Two language households – how to approach raising your child to speak both
August 12th, 2010 | 
Author: (I originally wrote this for @play in Cape Town)
“It takes two people to communicate – one to talk and the other to listen.”
Many of us live in a two language household – how to approach this is a concern. Do you only teach one language or do you raise them bilingual? If bilingual how do you approach this – do you each speak both languages, alternate from week to week or each parent speaks their mother tongue?
How to approach raising a bilingual child:
Speech therapists advise that each parent must only speak one language (their mother tongue) when addressing the child (eg. father Afrikaans, mother English etc). The reason for this is so that the child can associate one language with one parent and as such learn each language as a pure language.
If the parent were to alternate between languages, the child does not learn to differentiate between each language and so does not learn to think in one language at a time, but rather a mixture of the two. The language that the parents speak to each other is of little importance, as long as when speaking directly to the child they speak a specific language.
Be prepared that children raised in bilingual homes may take longer to speak than their peers only learning one language. This should not cause you concern as your child would essentially have the same number of words in their vocabulary as others their age, theirs is however divided in 2 (eg. 10 English, 10 Afrikaans compared to another child’s 20 English). This difference in development is only for the initial period, once language development is properly established your child will be as fluent as the next but in 2 languages.
The language they hear most will often take precedence over the other and will as a result possibly develop faster (eg. If a child is at home all day with the English speaking parent, they may speak predominantly English at first. Their other language will catch up over time). It is not a rejection of the 2nd language, merely a natural process due to exposure.
There are many myths, concerns and opinions regarding raising children in a bilingual home – rather than becoming concerned with all the issues raised, visit the following website whose focus is on addressing and educating in this regard.
http://www.multilingualchildren.org/
This website answers many of the questions you might have and offers great articles, support and a forum.
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we have the difficult situation where I speak English to Yme and the kids and he speaks English to them as they have not grown up with Afrikaans, but with the new baby I am sure he would like it to learn Afrikaans and it will be good for the other 2 to hear more Afrikaans but I wonder if it will be easy for him to use one language with one kid and another with the other 2 and if this will somehow create a divide.
I dont think it matters what language he speaks to the other two as long as when he directly addresses newbaby he speaks in Afrikaans – it is like with us, C & I speak english to each other but he speaks Afrikaans to the kids so they do hear him speaking English but the language they speak to each other will be only Afrikaans.
The other 2 will also pick up nicely and will probably be able to communicate in Afrikaans at least basically by the time new baby is able to speak because they will be hearing it more often and be learning at the same pace as a baby in terms of new words etc.
I think it is a little difficult in the beginning but he will have to put in extra effort in the beginning but then it will come naturally (you can also ask his family to only speak Afrikaans to newbaby).