Does he speak English? (a rant) | Raising Children in More Than One Language | Forum

I feel your pain! My kids are trilingual too (elder 6, younger 2) and I've almost always had that response when, for some reason, they don't react appropriately or aren't understood: the conclusion immediately becomes "perhaps it's because they speak another language…." This regardless of whether one is dealing with an exhausted 2-year-old on a late afternoon shopping trip! It doesn't help that my older daughter probably suffers central auditory processing disorder (can't be diagnosed until they're 7 or so), which means she's been even more reluctant to react at the "behest of others" and has difficulty memorizing verbal expressions (words included!) 

But, perhaps one shouldn't view this as a problem but rather as a privilege, an opportunity to educate and inform people who are ignorant of the beauty, joy and complications that follow bilingualism (or multilingualism!). Your lovely child is a walking and talking example of how life can be enriched with multiple languages and multiple cultures. Now that my older daughter is 6, I notice how her friends envy her ability to watch films in English, while they're monolingually limited to Icelandic. The time will come for your son too, where he won't just be different, but be superskilled!

So, even though you can't control people's responses, you can certainly have a better time of your own. You can either grin or bear the ignorance - which you'll do on the days you are tired or overwhelmed – or you can use it as an opportunity to discuss, explain, educate. You have no idea how your child's speech is enriching all the people he meets, regardless of their initial reaction. Enjoy it!

Hi!  I am British, living in Finland with my German husband and our daughter.  I don't speak Finnish very well, so people assume that our daughter can't either. But she goes to daycare 2 days a week and she CAN speak, she just chooses not to.  It used to happen that someone would ask a question in Finnish, she didn't reply, they assumed it was a language issue, so quickly switched to English, she still didn't reply, so they said "she's shy". So now she thinks she's shy….grrr. NO, she's just 3 years old and has never met you before in her life.

Now she's nearly 4 and still doesn't speak much to adults she doesn't know very well, but she is more chatty with other children and is getting more confident. When people hear her, they turn to me in surprise and say "She can speak Finnish" I do not say "I told you so". I too, try to grin and bear it :-)

Maybe we could start a new multilingual village – but where?

Keep up the good work! Sally

Yes, there's a lot of ignorance out there.  And the ignorance of parents unfortunately is what trickles down to their children, thus making it hard for your kid's classmates to understand that your kid actually speaks and understands 2 or more languages.  I too have experienced this first-hand and was very hurt by it.

We've been raising our now 2 1/2 year old daughter in French and English (in the US).  She's proficient in both languages and was an early talker (very early in French and early in English).  Now that we're putting her in Spanish preschool, people are starting to question if I'm being "too hard on her"!  Or, "can she take 3 languages"!  I tell them that kids can learn several languages simultaneously, they just have to have exposure to the language in the form of interacting with people.  And I say that if we had 2 parents and 2 grandparents living in our household who all spoke a different language, then she'd be learning 4 languages!  We only have two adults and 2 languages at home, so that's what we started with.

Anyways, I try to have compassion for these people.  We definitely shouldn't make fun of them; that would (in some cases) bring us down to their immature level.  Maybe come up with a short sentence that you use to educate people.  The whole "kids' brains being like sponges" is such a household concept, you could say something like, "Children's brains are like sponges – they just soak up whatever you give them.  It's not hard for him to learn 3 languages at this age – I wish I had!"  Keeping it light and friendly will be more effective and better for your child to see/hear, too. Remember that you're giving your child several languages so that they can communicate with more people, not to alienate them from monolinguals.

Hi, guys! Sorry! I forgot about this forum and haven't been back in ages. Thanks for the words of encouragement. I think part of the problem is I very much feel that when they ask if he can speak English, what they really want to hear is him, speaking English. Not me reassuring him that he can speak English. But of course he doesn't because he doesn't know them, at all. And even though I know he won't speak it (though I know he can say Hi!), I really want him to so I can "prove" to them that he does speak English. Ah, if only he were a trained pony! ;)

It will get easier when he's older. I've read posts (can't remember if it was this forum or another) where someone said that with their first kid, it was tough, but by the time they had three and got questioned on their child's language abilities they would just say "oh, yes, s/he seems to be taking after his older sibling!" and move on. But with the first child, there's always doubt. And since I'm raising my kids with a non-native second language, I doubt myself even more! I know it can be done, I know people who have done it, and I support my reasons for doing it, but I still feel insecure because my German isn't 100% perfect.

But each day I get more and more proof that (duh) it's working. One night at dinner, my son doled out Shrimp, saying "Here you go, honey!" as he gave one to my husband and then "here you go, honey!" when he would give them to me (he's been listening to me talk to my husband too much!) and then say "you're welcome" when we would take them (he says you're welcome instead of thank you…according to my dad, I did that too :p). Then one day after quiet time he told me, "Ich habe Ruhezeit gemacht[sister's name]n kanssa" I had quiet time (in Germa) with Sister (in Finnish). He has his way of asking me "What is this?" in German (Kai di sai?), it isn't Was ist das, but he has a completely different way of asking his dad what something is in Finnish (I don't know the phrase, but it's not Mikä tämä on?) and he gets very upset when he says "Kai di sai?" to me when dad is in the room and my husband tells him it, in Finnish. When I'm around, he wants NOTHING to do with Finnish. He won't speak it, he'll understand it, but will only talk to me in German, and any comments for all of us are in English. But I've heard him on the baby monitor with daddy in the room speaking Finnish, so I know he can. But he seems embarrassed to speak it around me. Maybe he knows I can't understand?

Though, interestingly enough, I'm "äiti" all the time. He's tried out the words Mama and Mom but stuck with äiti. So once he was throwing a huge fit in the kitchen and knocked over a chair onto himself and he stopped screaming and cried out "Äiti, HILFE" (Mom, HELP!), so even in emotional duress, I'm Äiti.

In a lot of ways, I feel very bad that his vocabulary is divided up by 3 languages because I really, really, just want to have conversations with him. He can say things,  but they're limited because you need so much vocabulary to have a good conversation and when you're learning three different sets of vocabulary at once along with all the different rules, it really slows you down. I feel so sad when hear how well his peers are talking in comparison to him. I want to have hilarious jokes and long conversations with my son, too!

And another thing that stresses me out is that I do feel a lot like people are judging my child's language skills. As we were leaving a get together, another woman with no kids came up to me and told me that he DOES understand more English than she thought, with a sound of surprise in her voice. And it's like, dude, tell me something I don't know? I live with him every day. If I say he understands English, I mean it. I'm not just saying it. And it's a bit much for someone to judge a child's language development after only spending 3 hours with them (especially when they have no knowledge of the other two languages!). Besides, no one looks at a monolingual 2 year old and tries to figure out how much of their language they understand or decide that just because they can only say a few words, they can't understand anymore.

I really really wish I had a "multilingual village" I could turn to in support. Sometimes you just need to hear you're doing okay, or things will be fine, or that your experiences aren't unusual and everyone feels that way sometimes.
And remember, this is called a rant and not "Well thought out response that was actually said" for a reason! If I had no sense of decorum or politeness, I might have launched into it…but I save rants for online postings and just smile wanely in real life ;)