Flashing 2 languages

[TJE]

My daugther just turned 3 months. I'm a dutch speaker and my husband hebrew. We live in Israel. I do speak hebrew well but not perfect. I'm planning to flash my DD cards in dutch. Should i flash also in hebrew? Is it possible to learn to read 2 languages at the same time?
For me it's easier to teach in dutch but for her she will need more hebrew in the future.

[TmS]

I used the Institute's (IAHP) picture dictionaries to flash multiple languages to my son as while I can understand bits and pieces of all the languages I have an atrociously thick Australian accent. He definitely reads all of them equally well.

I guess the main concern would be your pronounciation but if your husband checks you've got it to an acceptable pronounciation she would be hearing enough from her father to get the correct accent.

I believe there are some Hebrew files you can download for LR

[dadsrock]

Children are amazing at picking up multiple languages! I would just ensure she hears both languages about equally often and not just during flashcard time.

[2010BEBES]

Hi TJE,

It is best to teach both language at the same time. Flashing cards and speaking to your child not only in dutch but also in hebrew is best. There are many topics where you read moms that teach one language some days, let say Monday, wednesday, friday and another language the other days. There are man ways you can handle it. As said, do no t worry if your hebrew is not perfect. It is better for your child to listen you with both languages because if you only do dutch and your husband speaks hebrew, she may think that dad speak one way and moms another. I recomend you to use both language at the same time.

[momtomany]

Go to this website for much more information about language learning for children.  It has a lot of information and also a great forum.  You'll love it.

multilingualchildren.org

From all the reading I've done, there are different ways to have your child exposed to multiple languages.  One way that works well is OPOL (One parent one language) where each parent speaks his native language to the child.  Another way is to have a home language and a community (going out) language.  Another way is to have a different language for different days.  There are advantages and drawbacks to each method and it depends on the strengths of each parent, the number of hours of interaction, the goals you have for your child, etc.  But a very helpful thing is to establish your language 'rules' and be consistent about it.  I've even read from people who weren't very consistent and their child still managed to learn the two (or three or more!) languages... children are amazing and their whole environment is designed to learn languages (imagine if you had a private tutor speaking to you all day everyday about the things you're keenly interested in at the grammatical level you are at... you'd learn the new language just like that too!).  But it is helpful to establish a consistent rule because then you're more likely to stick to it (in fact, after a few months or years, if you want to change the rule for some reason, like moving, then it can be awkward to switch the rule), and also the child will learn to sort the two languages apart more easily.  Children will usually mix the two languages a bit when they are little, but not to worry... they will soon sort it out... we don't worry if a two year old says "I eatted a banana" instead of "ate" because they will sort out those grammar rules too.  And I wouldn't worry too much either if your pronunciation isn't native sounding in Hebrew either.  Well, look at the website and you'll probably get some answers for all your questions/concerns.

On a personal note, I have parents who were raised in Holland and came to Canada where they raised us.  They only spoke Dutch to each other when they were talking about money or family (what we weren't supposed to hear) and to other Dutch speaking people.  We learned a surprising amount of Dutch (and a lot about other family members too!), but now that I'm older and I want very much to learn to speak Dutch better, it is so difficult because there just aren't the resources available (library books, DVDs with subtitles and language tracks, etc.).  The same would be true about Hebrew I would guess, and so I would encourage you to support your child's Dutch learning while she is young, especially because it will be harder for her to learn them later if she lives where those languages aren't spoken.  For me, that I don't speak Dutch very well, it feels like a part of me is missing... a part of my roots or something... because it was there almost everyday in some way when I was little, and now it's not... I don't feel I can keep a conversation with my Dutch relatives and that part of me feels incomplete/unfinished.  But still, I know that the exposure I did have was beneficial to me -- I was very clever in school and when I consider my childhood, I strongly believe that the exposure to two languages had a lot to do with that.

[TJE]

Hi All,
Hebrew is a very easy language to learn. Where we use 2 sentences in english or dutch, in hebrew they will say the same in 1 sentence. I'm more to the direction to talk just dutch with her. Weekends, early mornings and evenings she has hebrew with dad. As well as close family who lives nearby. So, a lot hebrew from others.

My concern is how to teach her to read 2 languages. Should i flash one day in dutch and the other day in hebrew?

[TmS]

As long as you keep the sessions separated I don't think it will matter if you do them both on the same day. I just wouldn't be going for the same session. Though that can work too. Our son initially learned German from a set of songs that alternated lines between english and german. We all learned a lot.

Having said that he picked up reading Japanese much much faster and it was always done as a completely separate session with no Enlish included.

We do all his languages (English (native), Japanese, German, Chinese, French) every day and expose him to others (namely Spanish & Italian) consistently enough that he recognises words. We plan to introduce more shortly.

He adores learning languages and in fact if he gets bored with a movie (he's only allowed a very limited repertoire of films as they are so inappropriate) we switch the language on it and he becomes totally enthralled again - it's a great tool.

If you want your child to read each language equally I'd be going for doing the flash cards for both languages everyday.

[2010BEBES]

...
We do all his languages (English (native), Japanese, German, Chinese, French) every day and expose him to others (namely Spanish & Italian) consistently enough that he recognises words. We plan to introduce more shortly.
...
If you want your child to read each language equally I'd be going for doing the flash cards for both languages everyday.

TmS,
Which languages do you (or others around your kid) 'speak' to him.
How do you do with the ones you do not speak, just flashcards?
When (at what age) did you start with all the languages?

Sorry for all the questions but your experience will be very useful.

[TmS]

We started immediately with languages. We only speak English - at least that's all we spoke when my son was born, we now have a spattering of a whole bunch of languages. We aren't able to teach our son these languages ourselves as he is already well ahead of us but he loves watching us learn and I believe that it has set a good example for trying and failing and trying again.

We (and lovely family members) bought him cds of poetry and nursery rhymes in other languages, we bought the "Teach Me Tapes", we bought the Lyrical German and French DVDs, Leap Frog's Little Leaps console, IAHP picture dictionaries, wink to learn chinese (I only have two of these but they're brilliant and I intend to get the whole set when I can), Baby Genius DVDs, Sesame St from France.

I had read somewhere that at birth children easily differentiate between all the sounds in all languages but that as they get older they start to focus only on those used in languages they are exposed to. Eventually they find it difficult to differentiate subtle differences in vowel sounds etc. This is why we did so many we weren't actually interested in him learning the languages but rather maintaining the auditory ability for as long as possible. The only reason the languages were limited was because I couldn't afford to buy materials for more of them.

As we started to feel comfortable with what we knew from each language we would incorporate it into some of our other daily "lessons" we might be counting and count the objects in English then say that was English let's count in Japanese and count again. It makes repetitive games seem less repetitive. We also use his favourite movies as a way of introducing languages. Once he starts to get bored we just switch languages.

I know he understands a great deal in all the languages but I've no idea how much as I have no way of "testing"(which we don't do anyway). I have watched him follow instructions to new games in all of the languages. I have watched him get excited when words in other languages pop up in flash cards (particularly giraffe ).

He babble on sometimes in a mix of languages and the odd word jumps out to me and I can work out a small portion of what he's saying but I've no idea how much is real language and how much is gibberish.

Sometimes if I flash a word in another language he'll repeat it for me but usually he translates (I think he knows I don't understand )

I hope this is helpful

[2010BEBES]

TmS,
Thanks a lot for sharing your story. I fully agree on letting babies listen to the differente accents but never heard someone doing it withour knowing the language. I think that what you are doing is excellent even though I think your chiled will take a little bit longer to talk. As you say, he is starting with a mix of languages but he will know when the time comes which language is which.
I use to play Wee Sing Around the World to my grandson since he was 6 month. Then at age 1 i brought from Paris a CD of Childrens Songs that is very nice. Hopefully he has some basis of english and french.
We are spanish speakers and since he had not been pronouncing some letters as 's' or 't' he is going to start speech therapy. For the meantime, my son (his father) ask me to avoind other languages until he speaks better his native language.
As soon as i get the authority, i will start again at least with english (also learning a little bit at preschool) and french.

I will like to follow your steps with my future grandchild. My daughter is due on february and she always tells me that i can teach her baby anything i want. I will start also with Quecha (native peruvians language spoken on the highlands eg Ayacucho). Her parents in law are from there and they speak it. As you do, maybe i will learn to. Hence it will be difficult to keep up with him.   


Maybe you already are emphasizing some languages more than others? It is difficult to manage to many at the same time. I will work with english, french, chinese and quechua

If you need help in any way with spanish don't hesitate to ask me.

[TJE]

Wow TmS, That gives me a lot of confidence to expose her to different languages and see those little once can catch it. I should introduce English as well, i see. 
Thanks for sharing

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