Language Confusion for 16mth old

fennho

fennho

Registered User
Since birth i've always speak Mandarin to my gal, who is now 16 months. My mom speaks Cantonese to her and Mandarin as well. My husband was supposed to speak to her in English but most often than not (with the little time he has with her aft he knocks off from work), he joins me and speaks Mandarin to her as well. As a result, altho she's not speaking yet, her understanding of Mandarin language is very good. She can act on our instructions in Mandarin very well. As for English, i think she can understand us as well, perhaps not as good as Mandarin though.

The thing is i have heard that it's good for the parent to continue speaking to the child in one language. But of late, as i'm her main carer, when i bring her for some playgroup classes, which is conducted in English, i have to talk to her in English and sometimes i'm not sure if she's confused why Mommy suddenly switches and talking to her in English? I tried telling her, prior to the class that "mommy will be talking to u in English now ok?" I'm worried this will confuse her even more and delay her talking even more. I thought of bringing her to a total Mandarin playgroup but also worried that too many classes will be too stressful on her?

Anyone has had the same experiences?

Opinions pls? Thanks a lot!
 
No experience yet, but have read looked into this a fair bit since we will try to make our own son bilingual. There are actually a few expert opinions out there but the one we will follow is similar to what you are doing. But I think you have to be stricter about it. You speak only Mandarin to her, your mother speaks only Cantonese, your husband only English. It sounds like everyone is speaking a bit of everything so how can she learn like that and differentiate between any languages?
The playgroup thing is a bit tough... maybe you could switch your language to English? but that means you would only be able to speak English to her.
Apparently the child will be slower in all the languages at first but will catch up soon. But you have to separate the languages or else it will be too confusing for her.
 
I dont think i'd want to switch to total English with her cos she's very comfy with me talking to her in Mandarin now. But yah, the playgroup is tough cos hubby works (i'm SAHM) and i'm the only one bringing her to playgroups but the fact that the playgroups are conducted in a language that's not the same as the one i use to communicate with her is making me wondering what should i do? :(
 
if the playgroup is in english, then speak english. it will be a little confusing, and may delay her a little, but in the long run it doesn't really matter.

my son didn't really speak until he was 2.5 and even then it wasn't full sentences (in english). he could understand cantonese, but never wanted to speak it. we put him in a cantonese kindie when he was 3.5. he now understands most of it but he ONLY speaks cantonese to his grandma and grandpa. he even refuses to speak it to my husband (who tries, but like your hubby sometimes falls into using a different language, in our case english). we will put our boy into full day kindie next september to ensure his foundation in cantonese is good.

my daughter, on the other hand has been speaking full sentences since she was 22 months. her english is AMAZING with a vocabulary of well over 700-800 words! her chinese is slower, but she tries a lot harder than her brother does. she will talk to hubby in chinese if he pushes her. her understanding is not too bad either.

children at 16 months don't understand that there is more than one language. that doesn't happen until about 2-2.5 years. before that, they just think that there are different names for things, not realising that one name is one language and the other is a different language.

the long and the short of it is this: you are doing a great job! keep it up!
 
I guess I am in the minority, I don't think it will confuse her. She's very young, children that age don't actually understand that early that they're using two completely different language systems.

I don't think you need to be 'strict' about it or even worry about it. Just speak English at the playgroup, which probably feels like the natural thing to do anyway, since everyone else will be speaking in English. I also don't think it will delay her language development at all. How can input in English, especially given that she already understands English, delay development?

Relax and don't stress about it. You're doing great!
 
My son is now 27 months. I speak to him in english all the time and my husband is a local so he speaks to him in cantonese and English, so does my husband's parents, siblings and nieces and the locals that we met day to day. He did not speak any cantonese or did he understood at all cantonese but out of sudden, at 2 years old, he was speaking cantonese so perfectly. Also i have a few Mandarin speaking playgroup moms so we speak a lot of Mandarin, he picks up and speak well too and he switches very quickly from english to cantonese to mandarin. And now i am teaching him Malay and he now knows all the words that i taught him in Malay and few words of tagalog from our Filipino friends! so i don't think he is confuse, infact, he knows what language to speak to who and it is so cute to see him switching one language to another in such tender age. having say that, i speak a few language as well so probably he gets it from me!
 
thanks everyone

Mscheerful
That's the thing, u speak english ALL the time TO him rite? He picks up other languages from others. I heard and read yr confusion comes when the one person speaks mixture of languages to the baby. Thus the delay. I guess since u all say they can't differentiate different languages yet, all the more she's confuse like one minute mommy told me this is "hua" (mandarin) and the next minute she says this is a FLOWER. So which one is it huh? :)

Koan, cara
Thanks for the reassurances. I know my gal understands a lot in Mandarin cos when I give her complicated instructions, she understands! Just feel like I'm confusing her when I talk to her in English in the playgroups
 
fenho, that is the amazing part baby when come to language! for example, my son can point to the eye and say: "eye, yan jing (mandarin), mata (malay) and ngan (cantonese) or car, che (cantonese) and cheh(?) in Mandarin. Dont worry, she will amaze you soon with the language that she will be speaking. she will turn to u in Mandarin and english to her dad or helper or contonese to her contonese speaking friends. we have so many kids in our playgroup speaks cantonese or mandarin and when they come to the playgroup, they just switch to english. one little girl is so quite in switching from cantonese to english although she speaks no english in sentence but with colours, shapes and things around in the playroom.

i don't speak english all the time to my son. I speak more on english, and speak a lot in mandarin and fair amount of cantonese and little Malay. He is surely not confuse but enjoy it so much.

go with the flow at home and do what is best for your girl.
 
Interesting thread.

I speak Cantonese to my daughters, almost 100% of the time, but since I cannot read or write Chinese, I read 80% of stories to them in English (i make the other 20% up in Cantonese if the story is very simple). Their father speaks to them in English. Other people speak either English or Chinese depending what they speak. My daughters are now 2.5 and very fluent in English, Cantonese and are learning Mandarin. They watch 20-30 minutes of DVD everyday in Cantonese and no other TV/DVD.

They didn't realise till recently they spoke 'two' languages, they simply said Mummy says "....." and Daddy says "...."

When they talk to each other, they do mix up the language but nothing has the wrong meaning. When they talk to strictly English speakers, they only use English. When they talk to Cantonese speakers, they only use Cantonese.

They KNOW I speak English as I talk to their father, their teachers, other mums etc. in English.

There are times when I'm reading them a story in English (eg Alice in Wonderland) and they will point at the pictures and tell me what is happening in Cantonese hahahahahhaa

Oh and about that playgroup thing where they insist you speak English? I used to WHISPER cantonese into my daughters' ears. hahahaha These days, I take them to mygym and since they do not insist parents/caregivers speak English, I'm very comfortable talking away in Cantonese (even translating the English!) to my daughters :)

oh and the cutest thing, they sometimes translate between my husband and I (they tell me in Cantonese what daddy said to them hahahahaa)
 
my son kai, (15mths) also gets a mix of languages spoken to him. we speak mandarin, cantonese, teochew, malay and english to him. he hasnt spoken clearly, still blabbing, but definitely understands somewhat. for eg, i'll ask him if he wants to go to his room read a book in english or mandarin and he will respond by going to his room to get a book. he associates "cho cho" (smelly in mandarin) and skunk (equivalent to the work smelly for him)

the thing is, when we speak to him, we make eye contact and somehow the tone and gesture is similar. that's how we "link" the languages up. it's not by conscious effort though. it's something i observed.

and i remember growing up this way too, in a multi language household. i could understand everything but i din speak them all. it wasnt stressful (i dun remember it as stressful) it was a way of life for us. the stress only came when i had to go to school and reading and writing were tested. that's another story.

you are doing a great job, seriously! heh
 
Glad to see this multilingual thread!

My boy is 14month-old now. As of now, since birth, I have been speaking to him in ONLY English, my husband, and my parents-in-law visit frequently speak ONLY Cantonese, the helper speaks Malay. I wanted to introduce Manadarin too, but thought to stick to the widely believed one-person-one-language theory. Eventually I'd definitely want him to pick up Mandarin too, just the matter of how to start introducing it and when...

I was a full-time working mom until 2.5 months ago. So, he was exposed to Malay (with my helper) most of the time. Now that I am staying home all day with him, English has become more like his main language, next comes Malay and Canto.

I have a few questions, and hope you share your thoughts: :thanks

1: Despite I speak ONLY English to him, but I speak other languages to others with his presence (Eg., Canto with my hubby and parents-in-law, Malay with my helper). I am not sure if this is doing any harm?
Any moms doing this too?


2: May I know those in more than 2 or 3 languages with the kids, when do your kids start talking?? (utter words properly, trying to put in short sentense)

Look forward to hear from you moms...
Cheers,
 
Well I'm half Chinese and half English and my parents spoke to each other in English and it has not impaired me or any of the other Eurasian kids I knew growing up in the same situation..... So presumably it wont affect our children 'negatively'
 
My understanding from the scientists that study language development is that children that grow up in a bilingual (or trilingual) environment are almost always delayed in starting to speak, but end up catching up just fine.

You can google language development bilingual, or bilingual language delays, or similar search terms, and you'll probably turn up some interesting articles.

Sadly, we're boring old English speakers, and our kids are struggling with Mandarin (not even attempting Cantonese yet)- be glad you've got all the skills to give your kids the benefit of multiple languages!
 
my son did. i don't think he talked full, proper sentences until he was almost 3. my daughter has been talking in full proper sentences since she was 21 months....
 
I speak only English to my son whilst my hubby & all relatives speak Cantonese. My son is now 9 months old and he can understand some words in English, e.g. Water (he opens his mouth), Music (he looks at the hi-fi), Shake-Shake (he shakes his hand). In my & my hubby's family, apart from my sister-in-law, nobody speaks English to my son. The only chance for my son to be exposed to English is when he is with me or with my sister-in-law and when I take him out to see my English-speaking friends. The community language is Cantonese so I don't worry about his development in Cantonese/Chinese as it will be his mother-tongue (despite his mom speaking English to him). Will he mix up with English & Cantonese? I don't know yet but I am confident that he can manage (or at least understand) two languages even if, as I have well prepared, he may refuse to "speak" the minority language English. I am told by experts that as long as your kids has 'passive' understanding of a language, you don't need to worry too much whether they speak it or not. When they realise there is a need to speak it, they will and they can. Hmmm.. hope the experts are right. I am however very anxious to see the language development in my son who is being raised in such an "imbalanced" bilingual environment and I hope I can have more mums in the same boat to share their experience & views.
 
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oxjess, my kids have been in an imbalanced environment as well...however, ours is slanted towards the english. (even though hubby tries to speak chinese...) i have found that in order for my son to actually want to speak chinese, i had to send him to a chinese kindergarten.

now, he has full-on conversations with his "ma ma" (grandma) about stuff that i can't even tell what they are talking about. HE'S the translator for me! what a difference 6 months can make~
 
My son is now 27months old and grows up trilingual. I speak exclusively German to him, Daddy speaks English and Grandparents speak Cantonese. He understands all three languages and picks up words from all three. His speech development is delayed, so is in all multilingual children, that's normal. But he is catching up more and more now. He only needs to hear a word once and says it immediately. It is important though that you keep it clear to the child who speaks which language and be consistent, otherwise they will get confused. Kids are naturals in regards to language so enjoy them becoming especially smart :D
 
this is an interesting thread...just attended a conference on bilingualism and language acquisition yesterday and how some interesting findings to share...according to research:

1) Bilingual children will have a delay in speech, however, this delay is not something to worry about in the longrun as it does not impair their cognitive development. because they have a smaller vocab. in each of the languages they speak / listen to, it just takes them longer to get started...if you know what I mean.
2) bilingual children are supposedly better off since the two languages helps in their cognitive development in the long run - they will be better able at solving two tasks, because they are constantly doing that from a young age already...deciding which language to use and what means what in what language....
3) bilingualism actually provides the foundation for attention, and early bilingualism has a profound effect on language and cognitive development. though there are some language delays (which are insignificant in the long run) research shows that bilingualism shapes development of a child.
4) actually there is a book - The Bilingual Child by Veronica Ip and Stephen Matthews, that talks about not having to have one parent speak one language to avoid confusion, but rather ensuring that the environment is sound for language usage. their point being that you can never actually give your kids 50/50of each language, some days you will have more or less of each language and so long as the kids are exposed to it, they will learn.

Finally, for parents worried about language delays (I'm one!) receptive language is much easier to learn than expressive language. in order to be able to express oneself, you need to be exposed to the word / vocab at least 12 times before it can be remembered by the learner (any learner), more importantly though, the 12 times needs to be in context so that there is meaning associated with it, rather than it just being a single word that has literally "fallen from the sky"...

So....just talk more and read more stories is at least what I'm doing...my daughter definitely understands more than she can express, I'm getting feedback...unfortunately not in anything understandable though (well, understandable to me only)....

Good luck to you all! :)
 
Yes, Cara, I think if you WANT your kids to speak Chinese, the only way to get it achieved is by sending them to a local kindergarten where your kids are surrounded by local kids speaking the local language. I wonder, if your husband speaks ONLY Cantonese to your kids and you English, they will at least understand Cantonese even if they refuse to speak it, won't they?!? Kids are smart (and lazy of course) - they know whether there is a need or not for them to speak the language and they will pick an easy way. Having heard so many stories from bilingual families, I know I have to prepare myself for one day very soon my son will answer me in Cantonese despite a question posed in English by his mum. He does it simply because he knows his mum can understand Cantonese! As far as I know, kids are clever enough to tell what language is what when they reach around 3 - the problem you have to deal with is whether they are willing to speak 2 or 3 languages as much as you want them to.
One question: as your kids are raised in English environment, how did they feel/cope when you sent them to a local kindergarten? Were they happy from day one?

Tini: Are there anyone apart from you speaking German to your son? What language,among 3 language, your son is particularly good at? Which language your son is exposed to the most since he was born? I work full time 5 days a week so on weekdays I can only speak to him an hour in the morning then another hour in the evening. He is exposed to Cantonese most of them time except on the weekends when I am with him all day. That's why I am surprised with so much joy to note my son understands some English words as I mentioned earlier... :))
 
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