We speak two languages at our house, American English and Brazilian Portuguese. I provide the American half of things, and my husband provides the Brazilian, although we both speak each other's languages. I know for me it has been quite an adventure trying to do this in a successful manner,
especially because even as the world is shrinking and it's becoming more common for people to raise their children in a multi-cultural or multi-lingual environment, I don't feel I've found a whole lot of helpful advice on how to best raise my kids to speak two languages. It may be because my husband and I don't fit the common mold. Whatever the reason, I wanted to share what has worked for me thus far, and a few things I wish someone had told me or written in one of the books I've read about on the subject.
Advice on this topic usually addresses the how-to of teaching your kids two languages. The most popular methods seem to be either, 1 Speak a language with your child based on environment, or 2: Each parent speaks their native language with the child(ren).
The environment method is for when both parents speak both languages and one language can be designated as a "home" language, and one as an "outside" language. Since we are living in the States, what we would do using this method is speak Portuguese at home and English when we go anywhere, since we would be speaking English to other people we would be dealing with outside the home. This way, the kids get a strict dividing line of which language is which. It can take awhile for them to figure this out anyway, so any boundaries are helpful!
The second method, one parent-one language, means simply that, using our family as an example, my husband speaks Portuguese with the kids all the time and I speak English with them all the time, and we decide which one we will use with each other. Since we are living in the States, it would probably be Portuguese. The kids get enough English elsewhere!
Well, maybe you can tell by the way I've written about these rules, but I will just tell you, I haven't done a good job of sticking to either method! We're pretty willy-nilly at our house! I would say we are roughly based on the environment method. Since I speak Portuguese decently, I do my best to use that all the time with my kids. Once again, they get plenty of English (although not always good examples of it!) elsewhere. Also, since I'm pretty much a SAHM, if we did the one parent-one language method, they would get almost nothing but English! So far I feel like the kids have done pretty well.
My oldest, who's 15 and my stepson, speaks fine, but then, he spent the first 8 years of his life in Brazil so he got a good base in that, and after almost 8 years in the States, his English is typical American teenager. Y'know what I mean, dawg? Ugh. THAT is another bit of advice entirely, however. My daughter is 5 and because she was really my first, I did my best to speak Portuguese all the time with her from birth on. She understands everything and speaks fairly well. The thing that has gotten in the way has been school and making friends. It's all in English. So that is primarily what she speaks to me. It is very hard for me to answer in Portuguese when she is speaking in English, but I've finally realized that I just have to make myself do it, and eventually she will switch over. It's up to me to be the guide here, and as hard as it is for me to use Portuguese in response to her English, that is what I have really been trying to concentrate on doing lately. She's also done much better since we managed to take a trip to Brazil last summer and she had to use Portuguese to talk to all her relatives there. If it is possible to visit the country of the parent who is not at home, this, to me, is by far the most helpful tool in getting your kids to realize that it can be useful to speak two languages! "You mean someone other than mom and dad talk this way?!" The light bulb finally goes on sometimes. Especially if the language you are using is not one with a large common group where you are living, one of these trips is important. Here in Florida (and probably in most of the U.S. states, but really in Florida) I would say it would be easier to raise a child to speak Spanish bilingually because it is so easy to go out and find other people to use it with, there are many books sold in the children's section of the regular book stores, and there are Spanish language channels on TV with shows for the kids. All in all, it's a lot easier to expose a child to Spanish here than it is to Portuguese, so I've got to put forth a little more effort, but I definitely think it's worth it in the long run.
Now my youngest, who is 3, has definitely demonstrated the effects of what I'll call the trickle-down effect. What I mean is, as much as I tried to do the same with him as I did with my daughter and speak nothing but Portuguese with him, he's got this older sister (and older brother of course, but he doesn't spend as much time with him because of the huge age difference) who speaks almost nothing but English, and as a result, he speaks it too. That's fine. He's doing great with English, BUT he hardly says anything in Portuguese, despite his first word being agua! Ah, how things change! He understands anything we tell him to do, but coming out with a full sentence in Portuguese doesn't often happen. Once again, I am doing my best to speak Portuguese with him all the time because just like with my daughter, I've gotten lazy and would answer him in English when he spoke to me that way. And since I've been more diligent about sticking with it, I can say that he does try to answer in Portuguese when I do remember to talk to him that way. It takes some concentration and sometimes I have to consciously tell myself, "Speak Portuguese!" but I can see already it's worth it.
The most important thing is to stick with it. Use that non-local language and make sure your kids are exposed! For me, it's as much about giving them a foundation as really expecting them to become fully bilingual from what we are doing. At the very least I think my kids would pick up a lot of Portuguese very quickly if they ever do get a chance to spend a significant amount of time in Brazil, because they have this base of understanding to build on. It's important to realize what your goals are, too, and try and keep them realistic. Even if you only speak a little bit of a language it can be worth it to let your kids hear it. Just don't expect them to speak the language fluently because of it! It will open their minds in other ways, though. And even though you may not follow the "rules" touted by most books on the subject about picking a specific method for using the languages with your kids, I know from my experience that your efforts won't be wasted even if you are less organized like I am!
This bit of advice has grown way too long, so I will be posting about the advantages other than the languages they learn and more questions about concerns and the specifics of it in another bit of advice! For now if you want to read a funny experience with language that I wrote about there is one here.
(April 2008) (
