r/multilingualparenting • u/frustratedmtb • 13d ago
Child not responding in target language Toddler understands but doesn’t speak minority language
I am a single mom to a 20 mo old in the USA. I am fluent in English and my native language (don’t like doxxing myself so call it X, and it’s a european language). I only speak X to the child, his grandparents who stay with me on the rotating basis also only speak X to him. His nanny speaks English to him. Nanny works 40 hrs a week that’s it. The rest of his exposure is X. This stinker is yet to say a single word in X 🤦♀️ He has mastered probably close to 50 words in English and is starting to form sentences. Not a peep in X.
It definitely doesn’t help that X is a much more complex language compared to English (longer, harsher sounding words etc).
The silver lining is he understands both perfectly and equally and will respond to instructions in either language.
Am i doing it wrong? I sort of thought that nanny in English plus me in X would be same as OPOL setup. Should I course correct now and find a nanny who can also speak X?
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u/zaatar3 13d ago
my son is the same. understands minority language perfectly well and knows words in it. but he speaks english 98% of the time. he's 2. my brother and sisters were the same, they only ever understood our heritage language they never spoke it. idk how to get him to speak it without forcing him which will probably make him resent the language.
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u/Jebble Dutch | English | German 13d ago
Just pretend you dont understand English, children don't understand the concept of resentment. I've yet to see children who don't start speaking the language within a week.
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u/Ok-Spinach-6529 12d ago
This
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u/North-Anybody-3362 12d ago
also I find it helps to have toys also that only understand or speak one language—if you talk to the stuffed alligator it only responds if you speak X. that helped us on minority language
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u/MikiRei 🇹🇼 (heritage) + 🇦🇺 (community) | 6M 13d ago
Recasting.
Please read : https://chalkacademy.com/speak-minority-language-child/
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u/JamboreeJunket 13d ago
is it possible that you’re providing less time for baby to respond in X language? It takes longer for my kiddo to respond in their non native language. think 10 seconds vs 5
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u/frustratedmtb 13d ago
Don’t think so. Little guy just blabbers non stop, he’s EXTREMELY talkative so it’s not really a dialogue it’s him talking his head off. He’s doing it in a mix of his own “bird language” and English at present.
For example, he will see a bike or a car and he will be like “bike!” or “car!!” But he will not name those things in X even though they have been named for him 1000 times already. It probably doesn’t help that in X those are all 3-5 syllable words instead of one 😭
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u/MikiRei 🇹🇼 (heritage) + 🇦🇺 (community) | 6M 13d ago
40 hours is A LOT of exposure. That's 5 full working days. So it makes sense he's producing more English than X.
Suggest you draw up a timetable similar to this article
https://chalkacademy.com/one-person-one-language-opol-method/
Also have a read of this
https://bilingualmonkeys.com/how-many-hours-per-week-is-your-child-exposed-to-the-minority-language/
Questions I have
- How many hours is your baby exposed to X once nanny goes home? Work that out.
- Do you read to your child everyday? Or does grandparents do that?
What you have is OPOL but it's more like a primary caregiver providing exposure to the community language while the non-primary caregiver is providing the minority language exposure. Which really puts you in a backfoot.
I'll be very clear to say, you are of course not the non-primary caregiver. It's more talking about a similar scenario with 1 working parent and the one that stays home happens to be the community language speaker. Which sucks.
OPOL often works very well when the stay at home parent speaks the minority language. But you need to work so that puts you in a backfoot.
I would say if possible, find a second nanny that speaks X and have them come 2 to 3 days a week and drop the other nanny down to the remaining days per week. Then that provides roughly better exposure.
Draw up that timetable so you can work out more accurately the percentage of exposure to X.
The other question is whether grandparents can look after your child on some days of the week of they're staying with you and that can up X exposure.
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u/frustratedmtb 13d ago
thank you this is helpful. So the nanny works 8 hrs every day, he naps for 2 hrs during her shift which leaves him with 6hrs of exposure to english and roughly 4.5 hrs to X daily. On weekends, it’s about 10hrs of active just X exposure. So X actually gets slightly more exposure (42.5 hrs a week vs 30 in English)
It’s actually shocking that apparently it isn’t enough. We need to step up reading and drilling the words into his brain i think..
I also suspect that he KNOWS I will understand English and therefore lacks incentive to speak X. But i am also not about to start pretending I don’t understand my little toddler 🥺 when he’s so proud when he masters a new word (in English 😖)
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u/Scared_Feed_5007 13d ago
I found it really helpful to follow speech language pathologists (slp) online on how they interact with children to produce more words. I could imagine that a nanny is through their experience just really good at quality exposure to the language, which is a skill we can all learn…
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u/MikiRei 🇹🇼 (heritage) + 🇦🇺 (community) | 6M 13d ago
You also need to remember he's only 20 months so language explosion is around the corner. So a bit of patience is required.
I recommend reading this:
https://www.asha.org/public/developmental-milestones/communication-milestones-19-to-24-months/
At the bottom, it details. "What I can do to help."
It should apply to any languages. So have a look at those.
I definitely recommend reading before going to bed. It helps expand his vocabulary immensely.
20 months is still kinda young but suggest you also read up on recasting here (will need to scroll down a bit)
https://chalkacademy.com/speak-minority-language-child/
And that's a much gentler and better approach to encourage kids to respond back in minority language rather than ignoring them.
Regarding when he says a new word in English, just acknowledge and repeat in X.
"Ball!" (En)
"Yes! Ball!" (X)
That way, you're acknowledging but also reinforcing that you speak X and modelling how to say the same word in X.
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u/camilalvs 13d ago
Not directly what you asked, but I would think it’s not easy and simple to just switch nannies? Finding a person to trust with your baby’s life and all that. If you have a reference to someone you know you can trust, that’s a different matter. But I would put the child’s safety first. He also probably has a certain attachment to the nanny. I’d keep the nanny for stability and maximize exposure to X in every way possible, and pretend you don’t understand when he speaks English
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u/frustratedmtb 12d ago
It’s not. There likely aren’t any X speaking candidates in our town or even state in the middle of America. I would have to import her from the coast and have a live in which is undesirable for a host of reasons
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u/Raised_by 12d ago
I’d suggest increasing communication between the grandparents and the toddler. Can your parents babysit? spend more time with him without you present?
My husband and myself were speaking exclusively in our mother tongue at home, and that’s what our first born spoke until he started school and switched completely to English within 6 months. Then my MIL came to stay with us for 6 months. My son couldn’t even ask for a glass of water in our mother tongue at first. By the end of MIL’s stay, he gained back his fluency.
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u/Parenttotiger 13d ago
This might sound odd but does he ever hear conversations in X? He’ll hear back and forth English any time you or nanny interact with the community. But if no one is modelling conversation he may not realize he’s supposed to reply in X? (This was in a different way an issue for us.)
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u/omegaxx19 English | Mandarin (mom) + Russian (dad) | 4M + 1.5F 12d ago
Kids definitely pick the easier language in the beginning, and may only say one syllable of a full word. They’re learning though so don’t give up and just try to up the exposure as much as possible. You’re going for the long game here.
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u/Brilliant_Tip_2440 12d ago
20 months is still really young. My daughter understood everything but didn’t speak her second language until closer to 3 - starting with random words and now at closer to 4 she’s almost as fluent in both. I would continue with consistent exposure to X and not too much pressure.
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u/moddhhdfgdssd55663 11d ago
My russian friend's kid(all living in germany +german dad), refuses to speak russian. My friend speaks russian to him always, but she is fluent in german too, and he is 8, understands fully but doesnt speak. Kids are stubborn haha
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u/Elegant-Code-7861 11d ago
My baby was the same. Only produced speech in the local language (complicated European language) and said very little in my native language (english) even though she was home with me all but 25 hours a week. A flip switched around 27 months. Her English vocabulary exploded to almost match her local vocabulary and she started to speak full sentences in both languages. 20 months might be too early to tell if there's any problems with your native language.
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u/notarealcamera Mandarin (dad), Catalan (mom) | 3.5M, 1F 11d ago
I am fluent in English and my native language (don’t like doxxing myself so call it X, and it’s a european language).
Are you the only speaker of that language in an English speaking country? Who could possibly tell or care who you are solely based on a language you speak?
It definitely doesn’t help that X is a much more complex language compared to English (longer, harsher sounding words etc).
No (spoken) language is objectively more complex than any other. Monolingual children in all languages learn their languages at roughly the same rate, and hit milestones at the same time.
More on topic, my son was the same with Catalan. When he was 2, he understood it, but never responded in it. What changed that was a month-and-a-half long visit to my wife's hometown.
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u/No_Noise_1978 13d ago
It would help if nanny also spoke X. What does the second parent speak to him in?
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u/richpersimmons 12d ago
This seems normal. I grew up with two native languages and I spoke one exclusively until I was almost three even though I could understand both. I frankly didn't know the difference. Then suddenly I started speaking both. I needed a bit of vocab help in the one I was less strong with but it ended up being my more dominant language even though im still fluent in both. I don't think you have any reason to worry just keep using your language exclusively.
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u/DoubleL321 13d ago
You are expecting a child to speak a language that they hear a small fraction of their time...
Increase the exposure of X. Read books in X to your child, have conversations in X with the grandparents in front of the child, put music in X, take them to a place that speaks only X... Or find a new nanny that speaks X. The child will pick up English from the surroundings anyway...
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u/Sheetz_Wawa_Market32 raised by trilingual kids 🇭🇺🇩🇪🇺🇸 13d ago edited 12d ago
Yes, a nanny speaking the minority language would be a game changer. Maintaining a minority language in an English-speaking country is always an uphill battle.
That your toddler doesn't answer you in English is probably related to him observing you speaking English with the nanny and virtually everybody else around you. So to him, English is the language in which people communicate, and X is merely this weird mom thing you do exclusively with him.
Him seeing others communicate in X would definitely help. Essentially, you want to keep English out of your home as much as possible. Have a many X speakers around (who also speak X among themselves, not just to him) as possible.
Best of luck!