Anyone Raising Bilingual or Multilingual Children?

There are several books out there on bilingualism in children and language acquisition. We did a lot of reading before our first child, as we had decided to raise our children English/German bilingual. Our favorite book was Bilingual Children from Birth to Teens by George Saunders. (You can get it out of the library on interlibrary loan if you can't find the book easily.)

My husband is the German speaker, so he only speaks German to the kids. I know a little German, but not enough to teach them well, so I only speak English to the kids. (I do know enough German that I can understand what my kids are saying to my husband and what he is saying to them.)

Our kids are 6 and 4 now and doing great with both languages. It has not hurt my daughter (age 6) to know German and I think her reading in both languages is about the same level in terms of ability. She has absolutely no problems in school with English at all.

Unfortunately, I have no experience with adding a third language although we do have friends who were doing Spanish/English bilingual and have now moved to a French-speaking country and their kids, ages 4 and 6, are picking up French in addition to the Spanish and English they get at home.

We have several friends who speak only German to their kids at home and they have picked up English easily when it was time to go to preschool or school.

Allowing your child to grow up learning more than one language gives them many opportunities.

Good luck!

We have a bilingual household. The whole family is fluent in English & Polish. My 18 month old son picked up both languages. We speak both languages to him constantly. At first I thought he'd be confused but he's not. My pediatrician says to keep talking, kids that age are like sponges. Also I heard children raised in bilingual homes have higher IQ's. So do introduce him/her to many languages.

R., I own a foreign language school for young children and I commend what you are doing! In the modern age our children will need to be bilingual. Any exposure is good exposure. Good Luck. You are giving your child a great headstart in life! P. @ Lil Language Scholars

Hi R.,
I'm trying to raise my 1 year old son to speak English and Russian. I speak Russian, and so do my parents, who spend a lot of time with my son. My husband speaks English, and sometimes tries to speak Russian, which is really cute :) Of course my kid is not old enough for me to tell if we're messing him up yet, but from everything I heard and researched, kids even at this age can tell the difference, and are picking up on both languages. I think I also read that you can introduce more than 2 languages right away, and they will know! They are like tiny little sponges :)
I think if you encourage your child to speak languages other than English at home, he will be more likely to remember and be able to speak more fluently. He will definitely pick up English since that is the language spoken here, so no worries there :)
My aunt spoke ONLY Russian to her son until he was 3 and went to preschool. He picked up English in no time, and now he is 10, and speaks both perfectly. But that isn't what you are doing, just thought I'd tell you about another extreme.
Congrats on your first pregnancy!

I have a 3 years old and a 16 month old daughters, We only speak Romanian at home, but my 3 yrs. old knows English as well. She has a lot of playdates and it was pretty easy for her to pick up English. Between them, the girls speak Romanian and some English words. They are so funny:)