There are many theories out there about how to raise a multilingual child. Some say one must focus on only one language at a time as not to confuse children and delay their speech development, while others claim that exposing children to multiple languages at the same time is more beneficial as seen in the “one-parent, one-language” approach. So what’s really the best way? I am no expert in this topic, but I am happy to share my two cents from our experience with raising Miss R.
We are a Cantonese-speaking household. Both Mr. T and I were born and raised as Cantonese so that’s all we speak at home. When Miss R was first born, we have never thought of speaking to her in any other languages. We are in America so English exposure is everywhere. As long as we are actively being out and about, she will learn English naturally and become a fluent, native speaker just like any regular Americans. For the first year of her life, we spoke to her in Cantonese only. She got her regular doses of English by visiting libraries, grocery stores, parks, restaurants, and parent-and-me classes. Everything seemed to be going just as planned. We had zero worries on her speech development.
Fate took an unexpected twist in March 2020. As soon as Miss R turned 1, the world went into a major lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Suddenly, we had nowhere to go and no one to see. We were home most of the time and only went for a walk around the neighborhood every now and then. We didn’t even see family. We Facetimed them and spoke in Cantonese only.
At first, I felt fine. I thought the lockdown was temporary. Miss R was making good progress in mimicking speech. She learned new words every day and understood most of my simple commands. Then after a few months in, the lockdown still seemed to see no end. I started worrying about her future. What if she couldn’t understand any English when life went back to normal? The fact that I started looking into homeschooling didn’t help either. With virtually almost no socialization opportunities at all at that time, I worried that I would turn Miss R into a foreigner in her own country. I better do something!
An old piece of advice came into mind. When Miss R was 7 months old, Mr. T and I took a group-based Nurturing Parenting Program together for 4 months. Despite many people warned us how mixing languages could cause speech delay, our facilitator told us otherwise. “Expose her to as many languages as you can,” She said, “Trust me. She will not get confused.”
So I started an experiment. I would speak to Miss R in one language a day, and switch to another the following day. On Cantonese Day, I spoke in nothing but Cantonese all day long, no matter what she said. If it was English Day, I spoke in nothing but English only. I narrated her actions and pointed out new vocabularies throughout the day. As an 18-month-old, she never complained and went along just fine. She listened and absorbed everything. I never required her to speak to me back in specific languages. She had total freedom to use whatever language she wanted to use. My goal was to create an environment for exposure, not fluency. I wanted to help her create meanings and connections with her surroundings. If she asked a question or described something in the language not “fitting” for the day, I translated for her by repeating what she said in the “right” language. (I never corrected her. I just repeated what she said in the translated language. For example, if she said, “我想玩。[I want to play.]” on English Day, I simply repeated, “You want to play.”) I was surprised to see she understood almost everything I said and started speaking some English words (and later, sentences).
I was intrigued. What if I added one more language? At 21 months, I added Mandarin to my experiment. I went Cantonese a day, English, then Mandarin. I followed the same method and it went surprisingly well. I was very shocked at how fast Miss R picked up Mandarin. If she had little exposure to English during the lockdown (I read stories and played nursery rhymes to her every day), she had VERY MINIMAL exposure to Mandarin except my experiment. Yet she was able to understand almost all my Mandarin commands and extended that understanding to conversations with other people. One day when she was 2, we went over to my Chinese neighbor’s house for a swim. My neighbor reminded her to take off her shoes before dipping her feet in her swimming pool. She followed her words without any problem. Another time when a Mandarin-speaking girl played hide and seek with her, I heard her speaking in Mandarin for the first time, “你在哪裡? (Where are you?)”
I stopped this experiment when she started attending preschool at 3.5 years old. I resumed speaking to her in Cantonese only. However, the impact from the experiment was profound. She had no problem enjoying school life. She understood everything the teacher said and she was able to make friends with other children. As for Mandarin, even though no one really spoke to her in the language (aside from the grownups at church) and she never developed a motivation to speak it, she still understood a good amount of it even to this day (she’s turning 6 in 2 months).
It is fascinating to see how consistent language exposure impacted her learning, even if the exposure came mostly from one single person. Ever since then, I have become an advocate of the multilingual exposure approach. In Miss R’s case, she was never confused and picked up each individual language just fine. I am honestly amazed by children’s superb learning capacity and hope to share with you all our experience. If you are a bilingual or multilingual family and hope to preserve your language roots, I would strongly recommend you to try it. No matter where you’re from, speak your language as often as possible. Don’t worry about your accent and lack of vocabularies. The kids can always adjust in the future when the opportunity arises. Let the environment takes care of their other language needs. You’ll be doing your children a huge favor.
I hope this article helps. If you have any questions, or any other relevant experiences to share, please feel free to comment below. Enjoy and have fun!