Raising a Bilingual Child
A polyglot’s guide to raising multilingual children. Six steps based on a little bit of science and a lifetime of experience.
I’m leaving for work and about to get in the car. My two-year-old son is inside our home; wearing his sleep sack, standing on a footstool, and looking out at me. Through the window he says something as he points up to the sky.
Reading his lips I can tell he’s saying, “Te quiero hasta la luna.” I love you up to the moon. The line comes from Guess How Much I Love You, a children’s book by Sam McBratney. In it, a bunny rabbit and his father compete with one another to determine who loves the other more. We have the book in English, but I’m in the habit of translating books into Spanish when I read them to my son.
I blow kisses at him, point at the sky and ground, and say, “¡Te quiero hasta la luna, ida y vuelta!” I love you right up to the moon … and back.
Before my son was born, I knew that it would take a concerted effort on my part, for him to become fluent in Spanish. I grew up hearing, “Los niños hablan el idioma de la mamá.” Children speak the language of their mother. And I was one of them. My mother was from Colombia. Though I was born in Los Angeles, she took me to live in her native Manizales for a few years early in life. Spanish was my first language and when I returned to L.A., I kept speaking it thanks to her and her side of the family. (My father is from Bulgaria and did not make much of an effort to teach me his language.) My wife’s parents also immigrated to California, from India. Today we live in Oakland. She speaks Punjabi but is English-dominant. Her parents live an hour away, and I only have one Spanish-speaking cousin who lives near me. Despite having a strong bilingual community in the Bay Area, I have the cards stacked a bit against me when it comes to getting support toward my son’s Spanish language acquisition.
That said, my toddler, though English-dominant, is fully Spanish-cognizant — thanks to my instruction. He understands everything I say and occasionally replies in Spanish (usually when I read to him in Spanish). Here are some tips I learned along the way, should you wish to teach your child a second language.
1. Be steadfast. You need to be virtually obstinate in your adherence to the language you’re teaching. Start from day one. Speak to your children in your language of choice even when their only means of communication is crying, screaming, or smiling. (Some advocate speech in the target language during pregnancy.) They are hard-wired to understand you. For example, my son is able to recite pages — if not entire stories — that I’ve read to him. Since he was roughly six months old, I’ve often read to him twice a day, before his mid-day nap and before going to sleep at night. Two to three stories at a time. For weeks he might have a favorite, and repeating that story has helped solidify his comprehension and acquisition of vocabulary. I often point to what I’m talking about and ask him to recall what something is called in the opposite language. His memory is astounding. He’ll often make text-to-text and text-to-self connections — techniques associated with reading instruction in kindergarten.
2. Learn with them. While my wife and I have worked to build a decent collection of books in Spanish, the ones in English outnumber the ones in Spanish, two-to-one. To balance this, I often translate English stories into Spanish simultaneously (as with the story above). Not only is it a workout, I’m often surprised by words that I don’t know how to say in Spanish. For example, “cocoon” or “backhoe” or “to skip” while playing. Technology makes it remarkably easy to look these up in the moment.
3. Don’t mind mistakes. I learned this in the flesh. Whether in Colombia or California growing up, when I spoke Spanish with my family, I made mistakes all the time. My aunts, uncles, and cousins would correct me — even after the occasional laugh. That was a tremendous help. I stuck my foot in my mouth constantly, and that’s how I learned not only to improve my Spanish, but also to learn French fluently and dabble in Italian and Portuguese later in life. Today I take this same approach with my toddler. When he confuses genders, e.g. el luna instead of la luna, or uses an incorrect preposition or conjugation, I simply say the correct word, beckon to him to repeat it, and move on.
I often notice the effort he takes to express himself accurately, and this mindset will pay enormous dividends in the long run. In fact, even though he usually speaks in English, I see signs that he thinks in both languages. For example, my boy loves garbage cans. On occasion, he has referred to the blue cans or the brown bin as the “cans blues” or the “coffee bin.” Clearly, he’s translating from the Spanish: las canecas azules y la caneca café. Even though he’s making a mistake technically, I know that he fully understands the meaning of what he’s saying.
4. Multilingualism, like multiculturalism, lives on a fluid continuum. Don’t trip. As a six-year-old, I was Spanish-dominant thanks to my early years in Colombia. By the same age, my brother had only lived in Los Angeles. He understood Spanish completely but his speech was sometimes broken and his accent, more anglophone than mine. Later in life he lived in Colombia for five years. He went to high school there and learned to speak and write Spanish flawlessly. Today he works as a medical interpreter in Eastern Washington! The lesson? A strong linguistic foundation, even if dormant, will reap benefits. Cast aside perfectionism and judgement. According to the experts, children acquiring two languages natively, early on, are called simultaneous bilinguals. It’s common for young simultaneous bilinguals to be more proficient in one language than the other. So stay the course.
5. Don’t take anything personally. My toddler and I have entire conversations in which I speak to him in Spanish, and he replies to me in English. Sure, I’d love for him to reply in Spanish, but I don’t let this bother me at all. I harken back to my teenage years, when I’d do exactly the same thing with my mother. The fact that he’s displaying 100% comprehension is a blessing. It means that our method is working: he’s learning.
6. Nothing beats complete immersion. Throughout my adolescence I was fortunate enough to spend many summers with my family in Colombia — for up to eight weeks at a time. While I did have Spanish-speaking elders in L.A., my cousins and I spoke (and to this day speak) English to one another. Also, I grew up in a culturally mixed part of Silver Lake — not a predominantly Latin American neighborhood. Spending my summers in Colombia was invaluable for my language acquisition.
A note on privilege. One day when I was around nine years old, I told my mother that when I grew up, I didn’t want to go only to Colombia and Bulgaria — I wanted to travel the world. “Pero papi,” she replied, “tú ya has visto más del mundo de lo que verán muchos niños en la vida.” You’ve already seen more of the world than most children ever will. As my mother elegantly pointed out, while we were not well off, we grew up with the privilege of access to our roots and family, to our language and culture. La madre tierra. All to say that if travel (and specifically full immersion) is within your means, do so for the sake of your children.
The benefits of bilingualism go far beyond linguistic ability or career advancement. They extend, most notably, to neuroplasticity in the brain and enhanced executive control, based on studies by the likes of Dr. Ellen Bialystok. While there are myriad scientific benefits to learning multiple languages, for me the cultural benefits are priceless. Each language is like a passport. It’s a window into another world — sometimes that of our ancestors. It’s another way of not only speaking and writing, but also singing and even feeling. I look forward to seeing where my son’s passports take him.
¡Por ahora, hasta la luna!
