Raising bilingual children

James wrote:

From my experience as a) an educator from Canada an officially bilingual country with a career in ESL spanning over 28 years now, and b) the parent of a Brazilian born child take a tip from the Canadian concept of IMMERSION schools.

Children learn naturally the language that they are exposed to at home. You should make every effort for you and your husband to speak ONLY English in the home and to the child. He/she will learn the language naturally as a mother tongue. He/she will also be exposed to immersion in the Portuguese language from all other sources (i.e. other relatives, playmates, television, school, etc.) so will get the benefit of both worlds. The child will grow up speaking both languages fluently without any problems. Just like technology and computers, kids have ZERO fear of making mistakes so they learn quickly, they're the same with acquiring their language skills too. You'll find that they can jump back and forth between the two languages with surprising ease if they get as much exposure to both as possible.

My son is 8 years old, and because my wife does not speak English I am the boy's only exposure to English other than television and the internet. Despite that he clearly understands everything I say to him in English, and what he reads. At times he'll respond in English and at others he responds in Portuguese, but it is absolutely clear that he understood what he heard or read in English nonetheless.

While it may be necessary to force yourselves to use only English at home, and it may be difficult for your a Brazilian spouse it is well worth the effort.

Cheers,
James     Expat-blog Experts Team

Great viewpoint, which I wholeheartedly agree with.  I speak English, and my wife Romanian (though she is fluent in English also) and we have a 3 and 6 yr old.  We speak English in the house 95% of the time, which I need for my own sanity mostly, and had to insist on   So the kids have English continuous exposure in the home.  They get exposure to Romanian when we go out of course and when we leave them with my wifes' parents over weekends.  They naturally have absorbed both languages without extraordinary effort,  My youngest even switches languages appropriately depending on who he is talking to or what he hears being spoken in the room, and my daughter did the same at around 2.5 / 3 yrs old.  My daughter now is even working on German as a 3rd language.  They indeed are sponges for information   They might not be as fluent (as in having the vocabulary) as other native English or Romanian kids that are monolingual, and I think that's reasonable as they've split their learning across two languages already, but they can communicate very well in either language.

Romaniac

@MrsW Bom Día! I have a great example. My natural mother passed away when I was only 5. My father married a Brazilin lady when I was about 8. I was always very close to my father and to help him with the cultural differences as well as that true love thing, I married a Brazilian myself.

The difference is my Brazilian mother taught me a few catch phrases like "apagar a luz" as well as common words for sugar, milk etc.

My Brazilian wife on the other had brought our daughter to her parents in Brazil when she was 5 months old. From then on she taught her and only spoke to her in Portuguese. My wife spoke to me in English and I spoke to my daughter in English. My daughter grew up bilingual with Portuguese being her dominant language (she also learned Spanish in school).

So now I know some Portuguese from the time I spent with my mother in Niteroi (across from Rio), but my daughter has both a Brazilian and American passports and has dual citizenship.

It's all in the approach and commitment.

Roddie in Retirement