Are you raising your child to be BILINGUAL?? suggestions please

I'm Indonesian, my husband is Dutch and we live in Scotland. So we try to teach our son three languages. Ever since he was a baby I only speak Indonesian to my son and my husband only speak Dutch to him and he learn English on his own from TV and now nursery. Now my son is two year old and he speaks all three languages well. I must say that English is his best language but I don't see that he has any problem understanding either Indonesian or Dutch. The key is to be consistence and try to speak only your own language to him, in my case just indonesian, (this is an advice that I got from one of our friend who has sucsesfully teach their kids several languages) I hope you can manage to teach different language to your kids...Good luck and all the best...xx

Bilingual is important. But the expert said that the kids below 3-5 years old better not speaking in bilingual, because will make the kid confuse to express the feel. And in 5 years old we can teach them one other language, and the expert said don't worry about that, because as long as they are still kid, they still can absorb the lesson, and learning fast. I have a niece who had trouble in speaking, because the parents acknowledge her with Chinese, German, and English language, and also Indonesian language (my sister can Chinese, English, Indonesian and brother in law can speak German and Indonesian) She is smart actually, but seldom to talk, until need the expert help in order to make her talking. And the parents should reduce to talk in different language in same time. Hope can help, the point is don't push the kids too hard, because their still can learn faster than us :)

If I will ever have a child I will definitely introduce him or her to other language especially the language that is widely use and other language that I think he will be interested. But first of all this, before introducing this kind of stuff to the child I should know first if he is really interested. I think knowing other language aside for your native language is a very beneficial from learning and socializing.

Just for some background, I don't have child, but if I did: I would try to speak to them in another language (I know Spanish and some Italian). I would love to hire a maid that spoke another language (such as French or Chinese). I believe it is important to learn other languages. They can come in handy when you least expect them to. Plus, the brain is said to develop more and as you know if they are speaking it at a young age they can learn so much more. I would encourage anyone to do that. If your husband speaks Spanish then perhaps you should speak in English and he should speak in Spanish. Have a nice day. Pablo

send your kids to a spanish school! a child need to speak in a language then he/she can master it. the child needs friend who he/she can speak to in spanish!

I think teaching your child a second or third language is just a great thing to do. You would think however, that it would be best for them to have a good grasp of their mother tongue before venturing off into another language. It could be disaster to speak to a child in two languages when they are two and three years old. That could be extremely confusing. Can you just imagine the conversations..... "Mom!! Je suis hungry!!!" "Mom!! Do you Amore me??" Or...."Mom! Got to go la poop!!" Well, you get the message. I think that's why we didn't start taking French in school back in my youth until grade 8. Just my thoughts on it. All I know for certain is, I wish I had taken the time to learn several languages.. English, French and Spanish would be the three I would learn if I had it to do over.

I am raising my granddaughter to be bilingual in Spanish, my boyfriend speaks it fluently and we are teaching her, she is almost 3 years old and she is doing great.

I am raising my baby son to be bilingual I speak French to him and his father speaks English to him ( He is American ) I am sorry that I can't give you any results yet since he is only 5 months old! But when we rae together I always to to him in French, sing lulabies in French and read french books ... and my husband does the same in English ... well, he doesn't sing though LOL WE just thnk that the baby will pick up the language since it will be linked with the daily activities My suggestion would be that you could find someone who does speak fluently the language you don't speak ... I had started a discussions a little while ago ... so you can check it out if you want to see what people answered ... I actually received tons of great advice www.mylot.com/w/discussions/675072.aspx and good luck to you

My daughter is in high school and is about to begin a language course. I am Encouraging her to take spanish as it is the second largest used language in the U.S.A . Like it or not that is the way that it is and the fact of the matter is that there are more employers looking for Bi-lingual leaders.

I also think that knowing more then one language is very important. And in our days English must be one of the languages. Everyone knows English. It is like a universal language, and those who don't speak English are in great disadvantage.

How old are your kids? I think it's better of you first teach them how to speak in English first, that way you, your husband and your kids can communicate well with each other. Later, as the children grow old you can teach them your Native Language.

Although I do not have any kids right now, my fiance is hispanic and we are both wanting to teach our kids spanish. I have seen how it has affected my wife's career and it is a huge benefit. I do not know the details on how and when to introduce the languages. My cousin is the same age as me and grew up speaking French when he was younger. He lived in Morocco and spoke other languages before he spoke english. Now I believe he can speak about 4 or 5 languages and he is only 21. I know I did not help very much but those are my thoughts on the subject

My daughter is 10 and fascinated by languages. She's learning Spanish in school and I'm trying to learn Cantonese so she's learning with me by osmosis. We tend to talk in all three languages at once which may or may not turn out to be helpful. I think it will be helpful for her to know more than one language. Where my generation could pretty much get by with just English, I suspect that is changing in most parts of America.

I will. I have a child on the way, and it seems we need to know more than one language, even if you live in a little redneck town like me.

I'm definitely teaching my kid to be bilingual - English and Chinese. It's hard though cos' I'm the only one speaking Chinese around here. I try to speak 100% in Chinese to him cos' I know he can pick up English easily from his Dad, TV and other people around him. He's 2 and he's slow in speaking words in either language but I was told that that is common for kids who are learning to be bilingual. But I know he completely understands both languages. I hope he'll pick up Spanish too when he's older. I think the more languages he knows, the better.

I say some things in english accompanied by spanish, like if points to a cat, I say "cat" "gato". This is what my best friend did, her children are older now and bilingual. I do admit that I'm slacking on the spanish part. My husband doesn't speak it, and it kind of makes him mad. But I feel it's important to him since we live in an area with a lot of hispanic children. When we go to the playground, he gets kind of confused sometimes when the mothers speak spanish to him, they speak a lot faster than me lol. My husband wants to learn his native tongue, so I have a feeling we might learn together as a family. My mother did that when she learned french. I don't remember much of it now, but I can tell you I picked up spanish a lot quicker than my classmates in school. Learning different languages makes it easier to pick up on things.

I live in Portugal, but was born in South Africa, English being my mother tongue and Portuguese second language. My husband is Brazilian, so the Portuguese is similar. Our (nearly) three year old speaks fluent English (for her age) and nearly fluent Portuguese (with an English accent). I speak mainly English to her, rarely Portuguese, only when I have to, this is when we are around Portuguese people and whatever language I speak to her I NEVER mix in words of the other language, otherwise children learn to do the same and mix their languages and often could get confused with this. My husband speak any of the two languages to her, he is also learning English. My daughter spoke only English until she was 2 1/2, then she started school and it was like switching on a light, her Portuguese started coming out, it was amazing! It is easier for children to learn more than one language and we should always start since they are babies, you might feel that your child is only learning the one language and it does get frustrating at times, but your child will get there, you just have to be persistant and never force her/him to speak one laguange over the other, she/he will get there eventually. It is good to teach your child more than one laguange, maybe three maximum (we are only teaching two), even if you think they will never need the language, do a search on the internet for the advantages of being bilingual. I hope you give it a try and be persistant in teaching your kids more than one language. All the best to you and your family!

I would rather raise a child bilingual. I agree with you that it's very beneficial. If you are living in Third World country, it is very beneficial if you know how to write and speak the English language fluently. Where I live, the process in getting a job has always been done in the English language. And most of the jobs being offered requires ability, if not fluency in speaking it. I would rather converse with my children in the English tounge in order for them to understand and learn the language. The movies they'll watch will be English movies.

My son can barely speak but I would like him to learn the languages that my husband and I speak. My husband speaks fluent Spanish and my native language is Filipino. We communicate in English. We were both taught two languages at home and learned other languages in school. I know a little Spanish and my husband speaks a little Italian. I speak to my son in Filipino and my husband speaks to him in Spanish. We speak in English when we're all together. I think it is important not to corrupt the languages by putting words from a different language in a sentence you started with another. I also encourage family members and friends to speak in their native languages. This way, the child would be accustomed to the unique sound of each language. Children learn quickly when they're taught early on. Whether they use this knowledge later on is their choice.

We are raising our little on with a bilingual language. My dh's family is mostly Americans and my side of the family are mostly Argentinians. Both sides of the families speak English and Spanish, but we want to make sure our lo gets the best of both worlds. What has been working for us is I speak to our baby in mostly spanish and my dh speaks to him in english. U have to keep in mind that our lo is only 6 months old, so we really don't know how it's going to work out, but we have friends that have used this approach and it's been working for them. It's def. worth a try. Good Luck