Anyone else doing this? How are you going about it?

We're using the each parent speaks their own mother tongue method. My husband speaks Dutch only to our son, and I speak only English. He gets to hear far more Dutch than English because everyone around here speaks Dutch of course, but he spends more time with me than anyone else, so I'm hoping that will balance things out a bit.

I'm glad to have the opportunity to raise a bilingual child - even if Dutch isn't terribly widely spoken around the rest of the world, I'm sure it can only be an advantage to have more than one language from birth. Hopefully it will make learning other languages easier for him in the future too.

Camilla

Hi Camilla,
We are doing the same thing at home. I speak only English to my son and my husband only Dutch. He does hear us speaking English to each other though, but like you child, he hears Dutch everywhere else (daycare, in-laws, etc). I'm the only one that speaks English to him except the other mums in my weekly mommy meet, so I hope that will work. He's only just 6 months now so it will be interesting to see how he develops. We are hoping for a 3rd language in the future (Spanish probably). High hopes, I know. I sound like a typical first-time parent, eh?
His "first word" however has been "O-pa"! He's been repeating that over and over for the past 2 weeks or so. Just a coincidence of sounds I'm sure, but Opa loves it!

Hi Camilla,
Just to share our story. We are both Greek and we speak greek to him at home. He goes to a Dutch creche and he hears (and talks) Dutch there. We do not speak Dutch anyway but we would like him to do, so we send him to a dutch creche and will go to a dutch school. So far this system is working very well he has completely separated that we speak greek at home and dutch "at school" They leidsters tell me that his Dutch is really good and his greek is also good. I am afraid that his Dutch is better and he also uses Dutch syntax when he speaks greek but I guess that is OK for a 3 year-old.
At some point later on ( 6-7) I would like him to learn english since neither Dutch or Greek are very widely spoken languages. i would be curious to see what language he will be speaking to his brother or sister that is on the way......

Well, our daughter probably will be not only bilingual but trilingual. I talk to her in my native language which is latvian. My husband is dutch and he speaks only dutch with her so other relatives from his side. And she still hear us talking english because my dutch is still quite horrible to speak to. I do not know how it will goes in future because she is only one month old but my aim is to teach her latvian for sure just because of my parents who do not speak neither english nor dutch.

We are raising our daughter bilingual as well. But we take a 80%/20% approach, being that I speak 80% english with her, but sometimes (in the tram, when visitors are around, etc), I speak dutch. The opposite is true of my husband. 20% of the time he'll read english books, or say the things she knows in English ("what do you say?"). So far it is working beautifully for us, though everyone says we need to be more strict about 1 parent 1 language. She is two now and has a very good eng/dutch vocabulary. A lot of it is mixed up together, but that's okay. She'll figure it out. I figure she does hear enough english from our expat friends and videos.

How old is your child?

we have two kids, one is 5 and the other 2 (just starting to speak in sentences). we are native english speakers. the kids go / went to childcare (dutch) full-time and I encouraged the teachers to onlys peak english to them. my oldest goes to an international school and a dutch after-school centre. at home, we speak mostly english, but mix it with dutch and afrikaans. the youngest is speaking enqually good english and dutch and corrects himself if he speaks the wrong language to the wrong person. the oldes it very strong at languages. he speaks fluent english and dutch and swaps according to the situation. he speaks english to his brother when we are around and speaks dutch to him when they are with other dutch kids. I was concerned that his dutch would deteriorate after he went to international school, so we've signed him up for swimming lessons in dutch and that sort of thing, however, he's not having any problems. additionally, he's picked up some other words in other languages such as french, German, Italian, etc from his other friends and, when he hans around with other kids and hears them speaking another language to their parents, he picks up some of the those words and uses them with the child concerned (latest language was Hebrew). Strangely, he has only picked up two or three afrikaans words from us, even though we use many of them in our everyday conversations at home.

This makes interesting reading. Both my husband and I are from the UK (hence native English speakers) and our daughter of 2.5 currently goes to a Dutch daycare centre. Day by day I am amazed by her ability to understand Dutch (I was originally very worried that she would get confused or get left behind due to a lack of understanding, but I'm over that now). We speak English at home. My hubby's spoken Dutch is not that great. I can speak some Dutch and plan to bring up a notch my comprehension and learning of the language as my daughter grows up.

The key thing I am now debating is whether to send my daughter to a Dutch school or an International School. I'd be pretty sad if she were to forget or not use any of the Dutch she is currently learning, hence why I am keen to consider a Dutch school. The point is, if she goes to a Dutch school what happens when we as parents want to get more involved in her education, help her with her homework...etc. and we can't follow what's happening because of the language barrier? Anyone else face this challenge?

Loupz, I think from a different post that we live in the same town. My daughter turned 4 a few weeks after we landed here, and a few days before the start of the new school term. Apart from a few quirky sentences ('I also' from Ik ook, instead of the more English-sounding 'me too'), after a year in Groep 1, she speaks fluent English with us and relatively fluent Dutch with her teacher and school friends. We ask her to stay English at home unless she has a friend visiting, but we don't stop her watching Sesam Straat (etc) if she wants too. She's found her own way to balance it, and I'm sure your child will do the same. *edit* We are both full-English parents too.


The benefit of Dutch school is that she has a full, happy social life locally, with friends who will stay around longer than a year or two (unlike Int School). The disadvantage is that compared to an International Education, her quality of education can be extremely varied depending on which school you choose, as there is no national curriculum here. Send me a PM if you want more info on my daughter's experience; I'm happy to chat but prefer not to discuss her in front of a crowd

Sorry I haven't been back here till now! Things have been pretty flat out for the last couple of weeks.

It's really interesting to read about others' experiences, and heartening to hear that kids seem to manage fine with more than one language. Our son is 8 months old and hasn't started talking yet, so it's not a huge issue yet although we are careful to keep speaking our "own" languages around him. I'm curious to see what language his first word will be in! Or perhaps it will be a word that appears in both languages

I'm pretty excited about the whole bilingual thing, and am looking forward to exploring schools etc when that time comes.

Thanks everyone for your input!

I got a mate who is Dutch and has a German girlfriend, they talk English to each other, they have a little girl, she speaks in German and he speaks in Dutch to her. To make it more interesting the girls grand mother talks French to her.

Our first son is 20 months and starting to talk up a storm. So far he is doing great in both English and Dutch (and swahili, but I will explain that).

We took the mommie and pappa approach. I (try to) speak only in English and my hubby only in Dutch to our son. That doesn't always work since I work the whole day/week in Dutch and speak to my hubby largely in Dutch. HOwever, our son does not confuse the languages at all, in fact, since he was 14 months he plays with the two: Lucas shall we go outside? Yes outside mommie, Buiten Pappa Buiten!

The only thing is he can't say the sch or g in Dutch.

He has understood both languages since about 13 months. He also understands that Dutch is for the creche and pappa and English is for Mommie and the TV. A few weeks back, he started babbling other stuff and we had NO idea what he was saying. Then we found out that our au pair was teaching him to speak Swahili to him! We had to stop that right away... I would rather him learn Greek!

He is now even beginning to make sentences and doesn't mix the two. Let's hope it keeps up!

Well, my experience has not been as good as some of the other posters. I have 2 sons. The oldest is 3 and the youngest 1. We're doing the one parent one child method. I speak only English to my kids and their Dutch father speaks Dutch to them. We speak mostly English to each other. My kids go to a Dutch creche and will go to a Dutch school. My oldest understand English just fine. He watches movies in English and we read him English books but he does not speak English! If I ask him to speak English he'll substitute English nouns in a Dutch sentence for a sentence or two and then goes back to just Dutch. Sometimes he flat out refuses and says 'Ik spreek Nederlands toch.' So my oldest and I have these 2 language conversations. I feel quite discouraged about the situation but maybe it just goes this way with some kids. I hope the youngest will speak English and that will encourage the oldest!

Renée

First of all, don't worry about it too much. It will all work out in the end.

I have lived here over 25 years, we are both English and our children went to Dutch schools. The first was 8 when we came here and she learnt Dutch very quickly and is totally bilingual but she is back in England now. The younger 2 were born here and we knew that we were here long term and again sent them to Dutch schools. The older one didn't speak much Dutch before she went to school but had been to peuterspeelzaal. Within 2 weeks she was speaking and playing in Dutch. The youngest had more Dutch as she heard her older sisters speaking it with their friends. As by this time I could speak enough Dutch so they started to speak to me in that rather than in English. I still spoke to them in English so we had these bilingual conversations which often amazed visitors. They both then went into VWO bilingual stream which had just started. The older one of the 2 then attended a university college (which is in English here in the Netherlands) and achieved a BA Honours and is now at university in England working on 2 Masters and hoping to do a PH. D. later. The younger one is more Dutch and decided to stay in the Dutch system doing HBO and is in her last year of SPH (Sociale Pedagogische Hulpverlening) but has an English boyfriend now so her spoken English is improving again. She has always spoken to her grandparents and other family in English with a pronounced Dutch accent.

I am also a specialist English as another language teacher in an international school and advise parents to continue speaking their own language to the children as they need to have linguistic roots to be able to base their new language on. They transfer knowledge of one language to the learning of another. They are also sponges and absorb everything around them very rapidly. If they are exposed to 2 or more languages from birth, by the time they are 3 /4 they have split the languages and do not usually mix them up. They also know to whom they speak those languages and will go from one to the other without a problem.

Just try to be consequent with the languages. As the children become more competent with them, it can be more difficult but by then it's usually not so much of a problem anyway. Basically expose your children to as many influences in the languages they speak as possible. If you're both native English speakers then encourage them to join sports clubs, music lessons etc and also try to find something yourself to join to improve your own Dutch. Make it clear at school that you speak English with your children as your Dutch is not good enough (whether it is or not) and you don't want them to learn incorrect Dutch and as English is being taught at school you want them to speak good English. In fact you can do as I did and offer to teach English in the Groups 7 & 8 so the English taught was correct.

Not all children are able to cope as easily with 2 or more languages especially if they have other learning problems. If this is so, then you sometimes have to make a difficult decision. Don't cross that bridge unless you have to but there is usually plenty of help and advise available and use it to the full.

I'm curious, have you dealt with this situation before? In a child with a speech delay or disorder, what criteria would you use to decide whether it best for the child to stick with one language rather than pursue bilingualism?

Yes, we're in this situation. I don't have a diagnosis to better inform you, though I can say my daughter struggles with both receptive and expressive (mostly) language. We speak English at home - my husband's Dutch is quite good, but he's not a native speaker. We moved to NL when our daugher was 2; I thought there was a problem before then so it isn't a case of a bilingual kid who is just temporarily taking a bit of time to catch up in both languages.

She went to one year of Dutch peuterspeelzaal and then to kindy - she's starting Groep 2 in August (and due to a November birthday was in Groep 1 for more than a year and a half). She goes to speech therapy twice a week, in Dutch, and has gotten funding for ambulante begleiding (sp?) to begin in August. She progresses in both languages and everyone is very encouraging but the fact remains that she is 5 1/2 and still often makes so little sense that even I don't know what she's talking about. Conversations confound her. Otherwise she is very bright; by all accounts she's actually ahead of her peers in everything else (and just for example: I have not tried to teach her to read and suddenly, somehow, she can read quite a bit anyway - in English).

My main worry is that she will never catch up in English and we do intend on returning to Canada by the time she begins high school. However, we're a good thirty minutes away from the nearest International School and sending her there would require a second vehicle, etc, etc; also her SLP and current teacher think it would be terrible for her language development if she lost her friends (all Dutch) in our community, and playdates and such with kids... and I think so, too, but even so.....

Everyone here (including her SLP) says two languages is NOT a problem - they say all kids here speak both dialect (we're in Limburg) and Dutch, so kids with delays work it out. But although the dialect is very different from Dutch, I wouldn't say it's a completely different language so I'm not sure it's a fair comparison. That said, as her Dutch improves we see the same problems there that she has in English, so it MIGHT be safe to assume that if she crosses those hurdles in one language it might work it out in the other as well.

Sorry, I am really throwing it all at you, aren't I? I am very torn about it. Like I say, she progresses constantly in both languages, but I would say she still has a ways to go to be "fluent" in both. And some scary sources say her best years for aquiring languages will abruptly come to an end as soon as she turns six in November I know it isn't as dramatic as that, but I still have to wonder if she will ever catch up in English if we don't just focus on it, alone, now? How can I decide?

Well, I appreciate any advice you can give, if you made it through all this!!

I just wanted to add that after posting that my oldest doesn't speak English even though he understands perfectly I decided to pay a bit more attention to the situation. Yesterday was 'mama dag' and I noticed that he really does say things in English he just doesn't make sentences himself in English yet. He repeats sentences I say to him and uses quite a lot of English nouns. He only does this with me so he knows which langauge is which but he just uses Dutch when he doesn't know how to say something in English which is quite often. And at dinner last night he announced that 'Papa spreekt Nederlands en Mama spreekt English en een beetje Nederlands.' So I think it will come out fine in the end.

Jenner, I wish I had some good advice for you! Good luck!

Renée

Jenner,

You do have a problem but you appear to have plenty of help and advice. You seem to be doing all the right things. I think you should carry on speaking English and let the school do the Dutch. Unless you are very fluent in Dutch, leave the Dutch to the Dutch. It is very important that you child has friends close to home and to mix in the community. Give her the opportunity to join clubs where she can hear and speak Dutch.

It would also be an idea to see if you can get her tested in English to find out where and what the problem really is. If you can get a diagnosis then you can get lots of extra help. Get in touch with Access in Den Haag as they have a list of people who would be able to help. Also get in touch with your nearest International School and ask to speak to their Special Needs co-ordinator who could possibly know someone in your area who could do the testing.

Don't worry about running out of time to learn English. The brain is a very clever organ and it has different areas which will enable language learning at different ages. As she has been speaking both languages since she was very young, she will carry on developing in them anyway.

For the moment keep conversations simple, short sentences with one idea at a time so that she can grasp them quickly and try and reply. Keep instructions short as well, again one at a time. When she is achieving these easily then up it to 2 and so on. Help her to speak in short complete sentences and help her construct them as well if necessary.

Reniption,

You are on the right track. Keep speaking to your son in English, as you said, he does understand. When he needs to he will come out with English to grandparents and friends who don't speak Dutch. Think about it also that when you can't think of a Dutch word you will substitute it with an English one and that is the same for him.