Multilingual Children

Hello,

Having read a lot on this very interesting forum already, I now post a message, as I would be happy to get some advice on a good language system for us.

Let me first explain our situation:

• father is from Netherlands (native language: Dutch)
• mother is from China (native language: Mandarin Chinese)
• father doesn’t understand or speak Chinese
• mother understands a little bit of Dutch
• in our daily life, and at home we communicate in English; we’re both fluent
• we currently live in Malaysia (community languages are many, but mostly Malay and English)
• our baby daughter was born here in May 2013 
• for the time being we’ll stay here, in the future we may move (e.g. to the Netherlands)

Our goal is to raise our daughter in three languages: English, Mandarin Chinese and Dutch.

As there are two of us and three languages, one-parent-one-language won’t work. Also asystem like minority-language-at-home won’t really work. We do need English at home, as it is the only language in which father and mother can understand each other.

So we need to come up with something else. We’re not yet in the phase that our daughter starts to talk, but we understand we should start early. Even though not speaking yet, she is already learning we understood.

What may be relevant to know too, is that father has a full-time job so only spends time with baby in the evenings and weekends. Mother is currently a full-time mom, so spends a lot of time with baby.

We put a lot of effort in working out a system that would work for us. Below a few a few systems that we can think of. All come with their issues and concerns though.

SYSTEM 1:

• Mother speaks Chinese when alone with baby (=daytime)
• Father speaks Dutch when alone with baby (=short spells in evening and weekends)
• Both speak English when everyone is together (=most of evenings and weekends)

• It means that we swap languages a lot. Especially father alternates between English and Dutch towards baby. Too confusing for baby…?
• Dutch exposure quite limited

Really concerned about the possible confusion for baby. You read everywhere that the baby gets confused if the same person alternates between two languages when speaking to him/her.

So that’s why we have been thinking of alternatives.

SYSTEM 2:

•  Mother speaks Chinese when talking directly to baby, and repeats in English when father needs to understand too
• Father speaks Dutch when talking directly to baby, and repeats in English when mother needs to understand too
• Father and mother speak English to each other

The may be less confusing for baby as we speak only when language each to the baby, but here are the concerns:

• Baby may not learn to speak English well. Although exposed to it (by listening to father and mother), no one speaks English with her.
• It may just not work in practice. We kind of tried this too, but it just feels…. odd. It’s strange if we all the time say things that the other cannot understand when together as a family, or need to translate it. At the end, we need to have a “family language” in which we can communicate with everyone together at the same time. We’re one family, not two. For which English is the only choice.

SYSTEM 3:

• Mother speaks Chinese when alone with baby (=daytime)
• Mother speaks English when father also around
• Father always speaks Dutch to baby, and repeats in English with necessary (to make mother understand)

A mixture of the two other systems. It gives reasonably equal exposure in all three language, but there is still the oddity that father is not speaking the “family language”, but is speaking a lot in a language that mother doesn’t understand.

In addition we can also make plans to start with English and Chinese first, and add Dutch later. Or start with SYSTEM 3 and trust that mother will also pick up Dutch when being exposed sufficiently. Or…

But before typing even longer: I am happy to hear some feedback, opinions, suggestions, advice, ….