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Categories > Your Questions — General > TRILINGUAL FROM THE BEGINNING
 
 


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Emanuele
  Posted   Reply with quote  #1 
Hello,
We are a family that lives in Italy, I am italian while my wife is estonian. Our baby is 3 month old and we are already trying to speak three languages inside the house.
I am speaking only in Italian with the baby and my wife only in Estonian, while we speak to each other in english.
Is it going to be too much for our little baby? Or if we stick to it we can avoid any problems in the future? Do you any tips we might need?
thank you in advance

Emanuele
 
Limi
  Posted   Reply with quote  #2 
Hi,

we are in a family in a similar situation;
I am Swedish, my wife is Estonian but we live in Hungary.
Our 4,5 year old daughter speaks fluently Swedish, Estonian and Hungarian.
She also understand everything we say in English, (me and my wife communicate only in English with each other) but answer and comments in ether swe or est, depending to whom she’s addressing.
Our daughter has no problem with mixing the languages at all.
She started to talk a little later than “normal”, but now she is doing just fine.
Next year she will start in an American school here in Budapest

So i do not think your daughter will have any problem with three languages

Good luck 🙂
 
Gabi
  Posted   Reply with quote  #3 
Hi Emanuele,
Our family speak three languages at home. Me and my husband speak with our kids only in our native languages, while we speak to each other in English. We live in the Netherlands at the moment, so our kids are also exposed to the Dutch language.
Our oldest kid – 3 year old daughter understands and speaks all four languages. The most weird is to hear her speaking fluent Dutch without any accent, while neither me, nor my husband speaks any Dutch.
I think the way you are now speaking to your baby is very good, and there shouldn’t be any problems for her to learn all three languages.

Gabi
 
Maria
  Posted   Reply with quote  #4 
Hi,

We are looking to raise our little boy trilingual as well. My husband is french, I am german and we live in the Uk. Our boy is only 3 1/2 month old, but we are already starting to speak to him in all 3 languages.
It’s the sing-sang of the voice they need to hear already from an early age!

Maria
 
Emanuele
  Posted   Reply with quote  #5 
Thank you Gabi, Maria and Limi,

It’s very nice to hear that some families are in our situation. And, dear Gabi, it’s really funny that he understand and speaks also Dutch, without accent. Probably then our daughter will speak the local dialect then…since it’s the main language here. (scary…I ha te our dialect).
We’ll see then, How do you manage with the animated movies, which language you choose?

Thank you anyway.

Emanuele

 
Olga
  Posted   Reply with quote  #6 

I have two daughters, 5 and 3.  Our 5 year old speaks English, Polish and Russian without accent.  She can also read in English and Russian.  Our 3 year old started speaking later, but now that she is 3, she knows the difference between the languages and switches back and forth.  Her pronunciation is not the best, but I hear other 3 year olds who only speak one language and they are just like her in pronouncing just English.  I only speak Russian to the girls, my husband only speaks Polish, and we live in the US, so English is everywhere.
 
Aleksandra
  Posted   Reply with quote  #7 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Limi
Hi,

we are in a family in a similar situation;
I am Swedish, my wife is Estonian but we live in Hungary.
Our 4,5 year old daughter speaks fluently Swedish, Estonian and Hungarian.
She also understand everything we say in English, (me and my wife communicate only in English with each other) but answer and comments in ether swe or est, depending to whom she’s addressing.
Our daughter has no problem with mixing the languages at all.
She started to talk a little later than “normal”, but now she is doing just fine.
Next year she will start in an American school here in Budapest

So i do not think your daughter will have any problem with three languages

Good luck 🙂


Hi Limi,

we have somewhat similar situation (we speak Eng with each other, Polish and Hungarian to our son, and live in French part of Switzerland).

Question about your daughter- how did you solve the kindergarden problem-did she know some Hungarian before/ had Hungarian nunny?

Our son is 2 years old, we started adaptation in kindergarden and it’s really tough… he cries all the time:-(

Looking forward for any advices/ sharing experiences
Aleksandra
 
Limi
  Posted   Reply with quote  #8 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aleksandra

Quote:
Originally Posted by Limi
Hi,

we are in a family in a similar situation;
I am Swedish, my wife is Estonian but we live in Hungary.
Our 4,5 year old daughter speaks fluently Swedish, Estonian and Hungarian.
She also understand everything we say in English, (me and my wife communicate only in English with each other) but answer and comments in ether swe or est, depending to whom she’s addressing.
Our daughter has no problem with mixing the languages at all.
She started to talk a little later than “normal”, but now she is doing just fine.
Next year she will start in an American school here in Budapest

So i do not think your daughter will have any problem with three languages

Good luck 🙂


Hi Limi,

we have somewhat similar situation (we speak Eng with each other, Polish and Hungarian to our son, and live in French part of Switzerland).

Question about your daughter- how did you solve the kindergarden problem-did she know some Hungarian before/ had Hungarian nunny?

Our son is 2 years old, we started adaptation in kindergarden and it’s really tough… he cries all the time:-(

Looking forward for any advices/ sharing experiences
Aleksandra


Hi Aleksandra,

sorry to hear that your son is sad in Kindergarden. I don’t think it is necessary due to the language. I guess many kids has this problem, also in their own country and in own language.
Our daughter did not speak Hungarian before Kindergarden, but after two years she’s absolutely fluent, without any accent. Now she’s already 5, and started in a British school here in Budapest, without any problems at all.
Btw; she loves to watch German TV…
As long everything comes natural, and the kids are enjoying, I think the more languages the better.

Wish you luck with your son.

If you are interested in others expats life, you can always have a look in my blog; limi.blogg.se  🙂
 
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