Raising bilingual babies

Bilingualism is becoming increasingly common in the UK. While British people may have an international reputation for being relatively limited with languages, the reality is quite different. Immigration to Britain has made us more linguistically diverse with many different languages spoken in homes in addition to English.

Research has suggested that raising a child as bilingual may have a number of advantages, and these far outweigh the possibility that in the very early stages a child may not appear to be fluent in both languages yet.

While bilingual children may, in some cases, begin to speak later than their peers, they soon catch up and the benefits of knowing additional languages far outweigh any minor disadvantages as the child develops. Studies carried out on Canadian children who are bilingual in English and French, for example, showed that these youngsters were better able to concentrate and less likely to be distracted from a task than their monolingual peers.

These children were also more creative and better at problem-solving. The benefits continued into adulthood. Bilingual people were found to earn more money (although this will, of course, depend on how widely used and in demand both languages are), and experienced less ageing of the brain as they grew older, the study found.

Previously, and partly due to poorly-designed studies on the subject, it was believed that as children grew older, they might be confused by hearing more than one language at home, and parents were urged to speak to them only in English. This theory has since been disproved.

While children are learning a new language, it may sometimes sound as though they are mixing or confusing two or more languages as they learn them. This is a language-learning stage where a child switches between languages, picking which word or phrase feels right for the situation. This is a temporary phase and as they grow older, they will start to ‘sort out’ which language is which and may become more proficient in one than the other, particularly if they use one language more in their everyday life.

There is no right or wrong time to start helping your child learn a second language, but the earlier you can do this the better. This doesn’t mean that your child will just pick up Spanish by watching cartoons in Spanish. But it is generally accepted that between birth and seven-years, children’s minds are more open and flexible, which makes them extremely receptive to learning new things.

Children raised in a bilingual home may also have the advantage of being able to put both languages on a parallel path, meaning that they are learning two languages separately, but at the same time. As a parent or carer, you will need to speak to them daily in both languages; the more relevant the language is to their everyday lives, the more likely they are to pick it up quickly and easily, so using it for general conversation at home is a good way to get started.