Simply Bike

Name: Omma

Number of children and ages: My daughter is 7, my son is 5

The languages your family uses: French & English (and a very little Twi)

{Omma and the “bilingual babes” on vacation in France}

What motivated you to raise your child(ren) bilingually: I wanted them to have the cultural, emotional and economic benefits of knowing more than one language. Because I studied languages myself, it seemed natural for me to pass on that knowledge – and also a wasted opportunity not to do it, when learning a second language is so easy at a young age!

How does the bilingualism work in your family?

These days, we speak mainly English at home, because they go to an immersion French school. Their schoolfriends are either bilingual or monolingual French, so they talk lots of French on their frequent playdates. We also try to go to France whenever we can (2 trips this year!). The children often begin conversations with me in French and I just go with it. But English is the dominant language at home.

What are some of the challenges you’ve encountered?

When they were younger I did speak French with them all the time, and that was extremely challenging, as it is not my mother tongue. I have a good understanding of French (I have an MA in French & German translation), but having only briefly lived in the country for a few months, many years before having children, my conversation level was terribly rusty and I had to keep running for the dictionary at first!

What have been some of the rewards of raising a bilingual child?

I adore seeing how my children have a whole other world open to them. When we are in France, they are completely at home. It is particularly noticeable with my daughter, who having been in the French system for so long, has the accent and intonation etc, so really sounds French! She has long surpassed my French, and can pronounce different words that sound the same to my ear. She loves to read and so benefits from books in both languages. They both love the friends they have made, some of whom they could never have communicated with without their French, and all the French celebrations, such as ‘La Galette des Rois’, where they wear crowns and eat cake, and the ‘tooth mouse’ alternative to the tooth fairy.

What role does your extended family play in your decision and ability to raise a bilingual child?

It is only with hindsight that I see my motivation might have been to recover the ‘lost’ language of French that my grandfather never passed on to my mother and so she was never able to pass on to me… In that era, many immigrants thought it wise to only speak the community language with their children.

What resources have you found useful?

The forums at www.wordreference.com is particularly good for a quick response to puzzling phrases. I use it for French, but it covers quite a few other languages. Also www.verb2verbe.com is brilliant for finding out how to conjugate those pesky irregular verbs! We get second-hand books from the French Institute and book sales at the school.

What are some of your long-term goals?

To continue motivating my children in their language learning. It is all going very well for now, so I just hope they can continue to be active bilinguals through to adulthood.

What advice would you give a new parent starting the process?

Never underestimate the amount of input required for a child to keep up the minority language.

After a whole year of immersion French school and me speaking French all the time at home, my 4-year-old son showed a strong preference for English and sometimes struggled to find his words in French. A further year of immersion school solved this, he is now a fairly balanced bilingual, but it does show that a LOT of input can be needed for some children to recognize the value of a minority language.

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 Thank you, Omma, for sharing your family’s story with us! You can find more of Omma and her “bilingual babes” on her blog. I find it wonderful that Omma’s children have access to an immersion school that allows them to speak so much French. I would love to have access to something like that for C. down the road. Does anyone else have experience with sending children to a foreign language immersion school? Would you like to share you story with us? I would love to hear from you! (simplybikeATgmailDOTcom). 

If you’d like to hear from more parents in the series, see the rest of the profiles here.