Raising Multilingual Children [In Denmark]

Although my children are just turning 2, I have thought a lot about their language development. Being raised multilingual is a huge gift, but learning all 3 languages doesn’t come for free, even if they are learning them from birth.

This is one of the first misconceptions I had about what my children’s language learning journey would be like. Having grown up monolingual, I didn’t have any personal experience with the topic. I just thought it would be so cool that my children would be “fluent” in multiple languages. How many times have you heard something to the effect of “children are like sponges”- so they’ll just absorb any language they are exposed to? Or maybe you have heard the argument from the opposite side, that having more than one language “confuses” them, so you should try to stick to one.

Neither of those statements is really true. Children can absolutely learn more than one language without being “confused,” and there are actually a whole host of benefits to it. But it’s not exactly effortless either. It’s not as easy as just speaking to your child in your own language and *bam* fluency. It takes time and dedication, exposing your child to your language as much as possible – reading, playgroups, maybe eventually classes in that language. And even still, it will never be the same as if they were growing up monolingual in a country that speaks that language.

I have shared a number of links about multilingual children on my Resources page, which I think are very helpful for parents. Below I have shared my top three learnings from those (and other) resources

1. Have a goal and a plan for each language your child will learn

The most important action I can recommend, which is discussed at length in the Bilingual Families book I link to, is to have a goal and a plan for each language that your child will learn. Why do you want them to learn this language? What skills and level should they achieve? Then you need to make a plan for them to achieve that. For example, if you want them to be able to read and write in your language, they’ll probably need some formal education in that language at some point (or some very dedicated homeschooling from you).

2. Learning multiple languages does not equate to language delays

I’ve heard it explained like this: if at 2 years of age, a monolingual child has 50 words in their vocabulary, they will have 50 words in Y language. A bilingual child at the same age might have 30 words in Y language and 20 in Z language. So if you compare the two children in Y language – yes, it looks like one has 50 words and the other only has 30. But the bilingual child has their words spread over multiple languages. This is a totally normal part of language development. Consider also that there are only 24 hours in a day, and toddlers spend about half of them sleeping. So a monolingual child will get all ~12 waking hours in Y language. A bilingual child might get 7-8 hours in Y language (if we assume this is the community language that they get in daycare or school) and maybe only ~4 hours in Z language. This does add up (and hence why teaching our children multiple languages is not effortless or free.)

3. Exposure is extremely important

Find as many ways as possible to talk to, read to, sing to and otherwise engage your children in your language. My husband is really good about narrating everything he does when he’s with our children and I think this is one of the reasons why much of their early language development was in Spanish. Even though I love to talk, I actually find this one really difficult (probably because it’s frankly quite boring), but it absolutely does matter so it’s important to find ways that work for you.

Our twins are just starting with speaking so we haven’t had a lot of chance to experiment with this topic yet, but I do think it pays off to think about it early and often. One interesting thing I learned when attending a seminar for parents of multilingual children at the Copenhagen Library is that up to about 3 years old is the best time to introduce them to a new language. After that point, their experience would be similar to how you would feel if you were put into a room of people all speaking a language that you don’t understand (and I don’t know about you, but that makes me pretty uncomfortable). So if you are wondering if or when you should start teaching your children multiple languages, the answers are yes and now.