Raising our kids tri-lingual?

Question

Hi, I thought I'd ask this question on the American boards since this is the most populated yahoo answers site(except maybe Chinese but I don't know Chinese). So I am from the UK. I was born speaking english and then married my Norwegian wife. We resided in Norway for a while and I became fluent(reading in writing) in Norwegian.

After some time in Norway my wife and I moved to Slovakia for work matters. After residing here for 3 years we are both fluent(reading and writing) in Slovak(ian). And this comming year we are going to move AGAIN, this time to France. We are also expecting a baby sometime in the future, while residing in France.

I really want my kid(s) to be fluent in Slovak and Norwegian. English they can learn at school or something, it's the language I really am not wanting to teach them(I don't wanna try and raise them qua-lingual). And since I have no family(other then my in-laws) I don't think English is a priotity. He/she will probably learn it in school or something.

So my how would one go about doing this? Should me and my wife switch off between languages? Or should she talk in one and I talk in the other(but wouldn't this confuse our child?). And to get our child to at least be able to read and write in the language, would the best way to do this is by reading him/her Slovak and Norwegian kid books? And then as he/she gets older give them harder and harder books? Obviously they won't be geniuses at those languages reading and writing wise. But they should be able to read and write fluently if I do this, right?

And french will be a given since we always go out and our child will pick up French. And with school and all. So can anyone give tips? Any of you guys raise your kids tri-lingual? thanks!

Answer 1

I think you're making a mistake - as an internationally important language, it will be FAR more useful for your kids to grow up able to speak fluent English than Slovak or Norwegian.

The best way to do this is for you and your wife to speak to your kids in your native languages. So you'd speak English to them, and your wife would speak Norwegian to them. And they'd hear French around them from everyone else. You don't teach kids from books. You teach them through everyday conversation.

Slovak, a language both of you learned as adults and have only spoken for three years, and you now don't live there? Not going to happen.

Answer 2

Nice!! This is going to be really great for your kids. It will give them lots of opportunities in the future, trust me. I raise my kids bilingually, with English and Japanese. I suggest repeating most things you say...in each language you want them to learn. Since you have multiple languages you want them to learn, it'll get tiring, but I've found it to be a very effective way. Like, I say to my kids, "Let's eat!" then right after, I say, "Tabemashou!" ("Let's eat!") Or sometimes I say, "Nihongo-de, 'tabemashou!'" ("In Japanese, it's 'let's eat!'"). Does that make sense? Good luck sweetie! You are giving your kids a GREAT thing!!!

Answer 3

Don't teach them by forcing grammar rules and vocab and forcing them to memorize and then testing them. They will just forget after the test. Teach them by letting them listen, and tell them to mimic. Tell them what it means too. Decide on which language is the most important to you, and teach them that first. Then when you teach them another language, you could use the first language to translate.

Answer 4

My family always gets foreign exchange students from Asia. They really help my son learn new language. They just say something in English and then repeat it in Thai/Japanese... .etc

He is three and can count to 5 in Japanese/Spanish/English/Japanese/and German.

Answer 5

I can't really help you because I'm 14 years old, but I just wanted to say I think it's so great that you are teaching your kids so much!I would have been so happy if i got to learn more than just english. You're awesome.

Answer 6

Its actually very good to teach your child to be trilingual because children who are taught to speak more than one language tend to be more advanced in speech and reading. My nephew speaks english and he is also very fluent in sign language. He is way more advanced over the other children in his class.