my baby mixed up German & English, does anyone have advices?

[richardcam]

Hi everybody,

I seek for your advices and experiences. Please help.

My 2,5+ year-old daughter is the mixed baby of German and Vietnamese. I always talk Vietnamese with her and her dad and other people do German. She hasn't ever mixed up Vietnamese and German when talking with us.

We've started Little Reader for around 2 months. My baby is interested in learning this and gain lots of words. At the beginning, when showing her the words, I also explained her the meaning in Vietnamese. Recently, I've started talking English to her. I've asked her a few questions but she's answered me in German. This problem doesn't happen when I speak Vietnamese, but English.

German & English are prettey similar, even the pronounciation and writing. For example: i pointed to a cat and asked 'what is that' (in German it is 'was ist das', sound very similar), instead of answering me 'cat', she said 'katze' which means 'cat', and then started talking German to me.

I don't know yet what to do in this case, so i seek for your help, guys. has anyone experienced such a problem and and solved it out? Please advise me.

Thanks & have a nice day.

Cam

[MamaOfWill]

I'll bet she knows the difference between German and English very well, I don't think she's confused at all, it's just that her German is a lot stronger than her English.

I would say, continue giving her opportunity to use English (without expecting it or forcing it in any way) it might take 6 months to a year before she starts talking English back to you.

It's not a problem at all, the way I understand it, the first steps in language acquisition is understanding the language, but using the language come at a later stage.  You'll aid her in giving her instructions in English (almost like a Simon says game), so she can respond without having to answer.   Also, continue the conversation in English even when she's using German, but don't pretend to not understand her, tell her she's wrong or otherwise force her to use English, I'm a strong believer in letting her find her way at her own pace and time.

I would guess that she probably does not mix Vietnamese and German because she acquired these languages in equal strength and at the same time, whereas her English exposure has been less and therefore not on the same level. 

In my case, my boy does have difficulty with similar words in his 2 primary languages, like "the" and "die", he's always just used his own version "de" in both languages.  I can imagine you might have such issues later on when your little is speaking English well, she'll still mix words like German "hand" and English "hand", because they are so close, but continuing with quality language exposure (as you have obviously done thus far) will sort all those little things out in time.

Well done and good luck!   

[richardcam]

Yes, just like you, I suppose that she know the difference between languages since a very early time (clearly that I and my husband use our own language to talk to her, but we talk English to each other and she hears English everyday). So when I talk English to her and she replies in German, she confused me a lot. I keep talking English with her but just a few phrases and then i stop because I'm not sure if i do it right 

Now, I feel confident again with what I have done. Are you German?

Thank your for writing in and have a nice day.

[MamaOfWill]

No, I'm Afrikaans (a language that originated from Dutch), my husband is English, so both our home languages are Germanic.

I didn't realize that you and your husband speak to each other in English, meaning that there's been lots of exposure for your little girl.  I also assumed that you are fluent in German.  Not that it changes my original message, it's just interesting to hear from other families' situations and how the kids respond to that.  

I mainly speak Afrikaans to my boy, but in situations like, when we're reading an English book, visiting English friends or watching an English program, then I've always spoken only in English.  In Afrikaans, he can freely talk about everyday things, but he will not be able to talk about EL stuff, like naming his organs and telling what their functions are etc.  Then in English, he can talk about all kinds of academical subjects, but his language is a bit poor, he makes mistakes changing tenses etc.

(as for other languages that I'm teaching, he hardly says a word, so I always envy people who manage to teach languages that they don't speak themselves, but he does show some signs of understanding)

[richardcam]

Unfortunately, my German isn't fluent  , it's ok for me to understand but hard to reply. The reason is just that I'm lazy to use German and now I have to change to learn more 

Nice to know you and your family, and thank you again for sharing your experience 

[mario]

Hi Richardcam

I agree with MammaOfWill, I also think your child knows the difference of the languages.

About what to do in those situations, I read that it is more effective when you keep the target language, without switching it. So, if she said in German and you understood, you can repeat in English and let it go on. Later, when the conversation is in German she will be able to use the word. She'll learn that very quickly 

[richardcam]

Thanks Mario.

I actually did it, but with a halt as I wasn't sure whether I did right or not. But now I got you guys adviced and for sure i will follow that way 

[Skippy]

I would not worry at all if a 2 year old gets languages mixed up.  If she continues to listen to and speak the languages, she will sort it out after a while..

 I know of a family where the mother was Japanese, the father Bulgrarian and they conversed in English.  Every year they would invite the Japanese grandmother to visit them for a month.  Then they would have the Bulgarian grandmother visit for a month, sometimes bringing her Albanian speaking step-daughter with her.  The children went to English speaking school.  The 2 year old listened but spoke only a few words of Japanese-- just a few words.  But after he turned 3 he started speaking a lot.  His older sister about ages 5 to 6 spoke and read her 3 languages, with great fluency.    So give the children a lot of experience in listening and speaking.  If possible have a native speaker (Vietamese or German) visit you.

My grandchildren are learning 3 languages:  First: German, 2) English 3) Japanese.  The 2 year old speaks mostly German and only a  few words of the other languages.  The almost 6 year old has about this fluency:  100% German, 75% English, 50% Japanese.   The mother and her family speak to the children in German, the father and I (the other grandmother) speak English, and the father and his Japanese friends speak Japanese.  The 6 year old understands everything in English, but in speaking he occasionaly gets mixed up.  I don't get upset, I just continue.  The problem is that the 6 year old boy doesn't have enough opportunity to use his English.  When he is older he could come to Canada where I live for a few weeks in the summer and that would help. The children did the Your Baby can Read program from the age of 6 weeks, and the older boy started reading English and German at the age of 2.  He goes to Japanese school on Saturdays and has attended for 3 years.  He can read and is learning to write Japanese. Mixing up languages is quite common for children who are learning.
All the best, Granny Skippy

[BNB]

Hi Cam,

When the baby is born, she does not recognized if there are so many different languages in the world. When we talk to them, they only recognize sounds with a particular pattern. Have you ever try to teach your daughter to read in German ?  If you want her to know the different between "katze" in German and "cat" in English, then you should show the word "katze" and pronounce correctly in German. Most of the time, when teaching their children to read parents are expecting their children to speak as they read not they hear. For language with completely different sound and writing, such as English and Vietnamese, or German and Vietnamese, our babies can surely distinguish the different right away both audio and visual. For language with more less similar sound, however, they can only distinguish the writing/visual right away, but not the sound/audio. They need to listen to the sounds over and over again (with a correct pronunciation) before they can distinguish which sound refer to which language. But before teaching her reading in German, I suggest finish the English first. This way she has better understanding in one audio and visual language at a time.

Hope this explain and can be an answer to your concern.

Cheers !

 

[sidonia]

Hi all!

I need some advice please.
I would like that my daughter (4 years old) learns a second language from a babysitter,who speaks this language as their mother tongue.
After your opinion how many hours,days foreign language interaction are necessary  during one week to learn in the target language?Do you know some research in this field,or have you personal experience with preschoolers second language learning troughout a babysitter?Any advice please?

Thank you.

[Pizzamonster]

If you read Douglas Doman's Book "How to teach your baby to read" you'll find following interesting info about your question:

Years ago, while in Brazil, we met a nineyear-old boy of average intelligence who could understand, read, and write nine languages rather fluently. Avi Roxannes was born in Cairo (French, Arabic, and English) and his (Turkish) grandfather lived with them. When he was four the family moved to Israel where Avi's (Spanish) grandmother on his father's side joined them. In Israel he learned three more languages (Hebrew, German, and Yiddish) and then at six years of age he moved to Brazil (Portuguese).

Since between them the parents speak as many languages as Avi does (but not individually), the Roxannes wisely carry on conversations with him in each of his nine tongues (individually where only one parent speaks a particular language, and collectively where they both do). Avi's parents are a good deal better linguists than most adults, having learned five languages each as children, but of course they are no match at all for Avi when it comes to English or Portuguese, which they learned as adults.

My daughter was raised speaking German, English and Punjabi. Sometimes we mixed answers (question in english, answer in German) but she always knew which language was which. Don't worry about your daughter, she's doing great!

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