Hello all,
We’re raising our 4.5 year old daughter with 4 languages, I speak Slovakian to her, her mother German, my wife and I speak English to each other and we live in France. Our daughter is born in France, went to the daycare and is now schooled in the public school system in French.
She seems to understand very well everything in all languages (even English a bit), but her communication skills are poor. She speaks in Slovakian, German, and French, but she doesn’t pronounce well many sounds in any of the languages. In German the structure of the phrases is OK, but in Slovakian and French she doesn’t have any structure in the phrases and she mixes languages. Her vocabulaire in Slovakian and French is very limited. Although everything is the best in her mother tongue (German), her level is still comparable to that of a two-year old German child.
At school the other kids don’t understand her in French. The teacher does understand her and tells us that she has improved considerably in the last 6 months, but nevertheless she recommended that we see a language specialist. This language specialist strongly recommended us that we speak daily in French to her (30 minutes per day), but we’re not convinced.
We were wondering whether others have a similar experience, and in particular whether the difficulties are common, and will be fixed before she turns 6 or needs particular attention.
Any advice will be appreciated.