Hi everyone,
What is your advice as to the best language system for our son?
We are a couple living in Belgium (in a French speaking area) with the following languages mix:
1. My wife is Hungarian and speaks Hungarian as native language. She also speaks English fluently and then a bit of French and Spanish (not really fluently).
2. Myself, I speak Spanish as a native speaker, English fluently and a bit of French but not really fluently.
3. Our son is currently 1.5 years old. He lives in a French speaking environment. He goes to a creche where they speak French to him and he will be going to a school in French in 1 year’s time when he is 2.5 years old.
What is your advice as to the best language system for our son?
We try to follow some sort of “One Person One Language” system. I speak in Spanish to my son and my wife speaks in Hungarian to him. However, my wife and I speak in a mix of English and Spanish between us. My wife wants to improve her Spanish and that’s why we sometimes switch from English to Spanish when we speak to each other.
Our son is therefore exposed to 4 languages at the same time. Is this unhealthy or may it cause speech problems later on? Is there a better language system that we should follow?
Thanks for your advice!
Martin