Question for those in/from Multilingual Homes

[derspiess]

In Spanish or in English? 

And, AFAIK, you can't understimate the ability of small children to absorb knowledge. 

He watches most of the episodes streaming via Netflix, so those are English.  I did find some Spanish episodes on Youtube, which I'm trying to play more often because the English episodes are getting quite repetitive (edit: not competitive  ). 

The dude who does the voice for the Spanish episodes sounds like Antonio Banderas, but I guess a lot of Spanish guys sound that way to me. 

[syk]

Friends raise their kids (3+5 yo) with Arabic and German, both parents speaking their native tongue, and it works out just fine. Looks like they started speaking a little later than their monolingual buddies but the kindergarten scenes are completely in German and after a few days in Sudan they started babbling in Arabic like they always spoke it.

[derspiess]

Why?  Then he could spy on our French and Canadian enemies.

Although I currently love the French, the thought of my kid speaking French weirds me out.

[Caliga]

Although I currently love the French

TRAITOR! 

[jimmy olsen]

Good jop derspiess.

I wish my Dad had taught me Spanish when I was a kid.

[Josquius]

I've a friend here in Sweden whose mam is Australian and she (the friend. Never met the mam. Presumably her too though) speaks utterly perfect Australian English. The way her parents did it she says is that they mostly spoke English around the home as the Swedish came to her naturally in hanging out with other kids, watching TV, being in the world at large, etc...
This way sort of makes sense to me; you see loads of immigrant families with parents who don't speak a word of English but kids who speak just like the area they gew up in.

You should be careful to try and keep Spanish relevant to your kid here derspiess or else it'll just be relegated to being the 'silly mommy language' and he'll figure out he can get by just fine with English all the time and get nowhere with Spanish.

[Caliga]

Good jop derspiess.

I wish my Dad had taught me Spanish when I was a kid.

Same, except German in my case.  I am from the first generation of my father's family to not speak a mix of English and German in the home (though in my case we're talking Pennsylvania Dutch, not modern European German).  My grandfather spoke German exclusively as a child.

[derspiess]

You should be careful to try and keep Spanish relevant to your kid here derspiess or else it'll just be relegated to being the 'silly mommy language' and he'll figure out he can get by just fine with English all the time and get nowhere with Spanish.

We'll probably ship him down to Argentina a few times, where he'll have no choice but to use it.  And he will likely have friends around here in similar situations.  German would be a bit trickier.

[Ed Anger]

This "multilingual" stuff sounds dangerously European and fruity.

I know-- I came close to putting up "English Only" signs all through the house.

FWIW, I've got the wife on-board with making German his 3rd language.  She had wanted it to be Italian .  Thankfully she wasn't pushing for French

Italian would be about as useful as a 2nd appendix.

[Ed Anger]

You should be careful to try and keep Spanish relevant to your kid here derspiess or else it'll just be relegated to being the 'silly mommy language' and he'll figure out he can get by just fine with English all the time and get nowhere with Spanish.

We'll probably ship him down to Argentina a few times, where he'll have no choice but to use it.  And he will likely have friends around here in similar situations.  German would be a bit trickier.

Teach him to talk the American Way...loud.

I SAY PABLO, I WANT MY STEAK WELL DONE.

[Habbaku]

She had wanted it to be Italian .

Isn't your wife Argentine?  If so, it makes quite a bit of sense that she wanted the third to be Italian--Argentina has one of the largest segments of Italian-descent citizens in the world, outside of Italy.  :wopancestry:

[derspiess]

Isn't your wife Argentine?  If so, it makes quite a bit of sense that she wanted the third to be Italian--Argentina has one of the largest segments of Italian-descent citizens in the world, outside of Italy.  :wopancestry:

Yeah-- Argentine culture is probably influenced at least as much by Italian as by Spanish culture.  Not sure if that's the reason or not, though.  Hard to tell with her.

[Sheilbh]

Why German?  I assume, with your name here, there's some family connection or just a very strong interest?

[Hansmeister]

We're teaching our daughter english and japanese.  Don't see any need to teach her german, they all speak english or turkish anyway.

[Legbiter]

We're bringing up our 2 sons bilingually, they'll be able to speak both Icelandic and Norwegian. The oldest one is two and a half years old and already he speaks Icelandic to me and Norwegian to his mom. Plus, he has access to other kids his age who are bilingual in those languages as well.