Quadlingual: Good or bad?

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RA · Post by RA » Mon May 11, 2009 6:07 pm

I grew up with 4 languages and I don't think I'm messed up

My dad spoke Finnish to me, mom spoke Kikuyu, they spoke English together- we lived in Finland till I was 4. Then came in Swahili and nursery school was in English as was school later on. The Finnish sort of dwindled from then on, but I'm fluent in the other three now and after spending numerous childhood holidays in Finland and eventually moving back here my spoken Finnish or savo is almost fluent, writing could do with some sorting out though. Started French at school at age 7, and that's pretty strong too though, but that came more with staying and working for a bit in France.

Know a family whose languages are Polish and Arabic, they each speak their own languages to their daughter and they speak English together. She attended Finnish language daycare (they moved away from Finland). She spoke each parent's language to them and understood English pretty well (never heard her speak it), and she played pretty well in Finnish with my daughter.

My god-daughter started out with three languages: Spanish, Finnish and English. Spanish to mom, Finnish to dad and since the parents spoke English to each other she started out at English daycare. That went well for a while, but she began to have problems with both English and Finnish, they got a recommendation to drop the English and focus on Finnish, so she transferred to Finnish daycare and from there on to Finnish school. She's doing pretty well in Finnish and Spanish now and looking back it was a good idea for them to drop the English. She began English recently at school and she's been pretty quick to pick it up and understands it pretty well.

It's not an easy task having more than one language, but possible. Good luck!!

Amandine.K · Post by **Amandine.K** » Mon May 11, 2009 6:56 pm

Not impossible but it's better if you stick to one language when addressing your kid. She might be very confused as to when to talk to you in Danish or Vietnamese.

Rosamunda · Post by **Rosamunda** » Mon May 11, 2009 10:30 pm

My kids have grown up with four languages. They were born in France and had a French nanny until they went to school (which was a French Ecole Maternelle). I spoke French to them at home but English to my husband who tried to use Swedish with them but he was travelling so much they just didn't get enough of it. When we moved to Hungary they went to an American school and their dominant language switched from French to English. When we moved here they started learning Finnish. It has been really messy and if we had the chance to start over again I would definitely try and keep to "one parent, one language" (me speaking English and my husband speaking either Swedish or Finnish). The biggest mistake was when my husband tried to talk to the kids in his version of French

. There were lots of other issues too (the eldest had some difficulties learning to read).... and of course, at the time, we were not planning on moving to Finland, so weren't too worried about the Swedish/Finnish. But now they are older and seem to be muddling through OK.

raamv · Post by **raamv** » Mon May 11, 2009 11:29 pm

Kids can pick up to 5 languages..
But only in a structured way and that they understand that there is one language being used by the speaker..
I ve now slowly introduced my mother tongue ( speaking them only in English for now as one of my languages ) through pictures and songs..
and they ve picked up many words..for which I ve added meanings..
They picked up bits and pieces of Swedish slowly and are now understanding the fact that there are many languages and some people can only speak some..
So its possible..
But needs to be done in a structured way!!

RA · Post by RA » Tue May 12, 2009 8:30 am

Amandine.K wrote:Not impossible but it's better if you stick to one language when addressing your kid. She might be very confused as to when to talk to you in Danish or Vietnamese.

Unless you do it in a structured way. Some previous posts on bilingualism had some good advice from Cory, use one language in a different setting... one language for when you're at home, one language when you're at another place etc.

I always knew/know when my mother is really really mad... she'll say... no ... shout the same thing in three languages! Then we knew things were really serious and we better do as we were told. We kids used to laugh about this... till I noticed that I did that a couple of times with my daughter

Pursuivant · Post by **Pursuivant** » Sat Jul 04, 2009 10:49 am

I think what prevails is the "school language" which the kid attends, usually they bang the grammar in there rather than learning at home as parents seldom remember to explain this is the past conjuctive participle in the authoritaritative tense. So at some point and time they need a "proper grammar class" which is then difficult to find as they "know stuff" and will get bored to death starting from "Hello, my name is Joe what is yours?". I can speak several languages and read some, but to write or read books for fun I just use 2... if I *have* to I can, but say I don't have maybe half a dozen German books and they're auto manuals and nothing in Swedish except a grammar and a dictionary.

Mook · Post by **Mook** » Sat Jul 04, 2009 1:28 pm

I have some friends that have worked in international schools around the world. Apparently the often come accross children with no "mother toungue" at all, who can't really communicate properly in any language. This is usually the result of parent with two different languages (not english), who communicate together in English and who live in a country that has yet another language. Country moves introduce different langauges and... So, if you try for tri or quad, you might end up with none!

oompah18 · Post by **oompah18** » Sat Jul 04, 2009 10:50 pm

I agree with Mook! I taught at an international school in Swtizerland where there were English classes & French classes, but not dependant on the mother tongue, I mean for example non-French speaking kids were put into the French class to learn French, (along with mothertongue French kids) but at home they spoke German or even Norwegian & Finnish in some cases, & some kids had say German speaking parents, French speaking grandparents & went into the English speaking classes at school & some got completely mixed up, & some just didn´t speak anything to anyone, for about a year, some parents told me! Then I came along, speaking french to them all, with my Berkshire "Queen`s English" accent, to confuse them even more, poor kids.... But of course, when they are older, I expect they really would appreciate having such language skills...

fabi77 · Post by **fabi77** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 1:52 pm

I think you have gotten pretty good advise so far.

We have a similar situation as you regarding number of languages. I speak Spanish (as mother tongue) and English with my husband and at work, my husband speaks Dutch (as mother tongue) and also English of course. None of us speak good Finnish at all, but my son is learning it very fast from Finnish daycare. He communicates fairly well in Spanish to me, in Dutch to dad and in Finnish to those who speak Finnish to him. But we have not introduced English to him, we think he will get it eventually from school and from listening to us. He is 2 years and 2 months years old, and just about a month he has started to build sentences in all three languages.

In any case we have decided as a family (because none of us have Finnish relatives actually) that if we move to another country, it has to be one where they speak either Spanish, Dutch or English. I would not like to be on a situation described by Mook.

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