade 8. They went to Quebec for summer camp when they were 14, 15. </p>
<p>D started Spanish in 4th grade ? May have started earlier in summer camp. S never liked Spanish so only had 1 year. D continued with Spanish in throughout school and majored in Spanish in college. </p>
<p>Chinese : started when they were about 4. Before that was informally with the babysitters and grands. I would estimate about 3 hours of formal instructions per week till they were in high school. Then it was one period per day. They visited China once on tour at the end of high school. My son would have spent a summer in China if not for serious life threatening peanut allergies. We live in a community with a lot of Chinese influence so they get a lot of exposure/opportunities to practice if they are interested.</p>
<p>I am sure your children will be fluent in Chinese and Spanish. Once they have a foundation like they have right now, they would find it very easy to reacquaint with the language or pick up where they left. I did not speak Mandarin for a period of almost 15 years - mainly because I was living in a city with very few Mandarin speakers and had no opportunity to practice. I was not even a native speaker of Mandarin, my family spoke Cantonese and Toishan. Then I moved and started speaking the language again. In the beginning I mispronounced often and I am sure my accent was all wrong and had to learn a lot of new vocabulary but now I have no trouble communicating in China and the mainland Chinese seem to have no trouble understanding me. I can write Chinese too, though from trying to post on a Chinese forum, I realize my reading skills are a lot better than my writing skills. I am learning to write Chinese right now. </p>
<p>I have read that a lot of overseas Chinese learn Chinese by watching Chinese language TV but I am not sure if you want to go that route. I know I like Chinese period dramas - The Warring States for eg. and do pick up a lot of Mandarin from watching. Your kids are too young to watch those, but my non-Chinese friends have told me their kids and themselves pick up Chinese from for eg. Ni Hao Kai Lan.</p>
<p>I had a three yr. old child in my preschool class last year who had not been in the U.S. for very long and only spoke Spanish. Her adoptive parents were of Hispanic origin and were fluent in both English and Spanish. They chose to only speak Spanish to the child.
She was a very active child. The communication barrier was a real problem. The mother said they would not speak English at home (a non-Eng. speaking grandparent also lived with them) because they were afraid she would lose her Spanish. </p>
<p>The parents were depending on preschool and television to teach her English.
By the end of the school year, she had learned quite a bit of Eng. though still spoke in Spanish when wanting to “get her point across”. She seemed to understand more Eng. than she could actually verbalize.
Her Mom said she was speaking more Eng. at home even though the rest of the family spoke primarily Spanish. </p>
<p>She will return to my class in Sept. I’m looking forward to seeing her and finding out how her English has progressed/regressed over the summer.</p>
<p>MD mom, I’m thinking again about English proficiency… I don’t think learning languages would be a reason why a child English would be not well developed. I know there are native monolingual English
speakers whose academic English is not adequate for their grade level. So I’m thinking that learning multi languages is not a reason English deficiency; otherwise, all monolingual English speakers would excel in english. I’m not sure if I’m making any sense, but I know what you’re trying to say MD mom</p>
<p>Absolutely, Fresas, I teach transitional (remedial) English classes and very few students are second language students. I would not assume that your child will have problems. It is just something to monitor and be aware of.</p>
<p>My daugther has a good friend whose parents are immigrants and speak only their native language at home. The friend was born in the U.S. and spoke no English until starting school. If you would talk to this young person, you would never have any indication that English was not the first language. This friend also took a third language in high school.</p>
<p>Munchkin, thank you. I was not sure about foreign language classes, but after reading your posts, I think these type of classes would help my dd. My H thinks that playing with other children is best. However, it’s near impssible to make children speak the foreign language. Children revert to English. Tv? Dd has been watching cartoons. But I’m still not sure how passive exposure will help. I think dd will get use to the intonation, sounds, words, and somehow connect actions with words. I do want to limit tv time as much as possible.</p>