Bryn Savage

I’ve talked to a lot of parents who worry that their family constellation won’t be ‘enough’ to teach their kids a second language. Here are some examples of family situations like this —

1. One or both parents are heritage speakers, who didn’t learn the language perfectly themselves, but have a cultural connection they really want to pass down to their kids.
2. The native speaker parent works a lot and can’t spend much time with the kids on a daily basis. The primary parent has a strong desire to support their kids’ connection with the minority language, but not the skills to be the primary speaker.
3. Neither parent is a native speaker. Their language skills might be amazing, but they will still ask themselves if it’s ‘right’ to speak a second language with their child.
4. The household is currently monolingual. Neither parent speaks a foreign language well or maybe at all. Still, they know a second language is amazing for brain development and for their child’s future. They want to give the gift of language learning, although they weren’t given it themselves.

This can be a hot-button issue — so many resources will tell you that parents should speak their native language (and only their native language!) with their children. I believe this is an unnecessarily strict way to think about language learning and excludes too many people from the joy of a multilingual life with their children.

Even completely monolingual parents can successfully raise bilingual children. You will not ruin or permanently confuse your children by being an imperfect speaker. The worst case scenario is that your child will take on your defects and speak the language badly. Sure, that’s not our goal, but it is a fixable problem and is unlikely unless you are their only language input, which you shouldn’t be. Be sure to check out this excellent meta analysis for deeper background on common concerns and myths around raising bilingual children.

Each family needs a plan tailored to their situation, which is why you need to spend some time really honestly thinking about the structure of your family and each parents’ language skills. It’s important to take a clear-eyed view of each parent’s ability level (both receptive and productive — i.e. what can I understand or read? vs. what can I say or write?) and the time each person is likely to spend with the children in an average week. I go into more depth on those questions and how to set up a productive home language learning environment in other articles.