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Parents with bilingual children, how did you do it? (lemdro.id)

submitted 5 months ago by governorkeagan@lemdro.id to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

41 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Although I mention parents specifically in the title, this isn’t just for parents to respond.

My wife and I are trying to raise our child to be bilingual (English and Portuguese). Currently we’re both speaking a bit of both to our child and when they eventually go to school we’ll speak more Portuguese as they’ll be exposed to English everywhere else.

Is this a good approach or is there something we can do better?

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[–] AccountMaker@slrpnk.net 15 points 5 months ago (2 children)

My parents don't speak English, but I learned it as a kid by watching a lot of Cartoon Network. All the cartoons were in English, no subtitles or dub or anything. Somehow I assimilated the language without any external aid, and then learned the rest when we first got the internet and I started communicating with others via games.

So, if I had to teach a kid English, I'd just expose them to as much English as possible with plenty of context and encourage them to express themselves in English when they can. This is also a popular method how adults can learn languages, called tprs

[–] zaph@sh.itjust.works 6 points 5 months ago

Have you received formal training since then? If you told me you're a native English speaker I'd believe you in an instant.

[–] beerclue@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

Same. Grew up watching Cartoon Network, HBO and the Discovery Channel with no subs (or dubs, they are not a thing in RO). Then there was music (lyrics) and later on video games and the Internet. It helped not having any OS or software available in my native language. Even to this day I use my phone and computer in English.

While I did have English classes at school (6th to 12th), the level was rather basic... I also took French for 10 years, and I can barely speak it. Otoh, I didn't take one Italian class, but I can speak some, and understand almost everything. Again, this is because we had a bunch of Italian TV channels in the early 90s.