Having a Baby in France - What to do about language?

[FrenchMamma]

Hi,

I am an American that moved to France with my French husband over a year ago. We are expecting a baby in 4 weeks and are not sure what the best way is to raise the baby bilingual. I read that it would be best to speak English at home and then she will learn French when outside of the home. However, if we only speak to her in English, will she possibly learn enough French to be comfortable when the time comes to enters school? My French is horrible, so speaking to her only in French is not an option yet, haha. We plan on always living in France, but we do not want to shut the door on moving back to the USA one day. Also, we want her to be able to communicate with my family in the states - my mother finally learned how to use Skype video and expects to use it with her. [:D]

I read that the younger they are the better when learning two languages - I just cannot figure out how to accomplish it so that she will not be behind the others in France.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

[cooperlola]

I am not and have never been, a parent.

However... I am an aunt and all three of my nieces and nephews were raised in English speaking households here and  they speak superb French. Their freinds are all locals and they have fitted in really well. Their schooling and daily exposure to the language did, indeed, take care of it.

Likewise, two couples whom I know well here - one mixed and the other both English (one of whom, as you say you do, speaks lamentable French) and their kids fit in really well.  The clue seems to have been having been born here.  It just happened through day to day exposure even though all six of the adults mentioned above speak nothing but English at home.  You'll be amazed what the young soak up.  Even at the age of 9, I found I absorbed a huge amount of French just by spending a month with a French family.[:)]  I'm still reaping the benefits 45 years later.

[AnOther]

As an American should you not be considering tri-lingual [:D][:D][:D]

Just kidding and good luck with your journey into parenthood.

[M]

The 'standard' method is for each parent to speak to the child only in his/her mother tongue. So you would use only English, your husband only French. You might think this would cause some confusion, and it may do in the early stages, but the child's little brain soon sorts it all out.

M

[Hoddy]

My nephew and his French wife have adopted the method recommended by M. The little boy, now aged 4 , speaks an amazing mixture of French and English when in mixed company. Just recently he's started to correct his father's French. I could listen to him all day.

Hoddy

[NormanH]

My son's wife is Swedish and they have used the method of speaking their mother tongue only.

There are a few hiccoughs, such as when the eldest didn't like to hear her Mother speak in English to her English friends, but they soon wore off.

Whatever you do don't speak in a language you are poor in. That will only add to the confusion.

[Clarkkent]

The ability of small children to learn multiple languages is well known and well documented and well researched. I recall, as a psychology undergraduate 40 years ago, learning about Noam Chomsky's hypothesised Language Acquistion Device. According to Chomsky, we are "hard wired" to learn language.

A small child growing up in a bilingual environment will not acquire a first and a second language but two first languages. As others have said, speak to her in both languages, don't place any constraints on a preferred language and let her sort it out. She will. And your own French may improve, too.

[Albert the InfoGipsy]

My personal experience is based on bringing up three kids bilingual. My wife is French and we lived in England. Our policy was to speak French at home and to rely on the boys absorbing English from their environment. It worked with all of them.

When our eldest (David) was about 18 months old we were talking to the Anglo-French parents of a one year old about this. I demonstrated that David could distinguish between the languages and respond appropriately. I gave him an appl;e and asked in English what it was: 'Apple!' A few minutes later I did the same thing in French: 'Pomme!'

David always spoke to people in their own language, although at first he thought I was a francophone. When he was two and a bit we were looking at a picture book together and talking about it in French. There was a picture of a beaver and he asked me what it was. I had to say that I needed to ask Mummy and that was the day he realised I was not French but English. After that he automatically spoke to me in English.

All this made it a bit harder to apply the same methods with the other two, but we succeeded until Jerome, the youngest, realised that all the 'big boys' -- his brothers' friends -- spoke English and decided that French was distinctly uncool. Today the two eldest are effectively bilingual and Jerome still has a better level of French than the average Brit of his age and background.

[idun]

To the OP, I would say it is very important that you at least speak in english to your baby. I agree with NormanH, if your french isn't very good, stick to english. And stick to it even when your french improves. Your child will as has been said sort it out.

[Mr Ice-ni]

But who will teach the child to write English?

FM, you have achieved the best bit, it's downhill all the way now.

John

BTW I think it is well past time to introduce 2 new languages, American and Australian as English is fading fast.

[Chancer]

Fascinating to read, does it not cause these children any temporary anguish on their first day at school if they have never heard or spoken French?

Presumably it pays to put them in maternelle or a playgroup as soon as possible.

I have a friend who was born in Reading of Polish parents, possibly in a refugee camp, he told me of his horror to find that on his first day of school the children appeared to have come from another planet, a bit like my firts week in France although I was better equipped to cope with it.

I see the difference that even limited exposure makes to children, my good friend was my French teacher for 12 months, her children were aged 4 and 6 then, they are now 9 and 11, initially the poor darlings cried their eyes out to see mama closing the dividing doors to the lounge and talking some uncomprehensible code with a stranger whilst papa told them that they must not disturb us, they kept creeping in for re-assurance and it really moved me.

Before long they just ignored us and would be in the same room doing their homework as us during my lessons (my friend is a great multi-tasker!)but clearly they were absorbing the language, later on I would help them with their english homework and they love to greet me in English.

Not surprisingly they get very good notes in English, are at the top of their classes and the youngest one has even taken to correcting her teacher after consulting me first, mainly on pronunciation, this is something that I notice is markedly different between them, she has a fantastic accent and has no trouble at all learning new words and pronouncing them perfectly first time but she could not read when she was first exposed to the English language, he could read and was I think already learning numbers, days of the week etc at school from an institutrice probably with a French accent.

I find that several years on she still learns words by copying and pronounces them perfectly whereas he I believe creates a mental image of the spelling before pronouncing them.

I should add that since the lessons in the early days I have only spoken French to this family but she will often reply in English, the husband I suspected understood a lot of  English but other than the occasional "Thank you very much" 'which to me always meant a lot as I knew that by saying it that way it was from the heart) he has never spoken to me in English, it took him 5 years or so to overcome his reluctance and recently to my great surprise he has started sending me E_mails in English (we often correspond about things by E-mail) and his English is far better than my French, I guess he too has been absorbing the language.

I still reckon that the greater part of my learning has been done through absorbtion by not having access to UK television since my lessons stopped in 2007

[Albert the InfoGipsy]

[quote user="Mr Ice-ni"]

But who will teach the child to write English?

[/quote]

We taught our kids to read (in English) from about age 3 onwards using a flashcard method plus Ladybird books. All of them could read fluently before starting school. We wanted to include French as well but found it difficult to track down any suitable books.

As far as writing goes, I'd probably leave that until the child has mastered the mechanics of putting letters on paper at school. We never tackled that aspect and left them to learn French spelling and formal grammar through their secondary school classes. All of them got good grades at GCSE/Alevel in both languages, plus a couple of others. Only one can write French faultlessly now (all in their 30s); one (the only one with a degree in French) is pretty good and the youngest is still better than his UK contemporaries. 

I'd say that that one advantage of being brought up bilingual is that learning other languages is seen as more natural. Between the three of them they have qualifications or various levels of fluency in six other languages and Jerome is currently learning Thai.

[Albert the InfoGipsy]

[quote user="Chancer"]

Fascinating to read, does it not cause these children any temporary anguish on their first day at school if they have never heard or spoken French?

Presumably it pays to put them in maternelle or a playgroup as soon as possible.

[/quote]

If a child reaches the age of five without being exposed to the local language then you must live somewhere really isolated. Just accompanying Mum or Dad to the shops or wherever should ensure that they know that the world is not monoglot. Your Polish friend's experience strongly indicates that he may have been living in a refugee camp or similar enclave. I can remember Poles at primary school who switched perfectly automatically between speaking to their parents or to me, but they lived in ordinary homes in London..

Maternelle or playgroup would probably be a good idea, but if you are near enough to kids of about their age they'll sort things out anyway.

[KathyF]

My cousin is married to a German and they live in Germany.  They always adopted the policy of each parent speaking his/her native language to their daughter as she was learning to speak  and she has grown up totally bi-lingual.

[Joanna]

I have a South African friend who is married to a Frenchman, when she's alone with the children they speak Africaans, when he's with the children they speak Franch and when the family is together they speak English (her other "first" language).  The children are completely tri-lingual.

My children came here when they were primaire age and the youngest learnt to read in french at school, then started reading in English because I read to her in English.  Same with writing, first in French, then in English.  And of course she did go to English lessons and learnt grammar there.

There are studies that show that those speaking two or more languages regularly have a lower rate of Alzheimers and a higher IQ, don't know about the Alzheimers yet but in my (admittedly limited) experience English children seem to rise to the top level of the class disproportionately often given that there really aren't that many of them.

[FrenchMamma]

Wow! You guys gave me so much to think about!!! I was not expecting so many replies and advice. Sorry I have been away... been overwhelmed with back-to-back doctor appointments since I just entered my 9th month of pregnancy.

I read these posts over with my husband and it looks like we will speak mostly English at the home, but he will occasionally speak to her in French. We will also make sure to put her in school at 3 so that she really picks up on French before the age of 6. We will be moving to the south of France next year to a small village, but I will see if there is a playgroup to join.

When I was young, my mother did an excellent job in helping me to love school - I plan on doing the same with my daughter. She made learning fun by turning every day things into a learning experience. She read to me every night until I could read to her, we did science experiments on the weekends and she bought me learning games. I loved school so much that I earned my MBA when I was 21, hahaha. I will teach her how to read and write in English and my husband will read to her in French, so she will get a mix of both worlds. I guess we will play it by ear to see if we are confusing her with the two languages. I am also now picking back up on learning French so that I will be able to understand what my husband is telling her!

Thanks so much again for sharing!!! I will be bookmarking this string to refer back to. If anyone else has any more ideas, I would love to hear them.

[idun]

Playgroup? I do hope you find one, I never ever knew of one in my region never mind village or the local town or city.

[Hoddy]

Glad we were of some help FrenchMamma. Good luck with the baby.

Hoddy

[Joanna]

Hi French Mamma,

Well I have had 2 children here in France, but my situation is slightly different from yours as both my husband and I are English.

We speak English at home, but I try to read to mine in both languages and we try to mix with plenty of French people so our children hear us making a (bad!) effort with the language. My daughter started nursery at 2, she is 6 now and it's fair to say she has had a slight disadvantage to the others in her class with the language and her vocabularly is inferior to her peers. Having said that, she is coming on leaps and bounds and I can see the French is catching up very fast. The tricky thing to consider is by speaking mainly English at home, your daughter will perhaps be a little slower in the first few years, but as she gets older she will be confidently bilingual. I know of people who opted to immerse themselves solely in the French and some of their children lost the English altogether or got to an age where they didn't want to talk English at all.

I have a couple of English friends with French husbands and they tend to have each parent speaking their first language..believe me the children's brains cope with it perfectly! I would think you have a wonderful opportunity to immerse your daughter in both languages from birth.

If you are anywhere near the Correze, please do get in contact...I have run a mother and baby group for 5 years and we have all nationalities.We love to chat about issues such as the one you have raised here!

Kind regards and welcome to France!

[LAiffricaine]

[quote user="FrenchMamma"]Hi,

I am an American that moved to France with my French husband over a year ago. We are expecting a baby in 4 weeks and are not sure what the best way is to raise the baby bilingual. ......
I read that the younger they are the better when learning two languages - I just cannot figure out how to accomplish it so that she will not be behind the others .....[/quote]

Just go with the flow .... I am French married to a Brit (who doesn't speak anything else but English) and we live in Wales. I spoke French to the kids, their father spoke English and once they started school they were taught Welsh.

My in-laws spoke in English and nothing else and the children replied in English.

My parents were rarely spoken to, as internet/Skype had just barely been thought off and the ease of travelling with budget airlines was at the same state of affair (I am going back to the early 1980's). French was spoken by the grandparents and the replies were in French (be it a little stultified with much help from me).

My daughter didn't speak to anyone at home until about 7yrs old as she insisted on speaking, and being spoken to, in Welsh. We just ignored her tantrum and carried on in English and all was well. She is now a teacher at a primary school in London and abhors the Welsh language. She has no plans to settle back in Wales. She gets quite annoyed when English is badly written and spoken by her pupils and she relies on me to translate when we go over to France to visit my parents.

My son was and is and forever will be a chatterbox. He is now learning chichewa, a localised Zambian language to communicate with his workforce. He had to learn to speak Russian when he worked for over 2 and 1/2 years in Armenia. When at home on leave he speaks Welsh to his old school friends with whom he has kept contact. And on his last trip to France, about a month ago, spoke to his French grandparents in a quite competent French. Indeed his French was quite useful to him and his colleagues when they were stuck in transit for 3 days in Senegal from Zambia to Mauritania on one of their mining prospection trip (he is a mining geologist). None of the others spoke anything else but English or Afrikaan.

So... some have the knack for languages and others don't.

Whatever you choose to do : Don't get paranoid about teaching one language over the other, just go with the flow and the kids will sort it out themselves.