Bringing up kids abroad
 

My wife and I have a nine month old daughter (the one dribbling her lunch in the pic) and we live in Italy. I'm English and my wife's Italian. I have no family here and she rarely gets to see other mother tongue English people. My wife speaks fluent English.

Obviously we want to bring her up bilingual. We've read a lot of material on the best way to do it and it gets a little confusing. Does anyone out there have any practical experience of this that they'd like to share? We'd be most grateful.

Re: Bringing up kids abroad
 

My son is now thirteen and I brought him up bilingually from when he was born. I always spoke English, my husband Italian.

My son started speaking very late - at 3 he still only had about 18 words - though it was clear that he understood everything in both languages. I didn't worry as I'd heard that bilingual children were sometimes late starters (though not always - a lot of the literature denies this), and in fact when he finally started he zoomed through all the various stages of development in the blink of an eye, and within a few months was completely normal for his age group.

However, he was at an Italian nursery and our family language is Italian (my husband speaks very little English), so not surprisingly his preferred language was Italian and by 5 he still wasn't speaking English at all (though still understanding everything). We therefore decided to give him a year in an English speaking school (this was feasible as he could start in the English school at five but then transfer to the Italian system at six with all the other kids). In fact he stayed there and has done elementary and middle school there, though next year he's transferring to an Italian high school.

The result though is that he's now completely bilingual. There's still a little bit of interference - but nothing problematic. A certain amount is natural though, especially in the early years - don't panic the first time you hear I live here for five years or We lost the bus. My son was eleven before he really started sounding like a native speaker. Mixing of the two languages in one sentence or conversation is also natural - especially if the child knows you understand the other language.

Friends of mine in situations where both parents were English speakers (so that English was the family language) have had no problems at all though. The kids developed as bilingual speakers from the beginning, despite going to Italian schools throughout, and often transferred to British universities when they finally left school.

You're in the middle situation. What language do you normally speak with your wife? What language does she speak to your daughter? If she's always spoken Italian up to now it will be very difficult to change, even if she wants to - and personally I'd hate not to be able to speak to my son in my own language (though oddly, I find that when I want to tell him off, I automatically switch to Italian. Distancing myself??)

If you do have Italian as your family language, you may find that your daughter is like my son (though it doesn't always happen) and needs a bit of a push. Long holidays in the UK help, and the chance to mix with other English speaking kids (I always enrolled my son in the sports courses that the local council runs during the summer holidays). And lots of English videos, TV, computer games whatever.

A book I really recommend is The Bilingual Family: A Handbook for Parents: Edith Harding-Esch,Philip Riley It's very practical, written by people who are both linguists and bi-lingual parents, and extremely re-assuring. You can get it through Amazon. Also, if you type bilingual families into Google, you'll come up with loads of stuff.

Re: Bringing up kids abroad
 

That's great advice. I'll check out the books too, although the first hand experience you described is really what I'm interested in.

Incidentally, my wife speaks Italian and I try to speak only in English but often slip back into Italian. Plus the fact most of the adult conversations I have in her presence are in Italian, so she hears me a lot when I'm not speaking mother tongue.

Re: Bringing up kids abroad
 

I met a woman who worked at a translation company as a director. She was French and her husband was English. They live in the UK now, but anyways here the experience she had:

1. Her children, both boys, were spoken French by the mother and English by the father. So far so good. This is really what develops both biligualism.

2. When her children reach about four or five. They spoke only French to women and English to men, no matter their nationality. It just seems logical to them.

3. After about 10 years old the boys seemed to be biligual in the academic sense and able to converse in both langauges at ease. They usually ended up shouting in French and speaking in English.

Personally, my family are going through similar difficulties to you Clive. My son is bilingual and is 2 years and 10 months old. He is able to speak some English words but he is spending time at a Korean nursery and is starting to speak unknown Korean words to me. It helps my language development. Anyhow, he has no trouble counting in English or Korean and tends to mix both languages at the moment. It just needs time. So don't worry about your son, he is in such a lucky position and provide a lot of opportunities for him and his languages. Congratulations on being a parent, although it may be slightly belated.

Re: Bringing up kids abroad
 

Thanks for the congratulations and above all thanks for the info. It's curious what you say about the kid speaking language according to the gender of who he's talking to, although it does make sense when you think about it.

I'll carry on reading books in English, singing the nursery rhymes and hope for the best. Thanks again and belated congratulations to you too!

Re: Bringing up kids abroad
 

One thing I forgot - one of the problems for the non-native parent in our situation is that, inevitably, the child grows up identifying more with the country s/he lives in than with your country. (I think this may happen anyway even if both parents are non-native, but perhaps to a lesser extent). If you ask my son his nationality, for instance, it's Italian. He may add as an afterthought that he's half British, but only if he thinks it's relevant. His personal identity is firmly Italian. And when it comes to the World Cup or something, it's Italy all the way ...

It took me a while to get used to this, and it still niggles, however much I accept that it's natural.

Re: Bringing up kids abroad
 

My oldest is five and he's doing just fine. My 3 year old is doing even better and they both can speak Japanese just as well. However, my wife speaks perfect English and I've asked her to speak only English to the kids. I also have to get on the kids from time to time about speaking Japanese to each other.

Since, I'm not around enough, I rely on a lot of help from my wife, books, videos (not the best,) and songs. I have tried to read only English books. The key though for us is their mother.

The oldest goes to a Japanese kindergarten and my wife takes the others out to different social groups where they interact with other kids in Japanese.

Like Susan's son, I assume someday soon their Japanese will be stronger and they'll prefer to use that over English, but I'm trying to hold out as long as I can and hopefully they'll be old enough to be able to see the benefit of trying to maintain their English.

Also, try to take them home as much as you can. That's a really good place for them to see the need to speak English, since their family and cousins abroad can't speak Italian.

Re: Bringing up kids abroad
 

Well Mesmark, that is what I really plan on doing with my son. Every six months I am planning an overseas trip to the UK for Korean students and hopefully this will also be a chance for my son to travel to the UK and identify with his home country where he was born. Of course, I have MSN Messenger and my son loves interacting with my relatives with that. That is when I hear his English, or should I say Konglish (a mixture of both). :lol:

Anyways, I have a question. I was wondering at what age do children associate numbers and patterns within numbers? I am asking because I dropped my kid off for Kindergarten and he was looking at the falling numbers in the elevator until we reached the first floor and he was shouting the numbers in Korean (일, 이, 삼, 사 etc). I was amazed because he is like 2 years and 10 months and I was always slow with maths when I was young.

Re: Bringing up kids abroad
 

I have attached a piccie of my son btw.

Re: Bringing up kids abroad
 

here's my gang.

Re: Bringing up kids abroad
 

I think it's fair as father to go ahead and think 'Genius!' :p

I'm not sure if there is an exact age but it may have to do with interest. My son could recognize and tell you the names of the English letters, both upper and lower case, and number to 10 when he was two. However, my 3 year old daughter's speech is much more advanced for her age than my son's was and she can't tell me anything more than a couple upper case letters.

However, she can tell me exactly who was at daycare, what they said, what they were wearing, what she had for lunch ... My son on the otherhand can't remember any of those things. :doh:

Re: Bringing up kids abroad
 

Great pictures guys!

makes you think, doesn't it? If we hadn't decided to go off and teach we wouldn't have met our partners, and we wouldn't be adding to the 'melting pot' with our beautiful, mixed race\nationality kids!!!!!!!

Re: Bringing up kids abroad
 

I actually met my wife in the States and got married there. Then, headed over here to Japan. It's a little rare for that to happen though :)

Re: Bringing up kids abroad
 

That is similar to my situation. I met my wife in the UK and then went to Uni. and then finally went to Korea. I gotta to agree with you, it is rare for that to happen.