Don't worry about overwhelming your child with learning both languages, because scientific studies show that their brain is designed to learn up to six different languages before they even speak the first word.
It can happen from time to time that your child mixes the two languages together and says, for example, "Mum, el perro is running over there". This suggests that they are replacing unfamiliar words in one language with knowledge from the other language, but this will normalize over time. A major benefit of multilingual parenting is that it boosts your loved one's cognitive, social, and intellectual skills. If you speak several languages with them early on, they will find it much easier to learn other languages at school. This has a positive effect over the course of their life, even on vacation or at work. The best time to start this is before the age of five.
In order for your child’s multilingual upbringing to be successful, you should pay attention to clear structures. This means that each parent speaks a fixed language with the child. For example, you can speak German and your partner Spanish, i.e. in your respective mother tongue, with your little one. This clear separation is important so that your child can feel safe and comfortable and not take on your accidental mistakes. This makes it easier for them to concentrate on the language, which in turn is positive for their ability to express themselves and language development. It is just as important that you encourage your child to speak for themselves. You can look at books together or comment on things that you do in your everyday life. Ask questions and let them talk about the things that are on their mind. So it is equally safe in both languages and they will enjoy communicating with you and your multilingual families.
As you study together, have realistic expectations of your child and be patient. It may well be that progress in different languages is uneven. Consistently continue to speak your mother tongue with your little one and keep looking for new ways to teach them new words. Because when you have fun together, learning almost takes care of itself.
These are the advantages of a multilingual education:
- Children who grow up bilingually or with more foreign languages get a good feel for languages very early on. They can also express themselves excellently in the "foreign language" - often they even speak it at native speaker level.
- Children brought up bilingually find it easier to learn new foreign languages. This is because they transfer vocabulary and grammatical structures from one language to another and internalize “parallels” more quickly.
- By learning new languages, children can be made aware of cultural differences or regional characteristics right from the start.
- A multilingual upbringing has a consistently beneficial effect on later professional life. This applies in particular to sectors in which several foreign languages are desired or required.
- Studies have shown that multilingual children who switch between different languages have an easier time concentrating. They are more flexible and powerful when it comes to switching back and forth between different tasks.
- Some scientific evidence shows that being bilingual/multilingual is a powerful tool for creativity.
- Children who grow up bilingually learn better how to adapt to their conversation partners and how to correct misunderstandings. This has to do with the sometimes difficult communication situations that cause incorrect sentence constructions or inappropriate words in the mother tongue or second language.
The disadvantages of raising children multilingually are:
- There is a risk, for example, that the child will ultimately not be able to speak any of the languages properly and will therefore have problems.
- A multilingual upbringing could also be disadvantageous for children who generally have problems with pronunciation or with understanding in general.
- In addition, multilingualism does not meet with everyone's approval and some relatives, friends or colleagues may reject this way of life.
- It could happen that multilingual children cannot initially communicate in one language as verbosely as children with a monolingual upbringing. In most cases, however, this is a temporary phenomenon. The gaps that these children have, for example in vocabulary or grammar, they catch up in the first years of school.
In order to make language learning easier for the child and to prevent confusion, it is advisable for one parent to communicate with the child in the other language (foreign or mother tongue). In this way, the child can always get involved with the respective language and does not run the risk of mixing the two languages. If, nevertheless, a "speech salad" occurs, you should not hesitate to carefully correct your child. Only in this way do they learn to express themselves correctly over time.
