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Categories > Your Stories > I'm raising a trilingual boy
 
 


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deniko
  Posted   Reply with quote  #1 

I have a child, a boy, he’s 1 year old now. My wife speaks only Ukrainian to him and I speak Russian and English (one week I speak only Russian, next week – only English, and so on).

My main problem with all that is that I’m not a native English speaker and my English knowledge is only theoretical. I’ve never lived in any English-speaking country. Moreover, I’ve never been to any English-speaking country, though I feel pretty confident speaking and writing in English.

I’m also a bilingual child, my father always spoke Ukrainian to me and my mother always spoke Russian. Now I try to raise a trilingual child.

I posted a question about possible problems with teaching a child a language that is not native to me here:
http://community.livejournal.com/linguaphiles/4019662.html
And I’ve got a lot of useful and inspiring comments.

Later on I found a nice article on your site:
http://www.multilingualchildren.org/tips/not_native.html

Thank you very much for your site.

Denis
Kiev, Ukraine
 
katrina
  Posted   Reply with quote  #2 
I believe that any language is good, especially at the very young age.

Our 4y old son is bilingual – English/Estonian and going to French kinder garden.
I would never speak another language but Estonian to him though as I make mistakes.

In your situation  I’d go for DVDs and may be make a day  in a week to play some games with him in English.
We support our sons French by showing him some cartoons in French.
 
Linda
  Posted   Reply with quote  #3 
Dear Denis, I’ve just found this old post of yours (here and on livejournal).
Can I ask you about your boy? He must be 5 years old now. So how are his languages?
I have a one month-old daughter now and I’m going to raise her trilingual, so I’m gathering materials and opinions. Just as you, I’m from Kyiv and I speak Russian, Ukrainian and fluent English.
It would be great to hear more about your experience.
 
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