Raising Readers in a Multilingual Home

Tips and insights from linguist-parent-writer Tanya Mozias

Photo by JACQUELINE BRANDWAYN on Unsplash

Language is one of those things that we take for granted. We practice speaking every day and don’t think too much about it. But throw in a baby and all of a sudden language is at the very top of your mind. We’re told to talk to them to build their language abilities. We worry about what we should and shouldn’t say in front of them. And for those of us with multiple languages at home, it even becomes something of an existential dilemma. And the fundamental question at the heart of it is, What language do we teach? And, how?

For my family, it was a no-brainer. We would teach our kids Hindi a language both my husband and I spoke. The problem is that we didn’t speak to each other in Hindi. We met in English and it had become our de facto language. But since we both knew Hindi, it would obviously be easy to switch from English to Hindi at home.

Except, joke’s on us, because it very much wasn’t easy. At all. Turns out it’s quite challenging to restructure the language that inhabits your home. It’s the invisible person that becomes a part of your family—in on all your inside jokes and verbal shorthand. The pressure was on. My husband and I would say something in English, exchange a panicked look, and translate it to Hindi. A few more days of this grinding, halting, frantic translation, and we resorted to silence, exhausted with the effort of speaking. The two languages so entangled in our minds, they barely made it to the pavement of our tongues.

Of course, this couldn’t go on forever and we resumed speaking but gave ourselves lots of time and grace to recalibrate. If one of us were found speaking in English, the other would gently admonish: “Hindi.” Immediately the sentence would be translated. We accepted that English would creep in (it’s practically impossible to avoid since most Hindi speakers actually speak Hinglish). Now we’re at a place where we do speak Hindi significantly more and have mandated grandparents do the same.

If our kid can become fluent in Hindi, we will be satisfied. I’d love for her to be able to read and write but since I barely have those skills myself, I’ll leave that as a nice-to-have.

I know we aren’t the only ones who mull over the best way to teach our kid the languages we know. What strategies are you pursuing to expose kids to multiple languages? How successful has it been for you?

When I first read Tanya’s essay about her desire for her kids to know Russian, her mother tongue, I was swept away by that innate, desperate need to communicate with our children. It reminded me of how intimate it is to know a language that knows you back.

Tanya is a wonderfully talented writer and linguist all while also being a single mom to her two kids. She is on a mission to learn 12 languages in 12 months (see, super talented! I can barely manage one language on the best of days) and she chronicles that adventure and her passion for language in her newsletter, Friends With Words.

With so many of us raising kids in multilingual homes and hoping to pass on our languages to our kids, I’m so excited to have Tanya here to share words of wisdom as both a professional linguist and someone who wields multiple languages in her own home.

What languages do you speak at home? Which ones do your kids speak?

We use three languages daily: Russian, English, and Hebrew.

We live in Israel, so Hebrew is the community language. Russian and English are what we speak at home. Russian is my mother tongue. But both my kids were born in English-speaking countries (I lived abroad for 16 years—Canada, the US, and the UK) so it was the community language when they were little. When I moved back to Israel I made English our home language because I didn’t want them to forget it. It’s not a very well-known fact that kids can forget languages as quickly as they learn them, especially when they are young. My younger child was four years old when we moved back [to Israel] and I know that if I didn’t switch to speaking English to her at home she would forget it.

“It’s not a very well-known fact that kids can forget languages as quickly as they learn them, especially when they are young.”

As for learning new languages, my kids have always been around languages because of my line of work. When I was still in academia, my son came with me on a research trip in a native community one summer (my research focused on Ojicree), and then when I taught Ojicree, he came with me to classes and learned a little bit as well. I don’t think he remembers anything now, but I think it does something good to you, just having that exposure to other languages and cultures.

More recently he started learning Arabic on Duolingo (he is 15 now) and made good progress but stopped because it turned out that it wasn’t the dialect of Arabic spoken in Israel. His sister followed his lead and was learning Chinese on Duolingo for a while. It’s amazing to see how quickly kids learn. I have been learning Thai for three months now and I still sometimes have trouble with tones. When my daughter tried to say a couple of sentences in Thai, she got all the tones perfect on the first try (I know because Google Translate understood her.) It’s fascinating.

I’ve always wanted to know: How does culture influence language and vice versa? What role do stories play in this interchange?

That’s a very interesting question. I think culture and language are of course tied one to another but not necessarily in the way people think. And they’re not inseparable.

Speaking your language can be a great way to introduce your child to your culture, especially since there are specific cultural things that are very hard to translate into another language. And stories are a very important tool to do that especially if your kids aren’t growing up around your culture. Most of us don’t sit down casually after school and begin telling our children about our culture, but when you’re reading them a story, your child is enjoying the story, your togetherness, and also learning about your culture.

But you can also teach them about your culture without the language. I’m thinking of wonderful picture books like “Birdsong” by Julie Flett (SJ: review coming!), “Fry Bread” by Kevin Noble Maillard (SJ: reviewed here), and “We Are Water Protectors” by Carole Lindstrom (SJ: review coming!) are all inspired by North American indigenous cultures but are written in English.

And you can teach the language without the culture as well. I want my daughter to speak Russian but I don’t feel connected to the Russian culture so I don’t know what part of it I want to pass down to her if any. But then again, if I grew up there in some way it is a part of me, even if I’m not aware of it. And if we’ll be reading more in Russian, can I pass down the language completely without the culture? Probably not. I’ll be passing down to her some aspects of the culture but they will be filtered through my personality and my experience.

So when you’re teaching them your language/culture, what you’re doing is passing on to them a piece of yourself.

What are your top tips for helping kids learn languages?

• For babies, you don’t need to do any formal teaching. Just speak to them in that language. But you do need to be consistent, ideally. It’s a good idea to attach a language to something: a person, a place, or an activity. So you can decide that dad/grandma/aunt always speaks Spanish and only Spanish to the child. Or you can decide that Vietnamese is spoken at home and English outside. Or that Ukrainian is spoken on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and French on the rest.

• If you’re the only person speaking to them in that language, find ways for them to have more exposure to it. As you go about your daily life, you’ll quickly notice that you just say the same things every day over and over again (brush your teeth, how was your day, let's put teddy to sleep). It’s fine and ok, but if you want to go beyond that, you can go beyond your everyday conversations: find additional activities for them to do in that language (an after-school club) or people to interact with (e.g. babysitter), read books and watch movies in that language together.

• Be in the lead. Remember that just like with everything else in parenting, you’re the grown-up and you decide. Do set up boundaries. For example, if you’re a Spanish-speaking parent and your kid one day says I don’t want you to speak Spanish to me anymore, it’s fine as a parent to say, “Sorry these are the rules in our house.” I wouldn’t force them to speak a certain language if they resist but you can speak whatever you want (provided they understand of course). Ultimately communication with our kids is more important than what language we speak, but even if they resist speaking your language, I think there are gentle and non-coercive ways to change that.
  

  Right now my daughter refuses to speak Russian even though she understands everything. It’s kind of expected because I’m the only adult in the house with two home languages, and I didn’t follow my own advice and create a consistent schedule for them. So recently I started speaking Russian to her more. When she objects and says “I don’t want you to speak to me in this language.” I say “I speak what I want and you speak what you want.” I do have a secret agenda to get her to start speaking Russian to me more (I have some ideas on how to do that and I’ll be sharing how it goes in my newsletter) but right now my only goal is to speak to her more in Russian.

• For older kids (age 3+), if you want to teach them a new language, then it’s going to be a different process. If you can create an immersion environment for them like an after-school club—that would be fantastic. If not, there are still ways to do that but it has to be done through play and enjoyment. Duolingo is a great start. My son didn’t start learning Hebrew until he was four or five, but I wanted him to learn it because we visited Israel every year. I had to get creative to keep it fun for him because he wasn’t really into it.

“Whatever your strategy, the most important is to be consistent!”

I’ve had several parents reach out to me about bilingual books for their kids. What role can picture books play as a tool to learn a language?

Here’s a funny story: When we moved to our current apartment, I arranged all our books by language and I explained to my daughter (age 4 at the time): “Maya, these are our books in Russian, these are our books in English, and these are our books in Hebrew.” To which she replied, “Where are our books in French?” Which was hilarious because she doesn’t speak French and we never had French language picture books in our house. But that kind of told me that if I suddenly decided to read to her in French she wouldn’t mind, because she was so used to being around different languages.

I think the most important thing is to have a culture of reading in your home (SJ: here’s why it’s important and some tips to get started). Reading solely as a way to teach your kids a new language is not going to work. You need to just read and enjoy reading. I don’t believe it when people say “My kids don’t like books or like to read.” That’s physiologically / neurologically impossible. Our brains are wired to like stories. If your kid doesn’t like to read it's because you haven’t identified a topic they like to read about. And if they don’t like reading because it’s too hard for them—then you need to read to them. Read to them even if they’re a teenager. Who cares?

“I think the most important thing is to have a culture of reading in your home.”

We can use that wiring (our innate love for stories) to our advantage when it comes to teaching them other languages. And reading to them in the minority language (your home language) is super important because it helps them increase their vocabulary and keeps it interesting.

When my son was a baby I only read him books in Russian because I wanted to establish the boundary: Mom speaks and reads only in Russian. If he picked an English language book at the library, I would still translate it to Russian as I read. I don’t think you have to be quite as strict as that (SJ: I do this as well! It requires some extra brainpower but it’s been worth the effort in my experience). It was only when he was bigger that I started reading to him in English (and I realized just how much I enjoyed it). Now, I write and read almost exclusively in English myself and I love good picture books so it was great to start sharing that love with him.

Picture books can also be your way in if you want to increase their exposure to the language or if they’re resistant to using the language. Because if you find a picture book on a topic they’re interested in… you’re golden. They’ll care about the content, not about the language it’s written in.

“Because if you find a picture book on a topic they’re interested in… you’re golden. They’ll care about the content, not about the language it’s written in.”

Additional tips & resources

• As Tanya mentioned, translate picture books into the language of your choice; it’s an excellent way to build language

• Look for picture books that showcase your culture; most of the ones published in the last 5-10 years will include words in that culture’s language

• This article by

  Elin Petronella
  and
  Remy Bazerque
  reassured me that putting in even some effort will positively impact kids’ language acquisition

• The Dubbing Database is a great resource to find out which popular shows and movies are dubbed in your language and where you can watch them

  

Let’s talk…

• What has worked for you in raising bi/multi-lingual kids?

• What are YOUR tips and tricks?

• How do you use picture books to help your kids become more familiar with your language?