# Intercultural marriage. beside English, do your children speak a 2nd or 3rd language?



## jasmine31 (Jul 12, 2016)

Thank you very much for your replies and sharing.


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## john117 (May 20, 2013)

Choose useful languages... English and Mandarin sounds great. Don't get into a third language right away.


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## Seasong (Mar 1, 2012)

I grew up in a trilingual household. Both of my parents are from Europe. I was born in the USA. My father learned my mother's language because he worked in her country. 

Then she learned his language because he has family in the States, plus we lived in his country when I was little. We also lived in my mom's country later on, and so I had the best of both worlds. 

My ex spoke only English. I raised my children to speak my languages, but they weren't fluent because we moved away from my family. My son has become fluent in my father's language as an adult, and his wife is learning and my grandchild is being raised bilingual. 
All of my kids can communicate with relatives in both cultures etc, but only my son immersed himself.

That's my background. Keep teaching your husband! And have him teach you some basics. It's okay if you don't become fluent. My youngest is in high school.

Are you pregnant now?


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## jasmine31 (Jul 12, 2016)

Thank you Sir, john117 for your reply, and thank you Ms. Seasong for your reply and sharing your story. Thank you so much.


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## john117 (May 20, 2013)

The operative word is useful languages. If we are talking languages spoken by a few million people in one country and you can't find it on Google Translate then don't bother.

My younger is fully bilingual English and French and graduates in May with a double degree, one in French. Older learning Italian in grad school (PhD language requirement). If we had taught them our native languages it would not be as useful. Most of my relatives speak English, and most of wife's relatives ignore us so


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

My mother grew up speaking Italian, then learned English in school since she went to school in the USA. My father taught her Spanish and Japanese. My father spoke/read/wrote 10 languages fluently... the main ones being English, Italian, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Japanese.

In our home we spoke Spanish, Italian and English. My parents did not teach us Japanese because that was how the spoke when they wanted privacy from their 8 children.

With my extended family, we speak English, Italian and Spanish. I married a guy who also speaks English, German and Arabic... but he only uses them with other people. My son and step kids only speak English. Somehow they just did not pick up on the languages.


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## Personal (Jan 16, 2014)

MY wife grew up speaking Italian and learned English from her siblings and at school. While I grew up speaking English and am still trying to learn it, I can also speak Tok Pisin (although I'm a bit rusty) and know enough German to get myself into trouble.

I think @john117's suggestions are a good approach.

When our kids were younger, we had them attending formal Italian lessons, which we figured might be useful since almost all of my wife's relatives live in Italy. That said since I don't speak Italian and my wife seldom uses it at home, our 16 year old son barely speaks any Italian. That said our 13 year old daughter is far better at Italian than him, and as it turns out she is also doing very well in learning French and German.


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## john117 (May 20, 2013)

The important issue for the kids is to learn English. Regardless of aptitude for anything else. Not to brag 😁 but my kids are both stellar in this area. When I say learn I don't mean read chapter books by age 6. I mean, read Harry Potter (unabridged) by age 7-8. This is an area where multilingual kids often have trouble. Speaking Estonian by age 12 won't do you much good because the SAT is not in Estonian... If you're teaching them familial languages send them to the relatives for a summer. Best way ever. Then have their cousins here too.


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## Diana7 (Apr 19, 2016)

Unless you are going to move to another country, then the main thing is that you all speak good English.


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## RandomDude (Dec 18, 2010)

Wish I can claim to be trilingual but everything is broken except for English, ex-wife is quadrilingual, fluent with 2, conversational with the other 2. The rest of my family are at the very least trilingual, though one cousin is septalingual; 7 languages. Current girlfriend is bilingual.

As for my daughter, she's currently only monolingual however I agree with ex-wife that she should learn Mandarin. I agree with John, English and Mandarin are now the two most important languages to learn.


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## soccermom2three (Jan 4, 2013)

My mom always said that she wished my grandmother spoke to her and her siblings in spanish. That way she would've learned both spanish and english then taught me and my brother. I really envy those that speak more than one language.


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## Celes (Apr 28, 2015)

We have no children yet. But I speak 3 languages. My husband speaks only English. Living in America now, I think it would be difficult to teach any children we have the other two languages I know (it's not Spanish and they're not very common or useful where we live).


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## john117 (May 20, 2013)

You don't learn a language necessarily for living in the USA 😀

It's mostly for work and opportunity long term in my view... if the relatives speak it even better.


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## Haiku (Apr 9, 2014)

We spoke English and Mandarin in the house. 
Our daughter speaks both out of necessity and (poor) French out of interest.

I have no advice on what language your child should speak. I can't imagine why it wouldn't be one of the native household languages.


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## Anonymous07 (Aug 4, 2012)

I married into a Hispanic family and we are teaching the kids English and Spanish. Our 3 and a half year old son can speak and understand both languages. Baby girl is spoken to in both languages, but obviously too young to talk. I think it will benefit both of them as they grow up to know 2 languages and I'm glad they're learning.


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## rockon (May 18, 2016)

My Grandmother on my dads side spoke polish (she emigrated from Poland). My parents told me when I was young I would speak Polish with my grandmother. Funny thing, I don't remember one word of it. 

Like @Personal mentioned above I also speak enough German and Dutch to get myself into trouble.


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