Bilingual baby

[karhu]

Hi there,

Want your advice on raising a bilingual baby!

Mom speaks Cantonese dad speaks Swedish,

 

[karhu]

Ooops....

Family language is English! Dads English is native so is moms! Better for mom to speak only Cantonese and dad to speak only English to the baby? And when both are around, would mom speak English or Cantonese to baby?

 

[carang]

while they say that the best thing for a bilingual child is to do just as you suggest: each parent speak one language.

the only problem with that is: how do the parents communicate to each other?

my hubby is chinese. i am canadian. i have always maintained that i would like for hubby to speak in cantonese to the kids, but in reality, hubby and i speak english to each other. he found it very difficult to switch back and forth and so, english has become the language of our house.

my in-laws only speak cantonese and so use that with the kids. it wasn't until my kids started in kindergarten that their chinese improved. we put them into a local cantonese kindergarten and now my son is in P2 in the chinese stream of a local primary school. to me, it was as important to be bi-literate as to be bi-lingual.

 

[matemate]

actually i would suggest that dad speaks swedish and mom speaks cantonese and you speak jointly english. they will pick up english anyway.

it's exactly what we did consistently (mom=putonghua, dad=german, joint+helper=english) and our boy is trilingual without any issues now

 

[karhu]

Can I ask if it was confusing that dad speak Cantonese and English although mainly English? And when dad and baby are alone, dad speaks Cantonese?

Trilingual - did it take baby longer to start talking in the beginning?

Thx

 

[carang]

My son took longer to talk but not my daughter. So long as you do not freak out about it, it should be ok.

Sent from my GT-I8150 using GeoClicks Mobile

 

[lesliefu]

We (parents) speak Cantonese to kids, helpers speak English....one of my kids has a speech delay and now at four, she's bilingual...though her english seems to be better...the other one is speaking more in english, but can do equally well in Cantonese. They go to a Cantonese/English speaking kindy...two teachers, same format as home...for some it may take a bit longer, but don't worry it'll come along, it has even for my speech delayed one.