Bringing up kids bilingual

[Frankie abbot]

Ok thanks for the info..

[mvgrogan]

Finding books in English can be difficult and expensive in Finland

I sell children's books in english in Finland - good quality & affordable, too.... PM me for more details


I have a bilingual 3 year old. We moved from UK in April 07, she was 16 months old at the time and before that she heard only english - my husband wouldn't speak finnish to her for some reason - anyway since then we speak english as a family, they speak finnish between themselves and she uses english and finnish at playschool. It's the Finnish-American Playschool and they have one english teacher (not american) and one finnish teacher and each uses their own language with all the children, so they learn both... it works really well.

My finnish is poor and my daughter's is now far better than mine I was hoping to keep up with her and learn as I went along (I have had lessons, so I do know the basics - I just don't practise!) but she's now getting ahead of me and having conversations I can't follow!

Her english is still excellent and she's not likely to lose it as it is literally her "mother" tongue!

I also have an 8 week old son... he gurgles

[santtu1979]

Children that can speak two languages are very lucky!
And yes they learn easily...
In our case (I am pregnant) I will speak my mother toungue (Italian) and my husband will speak Finnish (we speak each other English).
I couldn´t think that my child is not able to comunicate with my parents and cousins and realtives in Italy....
It will be very hard for me (cause I will never speak a single word in other language than Italian to my child) and here there are not Italian day care or school...just International school.
Just to make you smile:
We have a dog (I know dog is a dog): with her I speak Italian (and she follows my instructions) and my husband speaks Finnish (and it works!!)
So cheer up!
everything is going to be all right.

[anaf505]

Hey!!

Im pregnant and i'm thinking about speaking my mother language (portuguese) with baby when im alone or my husband is not talking with baby and in his same situation he speaks finn. When we are together, we speak english because we talk only in english im still trying learn finn !! it will be difficult

[anaf505]

Yes somehow i think it will be little bit, maybe at beggining because my finnish is really ... bad. I study it but of course i have long way still. About my mother language, just i want my kid learn as i want he learns finnish too. Sometimes i just think it could "confuse" his mind, but i have been reading about many families and it works with 3 language so... let's see

[littlefrank]

Haven't read all the posts fully, but we had a bit of a worry about my daughter with school work, was booked to see the special needs teacher, once she found out my daughter was bilingual, we were told that bilingual children often lag behind a little, but do catch up quite easily, which her teacher said she is now doing.

When my daughter was young, one thing that helped her learn english was making 'mistakes' in english, e.g. I would say when I was dressing her to go out 'put this hat on your feet otherwise your feet will get cold' she would laugh and say, 'that doesn't go on my feet, that goes on my head.'

I always read english bedtime stories to my daughter and chatted a while before she went to sleep, children will always want to chat a lot when it's time to go to bed.

[littlefrank]

Haven't read all the posts fully, but we had a bit of a worry about my daughter with school work, was booked to see the special needs teacher, once she found out my daughter was bilingual, we were told that bilingual children often lag behind a little, but do catch up quite easily, which her teacher said she is now doing.

Don't know the school your daughter goes to but it's a benefit that the eritysopettaja meets with your daughter. It doesn't hurt (even if they believe that bilingual kids lag behind) because the child gets some extra attention which benefits the child in many ways!! You don't say but I'm assuming that the teacher means that bilingual kids are lagging behind in reading/writing and not in maths or sciences?

Yes it's just reading and writing,she has no other problems, good at arts, maths etc, there's definitely no behavioural problems, quite the opposite in fact. The teacher does give her extra tuition with a few others and she seems to be catching up well, so they think it's not a problem for the special needs teacher to be involved with, but I think some parents might start to worry about dyslexia etc, my ex did. so just thought I'd mention the 'lagging behind' so other parents do not worry.

[JasonDansie]

Hi.. I haven't posted here before. I'm a native Finnish speaker and my husband (who's account this is) is American. We have four children between the ages of 3 and 7. We moved back to Finland from the States about a year and a half ago. We had great intentions of teaching the kids Finnish while we lived in America but that never happened. When we moved here our oldest son started in Finnish kindergarten and he really didn't know any Finnish at that point. The other kids
started in Finnish Day Care a few months later. They all speak Finnish quite fluently now, understand it 100%. They prefer English and we still speak English at home but I have also started to speak Finnish with them. It's probably a big no-no to switch languages like that but despite all that they are all doing so well. They don't speak perfect Finnish yet but they will learn it by the time they all start school. Our oldest is doing Kindergarten twice partially due to the language issues but he also seems to be developmentally a little behind which could be from the stress of the big move a year ago that turned his world up-side down.
I've heard from many people that their children start talking later but it will come. And I fully and completely believe that my kids will still be completely bilingual even though they didn't get it right from the get-go.

Stina

[EP]

It's probably a big no-no to switch languages like that

You should stick to Finnish and Finnish only when you speak to them (should have from the beginning). You can still have English as a family language. Usually in bi-lingual families there is a mummy-language and a daddy-language.

[oompah18]

I am so excited that I have to add my bit here too! AT LAST all 3 boys (3,5 & 7) are talking English with me & Finnish to my Finnish hubby. When they play together they mix & match in Finnglish. My eldest spoke mainly English 99% of the time till he started first grade last August. He picked up a lot in esikoulu., but wasn´t totally all there. But now, he is one of the lads, & has friends he can communicate with, at last! My younger boys love to try & speak Finnish to, because they hear eldest speak it with our family friends etc. There was me, so worried for these past 7 years, that my kids would only speak English & never be understood. So, hang in there, kids DO really learn fast! The funny thing is that they learn their christmas carols from me, in English. When I try to help them learn the Finnish ones, I just play the tunes & la the words, my Finnish pronunciation is too awful. My hubby can´t sing a note in tune, so he reads through the words with them & they sing in Finnish while I la & play the piano along, hilarious, but now they know many xmas songs in both languages
my 1 yr old can say 2 real words, head in English & nena in Finnish!!!!

[RA]

Great news Oompah! Congrats!!

Cory--- when I speak Finnish on the phone no-one says anything about my Finnish other than I'm prob'ble from Savo, but when I appear in person I almost always magically develop a foreign accent or korostus duh I do tend to wonder...

My daughter is now 4 and her English has improved sooooo much. She was home with me from June to October and now since we had the baby 4 months now, she only goes to daycare twice a week... Her Finnish is still the dominant language I'd say, but she does chatter away in English now Which makes me really happy.

We've also been debating how to work around introducing another language... sign language. or rather..there's a bit of a mind-boggling situation over Finnish/American/British sign language. The 4 year old has picked up quite a number of signs (FSL) and is incredibly interested in it. I have a few guides but they're ASL and what's available here is only FSL. Anyone have any experience with this?

[onkko]

Cory--- when I speak Finnish on the phone no-one says anything about my Finnish other than I'm prob'ble from Savo, but when I appear in person I almost always magically develop a foreign accent or korostus duh I do tend to wonder...

IIRC you are neekeri or mulatti?
It is to me hard to "accept" when negro or japanese speaks clear finnish in my dialect, thats just not normal so my brain takes few rounds thinking about it
I have seen both and both were "taken as child" so they were just weird looking locals but it still took some time to understand it since what i see and what i hear really were against each other
Eyes say "cant speak finnish" and ears say "local", goddammit

In one hunting trip i were scared when black man came, i were only one knowing some english... He spoke fluent savo and i had short circuit in my brain

[RA]

juu ihan aeto savo sitä viännettään vaek ei olla ihan yhtä vualeita kun nuapurin emäntä. Näin se muailmaa vuan kasvoo, vae mitä?

[onkko]

juu ihan aeto savo sitä viännettään vaek ei olla ihan yhtä vualeita kun nuapurin emäntä. Näin se muailmaa vuan kasvoo, vae mitä?

Ohase kummaa ko ite sinne matkustin aikanahan ja puhuvat aiva ouvosti ja oli net vähä erinäkösiä ko met mutta karkuhun pääsin
Lappalaista poekee net ois mielellähä opastanu ko luulivat ettei pärjää, molenki kovempi ko ne luulee

[onkko]

Täytyy kyl tunnustaa että olin ko siinä vaiheessa ko piti jatkoo ettiä, mistä mä oisin tienny että mite ne pussit menevät
Apua kysyin ja sitte iski savolaiset ko laps oli hädäs
Uskovat lopulta ett isä oottaa toises pääs eli ei hätää.