Growing up with multiple languages
Raising bilingual children has become a hot topic over the last few decades. We are starting to understand more about the brain benefits of being bilingual or multilingual, but what does it actually look like to raise a multilingual family?
On this episode of the Learn With Less podcast, Ayelet sits down with Erez Podoly and Andrea Scaiewicz, who are the parents of two school-aged trilingual children.
Ayelet, Erez and Andrea discuss challenges they’ve encountered while raising a multilingual family, their own strategies for success when it comes to bilingualism and multilingualism, and of course, their best tips and resources they recommend based on their own experiences.
Quick access to links in this episode:
Learn With Less podcast episode about Musical Patterns
Learn With Less podcast episode on raising bilingual babies
Text transcript of this episode
Ayelet: Welcome to episode 62 of the Learn With Less podcast. Today I am speaking with Erez Podoly and Andrea Scaiewicz, who are parents of two school-aged children in the San Francisco Bay Area. Erez and Andrea grew up speaking Hebrew and Spanish respectively, and decided to raise their children in a multilingual environment.
Though their experience is not unique, per se, it is one that gives us all insight into the realities of raising a multilingual family. That’s why I’m so pleased to have them here to join us today to lend us their perspective. So Erez and Andrea, thank you for being here and welcome to the Learn With Less podcast!
Erez: Good morning, and thank you for having us.
Ayelet: So I’ve asked you to come onto the show today to speak just about your experiences as parents raising a multilingual family. But first I’d love to just hear a bit about each of your backgrounds, so, you know, where you grew up, what languages were spoken in your homes, and community. Erez, let’s start with you if that’s okay.
Erez: Sure, sure, and thank you for the introduction and for the invitation. And as you said, I’m the proud father of two kids, 13 year old boy and a nine year old girl, and I’m the proud spouse of a brilliant scientist (Andrea will present herself in a minute). Was born in the US to Israeli students, who took me later back to Israel. So I spent most of my life in Israel, and spoke mostly Hebrew, learned English as a second language at school.
Ayelet: It is interesting, actually, your story because you were born here in the US, but then you moved back to Israel where you spoke Hebrew and I assume when you were…
Erez: Actually, they insisted on Hebrew, exclusively. So… I had another language, but then I lost it!
Ayelet: Right. You had a bilingual experience but then it was gone. But we’ll talk a bit more about that and how that sort of influenced you in, in just a moment. But Andrea, let’s hear from you as well.
Andrea: Hi. I was born in South America, in Uruguay. I lived there half of my life speaking many Spanish. I did learn English as a second language. When I went to school there was no English at school, so my parents sent me to private lessons that I had after school.
So most of the people my age then, if their parents didn’t pay for English lessons, they don’t know English. Then when I was in my twenties, I moved to Israel – I didn’t know Hebrew, and I started studying Chemistry in the university and I somehow I picked up the Hebrew along the way, I met my Erez, my husband, and I learned Hebrew. So, I became trilingual when I was in my twenties.
Ayelet: Yeah, amazing.
Andrea: We had our first son while living in Israel and after a couple of years we moved to the Bay Area, and that’s how we became a trilingual family.
Ayelet: Right! Amazing. So I think the question I’d love to ask you next is really, you know, did you have a plan, per se, for how to go about raising a multilingual family or did you mostly just wing it – and then also what was the sort of strategy you used? For instance, did you each speak your native tongue exclusively? How did you do it? Let’s hear it.
Andrea: I think that at the beginning when Ofir, our son, was born, for me it was more natural to speak in Spanish, that was my mother language and that’s how I communicated with him. We did know that it’s recommended just to stick to one language. For example, I stick to Spanish, and Erez stick to Hebrew, and that’s what we did at the beginning, but it was a bit more complicated than that because areas was picking up the Spanish as well.
Erez: Yeah, exactly. I think one thing led to the other, in a way, you know – it was important to me to learn Spanish. Even before we had kids, so I took Spanish classes at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem while doing my undergrad in Chemistry and later with PhD, and we spoke to each other actually two languages: Hebrew and Spanish.
I think it was a weird mixture of both – it was a Hebrish! Some kind of a mixture and only if you knew the two languages you could actually capture what’s going on. Yes, we did speak to our first child two languages, but actually it was a continuation of that Hebrish! No, it was not very didactic, in a way. I think only when we moved to the US and added a third language to the portfolio of languages, then we developed a strategy, but he didn’t try to speak anything. He said his first words later compared to other babies.
Ayelet: How much later?
Andrea: I remember. He was two. And it was, it was very interesting to see. I used to, you know, there were other kids that were already saying first words at 10, 11 months, and Ofir was saying nothing. But then after he turned two, two and a couple of months he just rushing through both languages.
It was amazing. I mean, they take longer to grow up with one language, but when they start, they have them both. And it happened also to our daughter. Our daughter was more complicated because she was born here and she had three languages, not two.
Ayelet: From the very beginning, right.
Andrea: Yeah, because at home we have Spanish and Hebrew, and she went to daycare since she was like seven, eight months.
Ayelet: And that was in English?
Andrea: Yes.
Ayelet: So again, just to recap, the home languages were, of course, each child would hear one, essentially one language from each of you with Andrea speaking Spanish and Erez speaking Hebrew, and then the language that you spoke together to each other was sort of a pigeon or as they say, pigeon language of as you referred to it as Spangbrew… or… either way!
Erez: It’s funny because it was fascinating to follow the process Ofir, our first child, was going through when we arrived at the US, we thought that he would be more comfortable Hebrew, we looked for Hebrew speaking languages, but and for four months he didn’t say a word in English. Of course there weren’t bilingual in English and for four months, I think, and please correct me if I’m wrong, she was mumbling, the accent, the American accent, in a meaningful way.
Andrea: He was like, with his trains, because he loved trains back then. And then, he was like, “Rrrrr, rrrr, rrr,” and slowly he started adding words, and he would play, “rrr, rrrr, yes” and “rrr, rrr, stop,” “rrr, rrrr, no.” It was it was very interesting to see how by four months after arriving here, he was speaking English, without any problem, the perfect accent. That’s another thing about him. He has the right accent in each one of the three languages.
Ayelet: Yes. That’s, that is amazing. What you described as ‘jibberish’ is… the technical term within language learning and linguistics is called jargon, right? Which is that like all of the sort of intonations and this and the speech sounds of, of a specific language without the content. Right?
And we know that in general, even with any child who is learning language, whether it’s a monolingual child, bilingual, multilingual, that you will hear those early communication milestones that we know preclude verbal language before, in all of the language or languages that, that child is exposed to. So if the child is hearing Mandarin than the babbling and the jargon, we’ll be using the intonations and the sounds of the language or languages that that child speaks. So it’s really interesting and wonderful to hear that.
I also wanted to just say to anyone listening that of course this is, this is you guys, this is your experience, your family’s experience to anyone else who’s listening, who has or is considering raising a bilingual or multilingual family, it may look very different to you. And some children, you’ll see that those first words appear later, and some won’t.
It’s totally different and I think it does depend on the number of languages, the amount being spoken, what also the home languages being spoken between the parents are so perhaps you know, Ofir had to deduce because he was listening to the two of you speak together this sort of combination language, he took some time to figure out, “okay, well they’re speaking to me very specifically when they’re talking to me, but then when they’re talking to each other it’s a little different.” So and there again, there’s no right or wrong approach to this. Just like there’s no right or wrong approach to parenting. Right?
Erez: Well, let me tell you something interesting about what you’ve just commented. We thought he doesn’t have the ability to separate this weird mixture that we’ve created, but he, you know, right at the beginning when in some peculiar ways, he could identify someone who is, who can speak only one of the languages and address this person with one clean language.
He was using just words and vocabulary and grammar from one language and we… that was so surprising and overwhelming. We couldn’t understand, how did he figure it out? That was… do you remember that, Andy?
Andrea: Yeah, I think and also for us, for me, at least. The Spanish was a need because many of my family members, they don’t speak English very well. So I really wanted our kids to be able to communicate with that part of the family, so for me there was no doubt that my kids need to speak Spanish even though we don’t live in a speaking Spanish and I think that that was kind of something that we always kept in mind and I think that’s also the reason why Erez picked up Spanish also, and felt that if he wanted to communicate with my family, he had to speak Spanish. So I think that’s why we also transmitted to all of these years, is that that’s who we are. That’s how our family works and that’s how… I mean, we have to.
The other thing I wanted to add is that we mentioned here that at the beginning we stick to one language and I would address them in Spanish, and Erez in Hebrew, but as kids grow up, especially if they grow up in an English speaking country like we are in now, it changes. It changes because they live and breathe and play and feel in English. Now it doesn’t mean that it’s forgot the languages. They both read, speak very well, in Hebrew and Spanish.
But, I think that we at some point we had to kind of give up that telling them like, no, please speak to them in Spanish, or please speak to me in Hebrew. Because they spend their whole day in English and it happened to Ofir, if you remember, Erez, when he would come back from school and first grade it was, I think you were. I was like, well, how was your day? Either one of the languages and he would start speaking in English. And we would say, okay, can you try saying this in Spanish or in Hebrew? And at some point, he started saying, “whatever. I don’t want to make this effort.” So, we decided to kind of give up, ok, you want to tell me in English – we wanted communication with our son, more than him being trilingual.
So we gave them both the freedom to express themselves in English, and amazingly, they do in the three languages now. In our experience, at least from mine, if you don’t force them, they will address you in the language you want them to. Sometimes they will do it in English, but they know they have it and they use it – and they use it when they want to… it’s, it’s, it’s amazing – they use it when they want to be able to have a more personal conversation, you know, something like, even if you are arguing or if you are kind of saying something more like laughing, “I love you,” it’s definitely… they will use the language in different circumstances.
It’s amazing to see how they choose… now they choose either language to say different things. We gave them the freedom. And you know, I’ve seen other families that addressed their kids and tell them, “No, say that in English,” or say that in Spanish, or say that in Hebrew. And it’s a trade-off: If you want communication, or if you want the language. But I think if you let them be, and let them say what they want to say in the language they want to say…. Eventually, they will come back to the language you want.
Ayelet: That’s very interesting. I would love to hear a bit about what would you consider the most surprising challenges that you had in raising a multilingual family?
Erez: I think, I’ll tiptoe, but I think that the most surprising challenge was the difference between siblings, between our two kids. While one is, I’d say, even a natural talent with languages, the other one struggles. So, we asked ourselves, actually, what we do? Of course, you as a parent want to take responsibility or you take the blame, and you have guilty feelings, and I think that the answer actually was very simple and interesting for parents.
With one, we started with two languages, as we already told, and with the other one was exposed immediately to three languages. I’m not sure if that can actually a rule of thumb, or it can be generalized, but I think it’s easier and when we started with two languages and maybe three is a little too much.
Ayelet: For her, perhaps.
Andrea: Exactly – and I think that depends also on the kid. Some kids, you know, are better with languages than others, and I think it can also influence. But I think also maybe at the beginning our daughter was a little bit, it was a little bit harder for her, but I think now she’s getting way, way better in all of the languages.
She’s also in the Spanish immersion program at the school, so that helps a lot. We’re very grateful that we live in this area or you can send your kids to a Spanish immersion program, and there’s also a Mandarin immersion program… so I think those are great for kids if you want to raise a multilingual kid.
Ayelet: Yeah, that’s amazing. What were some of the kinds of struggles? Can you just give us a little bit of a sense of the kinds of things that she’s struggled with?
Andrea: Well, I think I mentioned that a little bit of a struggle before – it was a little bit frustrating sometimes when they don’t speak to you in the language you want them to speak, but I think that we kind of gave up a little bit but it paid off because it didn’t stop them from speaking their language. And I think you can go back and tell your kids, say that in that language, say that in Spanish, say that in Hebrew, but I don’t know, maybe other parents are better than we could make them say it again in another language – especially with our son!
Our daughter, actually, she’s better at that. She will try and say it in another language when we ask, but we try not to because, again, we want more communication. And we do… I mean there’s a lot of work when you raise multilingual kids, you know, they take lessons, they learn how to read and write outside school in those languages, they have to do homework which they don’t like… It’s not everything pink and happy. But, in our case, it’s part of who we are and our family.
Erez: Let me add one more thing that we do, we actually make sure that they have friends speaking those languages.
Ayelet: So you’ve sought out those communities?
Erez: Yes. So we’re engaged with two communities or let’s say the Spanish-speaking language community and the Hebrew speakers here in the Bay Area. So we make sure they can reach out and actually socialize those languages because it’s like any other skill, it’s a use it or lose it so you’d have to use it.
And most of the time, you know, they’re kids, they are hanging around with friends, especially when they grow up and that becomes more and more significant. How do they interact with friends? So of course, if these friends speak English sometimes this is the common ground and they end up speaking English but not only, so it is a combination.
Andrea: Books, all the time and that’s something we didn’t mention. I always used to read Spanish books, and Erez, Hebrew books all over the year. It’s always Spanish and Hebrew and even, you know, when they started elementary school, and they had to do their 20 minutes of reading every day, we spoke to teachers and they said it’s okay to read in any language. So, we would do the reading in Spanish or Hebrew – because the kids learn English very fast – you don’t have to worry about the English.
Ayelet: Right, right. Because the English is the academic language and often the social language because it’s the community language. That’s really interesting and I think it’s really a wonderful thing that the teachers were aware of the fact that it’s the “learning to read” that’s the important part, not necessarily the learning to read in a specific language.
Especially considering that those two literary systems, for instance, the written word of Hebrew is technically even directionally the other side, which is a fascinating additional component to add, too, right? So that’s really cool.
Andrea: It’s harder for them to read in Hebrew than Spanish for sure.
Ayelet: Right – it’s less like their academic language of English.
Andrea: Yeah, different alphabet, it’s going in a different direction, and everything.
Erez: It’s a language that doesn’t have vowels. You actually have to memorize so many words that you don’t appreciate it until you actually have to teach the language to someone else and then you understand how many things should be memorized.
Ayelet: Do you guys have any other surprising challenges that you’d like to share?
Andrea: No, I don’t think… I think it’s more, it’s more like advantages than challenges.
Ayelet: That’s great! Good!
Erez: I’ll mention another challenge. A bedtime story is a, you know your time with a kid, the best time of the day, maybe, and sometimes they want the easy way. They want to hear English! They want to listen to a story in English and you know, it’s an effort for them to listen to another language while they just want to, you know, fade out into their dreams.
And you know, 13 years with Ofir, you know, and with the years, of course, it’s not just simple language – complicated vocabulary, more, you know, the register is higher, and it’s demanding! It’s a concentrated, focused listening and that’s a hard choice to make for so many years. It’s work. It’s not so much a challenge so much as it is a work that you have to do it and they – you need a commitment from both sides to do that. You cannot just know do that alone. You need a collaborator on the side.
Ayelet: Right, your co-parent or co-caregiver really has to be onboard with you and…
Erez: No, I’m talking about the kids!
Ayelet: Oh! Got it!
Erez: No, no, no, the collaborator is the kid! They have to be on board or they just say, Hey, well maybe I don’t, let’s give up. I don’t want a story. It tells you that they like this the time of the day, but they don’t want to make the effort. It’s a challenge. It’s so hard for you because you love this time, and you choose to do something difficult for the kid rather than just what they want.
Ayelet: Right. Well, I think that really goes into what you were saying earlier, Andrea, about how you have to make that decision about what it is that’s important to you at that moment: is the most important thing to just simply have that communication, or to just simply have that moment at bedtime, or is the most important thing to communicate… or is the most important thing to enforce that this is a time for investing in that multilingual environment.
And again, I think of course it is a different decision for every family, and it’s a different. I mean I’m sure many families have very different stories of success, varying degrees of success of how they’ve fared with whatever decisions they’ve made… and like everything else in parenting, I’m sure there are moments where you think, oh gosh, I’m doing it wrong. You know, because we all feel that way about pretty much everything related to parenthood. I think that at many times, so…
Andrea: I think that we did kind of… I’m going to give you an example. We give our kids freedom to express any language they want. If they address us, we’ll answer them. We will answer them in mostly not in English, but we will listen to them even if they speak English. And more and more, they use a combination of languages. What Erez was saying about how we started speaking between us. For example, the other day we were at a friends house and our son came when he was talking to me, and he used the three languages in the same sentence.
I didn’t notice that, because I was so used to that, and my friend was sitting down, and she was like, “did you just notice what he did? He started in Spanish, moved to English, and finished in Hebrew.” And our family is special in that sense in that sense that when we speak, if you don’t know the three languages, you won’t understand us… which is also an advantage, I think, it’s a secret language that we’ve made up.
And yes, a big component of it is in English, but it’s because they feel more comfortable with it and they can express their feelings. And you want that with your kids! You want them to tell you what they feel, and what they want and you want them to be open, but they… I don’t know how we did it, but they still have the capability for expressing themselves in the three languages.
Ayelet: That’s amazing. It’s such a gift that you’ve given them and it seems like in some way you’ve been able to show them that it is a gift as well, which is really cool.
Andrea: Yes. They use it in a really smart way, when they don’t want people to know what they’re asking for, so they will use it. And it’s an advantage!
Ayelet: Definitely! Let’s take just a brief break to hear a word from our sponsors and then we’ll hear a few tips and some resources from Erez and Andrea about raising those bilingual or multilingual families and maybe a few tips about how you’ve done it, if you can parse any of that out.
Ayelet: Okay, Andrea and Erez, let’s hear a few tips. So, can you share with us your own medley of sort of top tips for families who are either considering or just starting or even well on their way to raising children in a multilingual environment?
Andrea: I’m guessing at the beginning, they can do the same language – one person, one language, always. Especially when they’re babies and toddlers, so they know that’s that’s what you stick to them. Reading also, reading in that language, later on when you introduce media to kids, also. Watch cartoons or whatever they watch, in that language. That’s a great way to… you know, they want to watch something on the IPAD? Okay, you can watch but in Spanish or in Hebrew or whatever. TV can be also very helpful.
Ayelet: Yeah. Especially as you said, later on, when they’re a bit older and they’re parsing it all out. What about music? Did you find that music was a useful tool?
Andrea: Yes, but I think music… we used definitely a lot of Spanish music when our kids were little, but also all kinds of music. Music is something that also, I think it also helps with the languages. Music has a lot of influence in languages.
Ayelet: Yeah, we’ve spoken about that a lot on Learn With Less podcast episodes in the past about how music is a series of patterns. When you hear a song, it’s within a pattern, just as a sentence has, you know, grammar and pauses and punctuation. That’s something that you hear as well. So yes, I think there’s a lot of overlap for sure. What else can you give us?
Erez: Well, I have three tips, I think. Tip one is “push,” tip two is “don’t push,” and tip three is “pull.” And I just wrote small notes for myself. So, you know, push… we’re all aware of the critical period hypothesis, suggesting that there is an ideal time window in early age to acquire languages after which, you know, further language acquisition becomes more difficult. Not Impossible, but difficult. As Andrea mentioned, she learned two languages in her twenties, but this is tip one – you have a time window, push.
Tip two is do not push! Human beings have different capabilities to learn, as we’ve mentioned. It can be related to math or literature, as well as languages. Tip three is pull. Just bring them on board is, you know, create attractive opportunities for the kids to speak other languages.
Andrea mentioned there, a few… introduce them to family members and friends who are monoglottic people or the person that can speak only one single language and speak other languages at the dinner table, also like Andrea mentioned, and kids become…. you probably know that as a parent, too… kids become the best listeners, especially where they’re not supposed to listen.
Ayelet: Well said, yes!
Erez: For adults in conversation. And then, you know, they can read the commas in between the words. It’s amazing. And of course all the things that we’ve mentioned – and you asked about music – of course. It’s a wonderful way to teach language.
Ayelet: And culture too, I think as well.
Erez: And culture. For tradition. Bedtime reading, bedtime stories and all those things that we touched upon with 10, 20 minutes.
Ayelet: And then can you share with us just a few of your favorite resources that have helped you along the way? What are some of the places that you went if you have, you know, books or websites or researchers or anything like that?
Andrea: I think we just looked for the content that they were interested in, in the other languages. For example, when our son was little, he used to watch like Thomas and Dora, so we would get those in Spanish or in Hebrew.
I don’t know, our daughter was really into princesses and all of that, so we would get her like princesses book in Spanish and movies… all the, what they hear outside the house at school, whatever, so try to give them that in the other language. More than… I think that was what we did more than a professional tool. We just gave them what they wanted, in a different language.
Ayelet: And that of course relates to Erez’s tip about the pulling, pulling them in. Yeah.
Andrea: And I think don’t pull too much. If they don’t want to communicate with you in the language that you want, just let them. If you know that the other language is there, if you know that you’ve invested… especially you have to commit since they are born – like, really since they’re born, like when you’re changing their diapers after you left the hospital, you talk to them. Since then.
Ayelet: Well, Erez and Andrea, thanks so much for being here and thanks to all our participants of the Learn With Less® Curriculum Online Program for families who are here listening live. We are going to continue the discussion and open up for a Q and A session for you guys in just a minute, but for everyone listening from home or on the go, thanks so much for joining us and we will see you next time.
Thanks so much, everyone!
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