How to Teach a Baby a Second Language

Raising a bilingual baby equips your little one with valuable skills. But how to teach her a second language and what effect this will have on her language development is a question in many parents' minds. The good news, according to the Linguistic Society of America, is that your baby will learn any language he needs to communicate with the people around him, so teaching your baby a second language is primarily a matter of providing an environment where he regularly hears both languages and has a need to use each one for meaningful communication with those closest to him. In a language-rich, bilingual environment, it won't be a second language to him, as he will acquire it simultaneously with another language, in the same way a monolingual child develops language proficiency.

Things You'll Need

  • Storybooks
  • Recorded books
  • Videos
  • Music in two languages

Instructions

    • 1

      Speak to your baby in your primary language and have your spouse or a grandparent, day care provider, or other people who are around your child frequently and who are fluent in another language speak to her in their native tongue. If this is not feasible and you have bilingual proficiency or the willingness to learn, make a deliberate plan to speak to your child only in one language or the other at certain times. For example, you could alternate between French days and English days or speak English in the morning and French in the afternoon and evening. Another idea is for you to use certain languages with certain activities, such as French at mealtimes and English at bath time. Whatever language schedule you choose, your child has the opportunity to learn through hearing both languages used in meaningful contexts before she is expected to start speaking it in a normal development schedule by age 2 or 3.

    • 2

      Play language games in the second language. Watch videos, sing songs, read stories, and listen to children's music and recorded books that expose your baby to multiple languages. The more exposure your baby has to real-world language use, the stronger the foundation he has for making sense of both languages and become bilingually fluent once he reaches the stage of expected language production.

    • 3

      Take your child out into the real world to explore, and talk to her in both languages about what you perceive with your senses. If you take her to a petting zoo, talk about the "caballo" instead of the horse or the "oveja" instead of the sheep. Take her on a nature hike and talk about "los arboles" (trees), "los flores" (flowers), "el zacate" (the grass) and "el rio" (the river), and let her see, touch, smell and hear firsthand to build strong connections between words and real-world experiences

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