What is multilingual upbringing?
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Already before our son was born, the question of how to speak to our child came up. Both of us speak different mother tongues and we both communicate in English with each other. Without doubt, English came to both of us the most natural at this point to be honest. At the same time, we didn’t want to exclude each of our families from our child. A bit less important, but still something that we talked about during these times was that we both didn’t really feel it’s the right thing to raise our child as a monolingual English speaker. Would that make it even harder to connect to the roots later on?
Well, it didn’t take too long until we decided to try for all three languages. And there were we, right at the beginning of our very own journey of raising a multilingual child with all its ups and downs.
So, what it this, multilingual upbringing?
To me, raising a child with multiple languages is not thaaaat much different from raising a child to begin with. However, you have two “extra” vectors that are always very present in your life: Language & culture. You basically start looking at everything you and your family interacts with with the following questions:
“Which language does this help with?”
“Which culture does this represent for our child?”
“Is this in balance with the other languages that are important as well?”
Let me bring a bit of example into it: When buying books, we are always aware which books we have in which languages, so to keep a balance of topics by language. Same goes for any other content that is being consumed, be it shows, audiobooks, activity books, games, or the label stickers you might put on across the house to help your child name items and objects.
I talk some more about language strategies to keep exposure at a balance in this post, but if you embark on a journey of multilingual upbringing on your own, I bet that the meta-awareness of language and culture will always swing along in your family. Embrace it, and enjoy the marathon you are embarking on.
Of course, over all of this, you cannot forget to just connect with your child and enjoy each other and be together. Let life happen as it happens.
I am curious to hear about your own multilingual upbringing journey! Reach out directly, or let me know in the comments where on your path you are.
