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Cake day: June 20th, 2023

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  • I have a two year old. I speak German, partner speaks French, we speak English to each other (but not the kid), and we live in Sweden, so the kid’s learning Swedish at the daycare.

    So it’s 4 languages (3 that we teach plus English) and the one parent one language approach.

    Kid was a bit slow to start speaking, but now he understands a lot in all 3 languages, learns new words in all 3 all the time, and even picks up a bit of English occasionally. He’s started to distinguish the languages too, depending on who he talks to, but it’s definitely usually still a mix of all languages. When he speaks Swedish to me, I either just reply in German, or I might repeat what he said but in German first. And when he asks for his favorite lullaby in French, I just tell him in can’t do that one. We also have books in the different languages, but we might just use them in either language and describe what’s happening instead of reading it out.

    And I’m told this mixing improves over time, I’m not worried at all. So I would say this approach works really well for us.

    If you mix the languages between both parents, I think (but that’s just my gut feeling), the kid will have an easier time distinguishing the languages later on if you associate some activities with a specific language. Could be a place where you always use one language. Or some books, etc.
    But, I doubt that’s a must. Kids are astonishingly good at learning languages (I’m so jealous).