The Language Experiment
How do I raise a multilingual child? Will exposing my child to multiple languages confuse them? Will their speech be delayed? How can I give them enough exposure to my mother tongue? These were just some of the questions that Kaisa and Camillo had when they were expecting their first child. Originally from Finland and Brazil, now living in the French speaking part of Canada, the couple searched for answers, literature and resources about multilingual upbringing.
When their research turned out unfruitful, they agreed to do what felt most natural to them: practicing their own languages with their daughter while incorporating two local languages on top of that. The Language Experiment is a podcast where Kaisa and Camillo share their journey on multilingual parenting with hopes of helping and encouraging other parents who are looking to raise multilingual children. There will be interviews, practical tips and plenty of real life experiences and perspectives on multilingualism.
You’ll discover how they helped their daughter become quadrilingual before the age of three only by reading, singing, playing and spending time outdoors with her. You’ll learn to recognize and critically assess some of the myths surrounding multilingual parenting. You’ll also hear from other parents and learn what worked for them and what didn’t. If you are a parent raising or wanting to raise children with multiple languages, this podcast is a must-listen. Hit subscribe now and join the community!
The Language Experiment
Help! I can’t speak my native language to my child
008 - In this episode of The Language Experiment, we dive into a topic that resonates with so many parents living abroad. Join us as we share our own experiences and explore why speaking our native language to our kids sometimes feels like a daunting task.
Have you ever found yourself struggling to switch back to your native language after years of using another language? Don't worry, you're not alone! We unravel some the reasons behind this challenge and offer practical tips to help you overcome it. From creating daily language habits to staying connected with family and friends back home, we'll guide you on your multilingual journey. So, if you're eager to raise a language-savvy child, hit play and let's embark on this language adventure together!
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Hello everyone. Welcome to the Language Experiment.
Camillo:Hey, glad to be here again.
Kaisa:Yeah, we just, uh, took a one week break because we realized that being the parent of two young children and putting an episode out every week is not doable every week, but we're back. Yeah, I guess so. Hopefully. Yeah. Yeah. I, I feel like I'm back. Yeah.
Camillo:And this thing of being parents, it turns out it's a lot of work.
Kaisa:Who knew? Well, I'm sure you all know. So today's episode is called Help. I can't speak my native language to my child.
Camillo:Yeah. Have you found yourself in a situation where you have been living abroad for a while and you have a partner with whom you speak a language that is not your mother tongue and you don't speak your mother tongue that often anymore? Maybe only when you speak to friends or family back home or when you are actually visiting your home country then. Suddenly life happens and you have a baby and plan to speak your native language to them because of course you want to raise them multilingual or bilingual, but when it's time to start speaking native language, you are not able to do it. What's going on?
Kaisa:First of all, let us assure you that you are not alone. This happened to us as well in the beginning and this situation that many other parents are finding themselves in all over the world. But let's try to understand why does this happen to some of us? One of the reasons could be that if we have been using a language that not, that's not our mother tongue. For years, we have formed a habit. Maybe that language has become so strong that instead of thinking in our native language, we have started thinking in the other language that we use on a daily basis. And as we all know, changing an existing habit or forming a new habit is hard work, and that's why switching to speaking your native language again might take some time.
Camillo:Another reason could be the change in the dynamic between you and your partner when you or maybe, both of you start speak your own language to the child. Suddenly the family feels divided. Maybe you don't know your partner's language and vice versa. So not only is there a new person in the family, but there's also a new mix of languages now and a lot of confusion.
Kaisa:Maybe you feel hesitant about following through with your plan of speaking your language because. You're not really sure about the implications of speaking several languages to your baby since birth Is two or three languages too many. Is it even possible or recommended to expose your child to four languages? When we are going through big changes in our lives and are feeling uncertain and vulnerable, actually staying in our comfort zone, which in this case could mean speaking, the language that we are now used to speaking makes us feel safe.
Camillo:And this is all to say that you are not having a hard time speaking your language because you've lost your ability to speak it or because you don't have enough self-discipline to stick to your plan. Or because you have failed, even if your child is already older and you still haven't started, it is not too late, but the best time to start, is now. So how do you get started then? And here are some tips that we or others tried and found helpful.
Kaisa:first tip. Create a habit of doing something daily, which involves your native language. Maybe it's a podcast or a band or an artist that you listen to, or maybe you'll start reading the daily news in your language. It could be joining a group on Facebook or some other platform about something that interests you or becoming active on a subreddit where you write in your language. Or maybe it'll be starting to watch series movies or reading books to get some more exposure. If you like video games, start playing games in your language or games that allow you to interact with people from your home country. All of these things force your brain to think in your language again, which will help you transition into speaking it every day. So Camillo, what kind of habits did you create to keep your Portuguese fresh in your mind?
Camillo:That's a good question because, living here in Montreal actually put my Portuguese really in the third, uh, shelf of my language ability, let's say, because work is in English a hundred percent of time outside, I try to keep the French alive, and then Portuguese, it's here. But now because of the kids know I speak often, but before born Portuguese was just when I was talking to my family or friends, back in Brazil, which would happen once a week or, or no, even that, depending on how busy your immigrant life is. But things that I started doing to keep my mind fresh, in contact with Portuguese was indeed reading more of the news, From my Football club in Brazil. I was reading more, the news than just following them just to keep in touch. I was watching more, movies and series in Portuguese and that also took me the opportunity to show you a little bit more of Brazilian movies, Brazilian series, which is really. something that a lot of people don't have that much contact with and was really interesting to have that, opportunity with you. listen to music for sure. Absolutely. Listen to music all the time. And since I, well now it's a little bit harder, but since I used to play a lot of video games, I had the opportunity to keep playing video games with people from Brazil and because we have this, teams. Channel, with my personal friends and also with other Brazilians. You always keep this dialogue alive and talking, you know, in your own language. So basically that's, that's a, a really bulk part of what I've, what I've done to keep the Portuguese alive. What about you Kaisa? What kind of things have you done?
Kaisa:for me, yeah. I also had. Very little exposure to, to Finnish here in, in Canada before we, had our kids. for me, I would read the news, I got into the habit of reading the Finnish news every day, and not just this kind of regular news, but this newspaper that I read, they do a lot of really good investigative journalism., I would dive into these really interesting articles. And then at the same time, it was also about kind of staying up to date about what is happening in my home country. wasn't just the language, but also I, I feel like I was keeping in touch with the culture and current events. that was really good. And I mean, I own a lot of Finnish books and my parents always bring me more Finnish books when they come to visit, I made sure that I wasn't only reading books in French or English or some other language. I was also throwing Finnish in there. and then, well, especially when we started expecting and everything, we would talk to our families more often. so it was, it was kind of just as a preparation kind of. Giving news to them. And, and then once our daughter was born, it was easy to kind of keep that same pace of contact even after that. now with our baby. I'd say those were the main things that I started doing and I'm still actively doing. And I feel like it's helping me, Stay on that level. And of course, now that we have our two kids, we've been speaking our own languages to them since day one. And now, it feels completely natural.
Camillo:That's a good segue to our second tip. Take time to talk to your family and friends more often because of technology, it has never been easier to stay in touch with people who live far away from you. And while a big time difference can make finding a suitable time slot challenging, it should be doable to talk to your family on a weekly basis using WhatsApp, FaceTime, zoom. Or Skype, for example. Does Skype even exist?
Kaisa:Who knows?
Camillo:Since our first daughter was born, we regularly call the grandparents on both sides on a weekly basis. We normally talk to the Brazilian side of the family in the evenings during the week because the time difference is only a couple of hours during the winter, it's only one hour during the summertime. And the Finnish grandparents. We call during the weekend because they're seven hours ahead. This way, the girls can interact with their grandparents on a weekly basis, even though they live far away and they get exposure to both Portuguese and Finnish and also, we are continuously practicing our own languages.
Kaisa:That's true. Onto our third tip, get involved with the community in your area that speaks your language. So you might think, oh, there's nobody from my country around where I live. But if you actually start looking for groups on Facebook, for example, Italians in the UK or Finnish people of Montreal, you might be surprised about what you find. Of course not every small city or town will have people from all the countries in the world, but the chances are if you live in a major city or close to one, you'll find others that speak your language there. You might still be thinking, but I'm from a small country. I won't find anyone. Hear me out. I'm from Finland. Which is a small country by population. There haven't been any big waves of people immigrating from Finland to other countries since the seventies. And Montreal is not the most popular destination for Finnish people, even in Canada. compared to other Canadian cities like Vancouver or or Toronto that have a bigger finished population, Regardless of that, there are some hundreds of Finnish people living in Montreal. And when I found their Facebook community, I also found out that the Finnish community in Montreal organizes something called Finnish School, where kids from infants to teens take part in different activities like music classes, story time, and arts and crafts. It's led by volunteer teachers who are all Finnish, and the Finnish government actually provides funding for the school. it's not a traditional school. It's more a community group or a hobby. The kids go there to have fun and not necessarily do any academics. My girls have both been going to Finnish school since they were six months old, and they love it. So as you see something like this can exist for a small community like the Finnish one in. in a rather unlikely place like Montreal. As a comparison, the Brazilian community in Montreal, is much bigger. We don't know the exact number, but it is in the tens of thousands of, of people. I. They also organize all kinds of activities for kids in Portuguese, like music, drumming classes, football and things like that. This just goes to show that the size of the community doesn't necessarily dictate what they organize. And a small community can also offer something as good as a really big community. While this might not be relevant for smaller languages, it's always good to check out what kind of activities, certain big language teaching institutions such as the Goethe Institute or Alliance Française, offer for families and young children in your city or in your area.
Camillo:Another good tip on that level is to you to reach out to your consulate, in the city of where you live here in Montreal, for example, the Brazilian consulate have an agenda of all the activities that the Brazilians are performing in the city. if you, are able to reach out to your consulate. You'll also might able to find really good events that your community is putting together in the city where you live.
Kaisa:That's very cool
Camillo:now let's talk about tip number four. Look for a support group or a program. This might not be an option for everyone, but we have become aware of such programs because one of our listeners joined one recently, this listener, Julia is German and is living in Belgium with her partner and son. She speaks French to her partner. They also speak it as a family, but although she makes an effort to speak German to her son, she finds it difficult to be consistent. She ended up finding a program that supports German speaking, people like her. Who wants to raise multi-language children and pass on their native language. The group is run by a linguist and it includes daily conversation with the group expert advice online library of master classes, and bi-weekly Zoom calls. This is excellent idea for someone who feels like they need a bit of extra support on their journey. And while this is just one example, We are certain that there are more groups like this out there.
Kaisa:Yeah. It was interesting to find out about this program. I did not know that they exist, but I think that's a really good idea, and I'm sure there are many people who are looking for programs like this to support them. those were our hottest tips for rewiring your brain to activate your native language again. So that you can start speaking to your child without any issues, and we didn't start this podcast to tell people to do what we did or to tell them that they need to do X, Y, or Z. We're here to encourage you to do what you want to do. Most likely, if you're listening to this podcast or this episode, you have something in your mind that you want to do. You most probably want to raise your child multilingual, and maybe you want to teach your native language to them. The people who don't want to do those things are. Most likely listening to a different podcast. So if you want to speak your language to your child, decide that that's what you're going to do. Even if it takes some time and even if it isn't easy in the beginning, if you decide that that's what you are going to do, you will get there. In the end, we fully support you and we are certain that you can do it. We hope you found these tips useful, and if you have a tip to share that helped you start speaking your language again, we would love to hear it and I bet our listeners would love to hear that too.
Camillo:And one important thing is give time to time. I know a lot of people really want their. Children to speak right away, and this is normal to every single parent, even the unilingual ones. It's that anxiety when they're going to start walking, when they're going to start speaking. For multilingual parents, you have the speaking bit of it multiplied by the number of language they're speak at home, or the number of language that you want them to speak. So give time to time. Discipline is important. Keep fighting the good fight and you all will get there. Thank you for listening and thanks for all your emails and messages. We really appreciate them. See you in the next episode.
Kaisa:Bye-bye
