Bilingual Children - Delayed Speech?

[Oleg_Rus]

Thanks ya all.

I was worry about this subject too - my son should be 4-lingual...

Another thing - I hope PB can clear it please... I download Columbia District's Public School It'ry for pre'K and K. And it was eye -openning. The public school in US is far more advanced than private schools here... My friends kids as well as my son are being cheated by clear un-education.

don't want to go to details, but is it really sux that much ?

[IMA_FARANG]

My son will be two next month and is still making almost no sense when he talks. He has a few words that he uses fairly consistently: bye, car (boys!), woof, quack, mama and D (for dad) - and that's it. He babbles constantly, uses a lot of gesture and definately understands a lot, lot more than he says. However, he has monolingual friends around the same age who will say things like 'I scary big dinosaur' - and it makes me worry that there's something wrong with my son! Is there anyone out there who can reassure me?

1. Just a guess......your first child?

2. Don't worry. Does he make an attempt to communicate what he wants? From what you say it sounds like he does. It will come when it comes. Next year you may be wishing you could keep him quiet. Children develop at their own rate.

3. Just be sure you always talk to him in full sentences, no baby talk, and he will learn what is required to make himself understood.

[El Taco Loco]

Off topic, but to answer the question of education. I teach here. Yes. The schools suck here, no matter whether Intl, EP or Govt. schools. I may have to move back home when venerable grasshopper is 3 or 4 due to the schooling.

[naamjai]

i like to continue this interesting topic!

my girlfriend speaks only thai, no english at all. so we communicate only in thai. my spoken thai is, according to my thai teacher, about phratom 4, my reading and writing about phratom 2! english is not my first language. in the future my girlfriends daughter (age 5) will stay with us.

i will try to talk with the daughter of my girlfriend only english . but then she will get confused cause i speak with her mother only thai ....

it would be nice if someone can give me a good advice what to do ...

cheers naamjai

[torrenova]

I speak english to our daughter and her mother speaks 90%+ Thai. She's only 8 months and making some vague speak recognisable utterings but I think it is important for her to be comfortable with what she is learning. As for the ease of teaching her one language or the other, then definately it is easier to teach her english later. When she gets older she will progress with both but I've no doubts about her learning english as I can help her but I cannot help her with her Thai as I cannot read a word.

[berries]

My son will be two next month and is still making almost no sense when he talks. He has a few words that he uses fairly consistently: bye, car (boys!), woof, quack, mama and D (for dad) - and that's it. He babbles constantly, uses a lot of gesture and definately understands a lot, lot more than he says. However, he has monolingual friends around the same age who will say things like 'I scary big dinosaur' - and it makes me worry that there's something wrong with my son! Is there anyone out there who can reassure me?

1. Just a guess......your first child?

2. Don't worry. Does he make an attempt to communicate what he wants? From what you say it sounds like he does. It will come when it comes. Next year you may be wishing you could keep him quiet. Children develop at their own rate.

3. Just be sure you always talk to him in full sentences, no baby talk, and he will learn what is required to make himself understood.

I haven't been on this forum for a very long time and I was very surprised to see my year and a half old topic still on the first page! The post above made me laugh because yes, he was my first child, I've since had another and I'm a lot more chilled out about things second time round! This time I had a girl and she started talking at 9 months! And secondly, you are right - I now wish my son would put a sock in it! He really started talking just before he was three and now he is talking in grammatically correct (most of the time) sentences about just about everything. He still says some funny things like 'do you want to come to we're house?' but I'm sure I came out with things like that when I was much older than him living in a monolingual environment. The next challenge is for him to learn Thai. He's got some Thai words but he speaks Thai like a farang which means Thai people always laugh when he speaks and that makes him feel self conscious! So, looking back I shouldn't have worried as much as I did. I would say that he's probably not a natural linguist and that the mixture of Thai and English at home made him quite confused. He is also not one of those children who will parrot what you say to them. My daughter is a complete parrot which has totally accelerated her rate of language development, and she can speak more Thai than her brother who is 16 months older. My son still has trouble pronouncing a lot of words in full - an example from today was him telling me he wanted to play on the 'puter' (computer) and I've read that pronunciation is linked to the physical development of your palette so he's got that to contend with too. I don't really worry about it anymore. Children do develop at their own rates and I felt that once I gained a little confidence as a parent I could chuck out the development guides and a whole lot of worry too.

[richard10365]

My son will be two next month and is still making almost no sense when he talks. He has a few words that he uses fairly consistently: bye, car (boys!), woof, quack, mama and D (for dad) - and that's it. He babbles constantly, uses a lot of gesture and definately understands a lot, lot more than he says. However, he has monolingual friends around the same age who will say things like 'I scary big dinosaur' - and it makes me worry that there's something wrong with my son! Is there anyone out there who can reassure me?

1. Just a guess......your first child?

2. Don't worry. Does he make an attempt to communicate what he wants? From what you say it sounds like he does. It will come when it comes. Next year you may be wishing you could keep him quiet. Children develop at their own rate.

3. Just be sure you always talk to him in full sentences, no baby talk, and he will learn what is required to make himself understood.

I haven't been on this forum for a very long time and I was very surprised to see my year and a half old topic still on the first page! The post above made me laugh because yes, he was my first child, I've since had another and I'm a lot more chilled out about things second time round! This time I had a girl and she started talking at 9 months! And secondly, you are right - I now wish my son would put a sock in it! He really started talking just before he was three and now he is talking in grammatically correct (most of the time) sentences about just about everything. He still says some funny things like 'do you want to come to we're house?' but I'm sure I came out with things like that when I was much older than him living in a monolingual environment. The next challenge is for him to learn Thai. He's got some Thai words but he speaks Thai like a farang which means Thai people always laugh when he speaks and that makes him feel self conscious! So, looking back I shouldn't have worried as much as I did. I would say that he's probably not a natural linguist and that the mixture of Thai and English at home made him quite confused. He is also not one of those children who will parrot what you say to them. My daughter is a complete parrot which has totally accelerated her rate of language development, and she can speak more Thai than her brother who is 16 months older. My son still has trouble pronouncing a lot of words in full - an example from today was him telling me he wanted to play on the 'puter' (computer) and I've read that pronunciation is linked to the physical development of your palette so he's got that to contend with too. I don't really worry about it anymore. Children do develop at their own rates and I felt that once I gained a little confidence as a parent I could chuck out the development guides and a whole lot of worry too.

This is a topic I have enjoyed reading.

I have a son (just turned 2) but due to problems at home I am a part-time single daddy. My wife and I split up and now my son lives part-time with his grandparents and part-time with me. So he is learning Northern (Lanna) Thai language with the grandparents, English with me, and Thai from the daycare/school I found for him in Chiang Mai. Needless to say, he is not talking much yet. We communicate mostly through gestures and sounds. Often the sound is from his displeasure which is loud and annoying.

I'm not sure how he will develop with his language abilities since he is not full time with me. I am hoping his Thai develops normally. I think him being in school all day with other children will help him.

Other than not really talking, he seems quite normal.

[lost_in_space]

I've got a 3 yr old, and have some of the same issues.

I found an interesting article on this. Hope it helps.

bilingual kids

[Ananke]

My son will be two next month and is still making almost no sense when he talks. He has a few words that he uses fairly consistently: bye, car (boys!), woof, quack, mama and D (for dad) - and that's it. He babbles constantly, uses a lot of gesture and definately understands a lot, lot more than he says. However, he has monolingual friends around the same age who will say things like 'I scary big dinosaur' - and it makes me worry that there's something wrong with my son! Is there anyone out there who can reassure me?

in EU its normal for many kids to have 2 or 3 languages without any problems at all.My own daughter (now 7) speaks 3 totally different languages fluently.

Berrie, if you are worried about your own languages then bring you kid to your country for a Month or two......and you will see a BIG developement .........if you let your kid play everyday with other kids.

I second that!

I know all the book say "Don't compare! Don't compare!" but have you ever met a mom who didn't compare? The thing is, compare your kid to other bi-lingual children, not momolingual ones.

We live in the EU. My kids are 5 and 9, and went to German kindergardens. They were so speech delayed compared to their German friends, I ended up not speaking Thai to them. We figured they were having a hard enough time with English and German. Big, big regret. Now they are in an international school, where many kids speak 3+ languages. Most of the ones I asked about also started speaking coherently later than monolingual kids.

HOWEVER: One friend's daughter (german, english, french) wasn't speaking properly for ages, and everyone said "Oh, it's the trilingual thing. Just wait." Well, eventually at age 5, they found out that she had slight hearing problems. Once that was sorted out, the child's speech improved dramatically.

Wouldn't get too worried about it at 2 though.

[Scubadude770]

http://www.multilingualchildren.org/index.html will tell all factual information regarding this topic. This is a fantastic site to help anyone wanting information about mutlilingual children.