We are a multi-cultural family living in the United States. We speak three languages at home: my husband and I speak to each other in English. My kids speak to me in Mandarin Chinese and speak to their dad in German. Ever since our oldest was born 6 years ago, we made the decision to raise our kids trilingual. The reason for us was simple. Both sides of our immediate families live overseas and can’t communicate in English. In order for our kids to bond with our families, they will have to speak our native languages. Since we had no plans to move out of the US, I knew that this decision was now or never. Speaking from my own experience, it will be much harder for them to pick up a minority language when they are older.
Fast forward to now, we have been living as a trilingual family for six years. My oldest son, who is in first grade now, can have conversations in all three languages fluently. The younger two are still primarily speaking Chinese and German at home but are quickly picking up English without us even trying. This is our setup: we only speak our native languages when we are speaking to the kids. Even when the other parent is around, we stick to our native languages and translate for each other when needed. We adopted the OPOL approach — one parent one language — which is usually regarded as the best method for multiple languages acquisition. All three of our kids adapted to this approach well while each of them developed their verbal skills at their own pace. Thinking back to our journey to raise our kids trilingual, here are a few things that worked well for us:
- Consistency: Raising kids multilingual is a long term commitment. Consistency is definitely the key factor for success. We adopted the OPOL approach since the day our oldest was born and never had a day as an exception. Now if I accidentally speak to my kids in English, they would make fun of me and say “why are you talking to me in English mama?” They hear my husband and I talk to each other in English every day but it feels weird if we speak English directly to them. It felt a little awkward in the beginning. I needed to get used to constantly switching between two languages. It was also challenging that we are only talking to the kids in a language that the other parent doesn’t understand. When one forgot to translate for the other, it could lead to some misunderstanding and miscommunications. This is a commitment from both of us and we knew what we signed up for. Once we passed the awkward stage, it actually felt natural and it’s just the way we live now.
- Immersion: We created an environment where they are immersed in the languages. The best part of starting this journey when they are young is that they are like sponges. They don’t know any language to begin with, so there is no need to translate for them or worry whether they understand or not. The only thing we do is speak to them as if they understand, in every daily conversation. I would read books to them in Chinese even when the books are in English (I translate them on the spot). When we played family games, we would explain the rules in both Chinese and German. For screen time, we find shows in Chinese/German. I’m always amazed by their ability in picking up the language. It’s like watching machine learning unfold in front of you. All three of our kids have no problem distinguishing these three languages. When they got a bit older, they even started translating for us from Chinese to German and vice versa. That’s when it’s really obvious to see how they acquired the languages through context and not from memorizing vocabularies.
- Make it fun: Even though this is our decision as parents, we want to make sure they enjoy it too. I have a lot of Chinese friends who were born in the US. The common theme I heard from them is how much they hated the Chinese school they used to attend as kids. Now as grownups, they regret not learning the language better. I wanted to make it fun instead of a chore for my kids to learn their languages. After all, they have three to learn! My expectations are quite low. There are no assignments, no curriculum and no pressure in speaking it perfectly. If they said something incorrectly or forgot a word, I would repeat what they said in the correct way as part of my reply. For example, if they said “he don’t like grapes”, I would just reply “oh he doesn’t like grapes? That’s too bad!” They would soon correct themselves without me even pointing it out. I believe that language is a tool of communication. It is perfectly ok to ignore the imperfections at young ages when the main goal is to learn how to communicate first. If I can make this process fun, they are more willing to continue speaking the languages. My goal for them is to comfortably have daily conversations in those languages and feel proud of being able to do so.
This journey has been fun and rewarding. People often comment on how amazing they think our kids are to be able to speak 3 languages. The truth is I believe every kid can do it. We are able to provide an environment and are committed to it. When other parents ask me how we do this, I always say we chose the laziest way. Instead of preparing lessons, looking for books/materials, we simply speak our native languages. It’s much harder for parents without this advantage. There are definitely challenges sometimes, but when we see our kids chatting with their grandparents and our friends, it makes this journey all worth it.
