Raising Bilingual Children, IT'S NOT EASY! What Worked & What DIDN'T! Kids Speak Croatian & English

Raising our kids bilingually hasn't been as easy as we originally thought it would be. We had to try a few things to really find out what worked for our family. The one parent, one language approach was the one I read about while pregnant with Olivia, and what most people talked about with regards to the topic. It didn't really work for us, though.

In this video, I'll walk you through some of the challenges we found, and what we ultimately decided to try instead (which really worked well for our family). Our kids are 5, 3, and 2 at the moment, and they now speak both languages fluently

[o.k_]

It's so good to grow up with multiple languages! I was born in NYC so I grew up with everyone around me speaking English. But both of my parents were Estonian so they always spoke in Estonian when speaking to me. Now I can speak and write fluently in both English and Estonian.

[aleksandarljustina]

This is a great video. I am Croatian, raised in the US, living in China. My wife is Chinese and my daughter is doing good with both English and Chinese. She is just like yours when it comes to Croatian. She understands, but responds with this complex mix of Chinese/English/Croatian, sometimes she uses all three in a single sentence. Little kids speaking Croatian is the cutest.

[SuperPapafigo]

I was born in an bilingual family in Istria. My first language is Italian, than may parents sent me to an Croatian kindergarten to learn the language and integrate with others kids. I was 3 at the time and I can't remember not knowing both languages. After that I finished all the schools in Croatian and finally the university in Zagreb so, as you can imagine, I speak fluently Croatian, but with my parents, sister and a couple of friends cant help myself but to continuing just in Italian. Beautiful children's, sve najbolje vam želim!

[dasadasa]

My mother is Slovenian, and father was Croatian. For as long as I can remember, we have used both languages at home. My sister and I always spoke Croatian with father and always Slovenian with mother. It must have been so funny watching us, all seating together and talking, while me and my sister were constantly switching languages :)

[lindasejdijaj]

My parents spoke albanian to me from the beginning and I replied in albanian. When I was four we came to Sweden and I started school at the age of six. So, in school I spoke swedish and at home albanian. Then half a year later my dad switched all the kids channels on the tv to german ones. This, because I was born in Germany but we only lived there for a year. I asked for it because I wanted to know how to speak german. Three years later we started to learn english in school and I did. So at the age of 15 I was fluent in four languages. It took time but it worked.
I have three siblings, the first one who is 1 year younger than me speaks swedish, albanian and english, and understands german. The other two are 18 and 11 and speak all of the first three languages but don't understand german.
The youngest one who is 11 spoke only swedish until the age of 7 but understood albanian. Our parent's never spoke or speak anything else than albanian to us.

Our parents never told us that we had to speak albanian at home. They learned swedish through us, the kids and we learnd albanian from them.

I really think that If you just give kids time they will eventually start answering in the language that you speak to them.

Except of the languages that I'm fluent in I understand bosnian and almost all languages that are similar to german, swedish and Bosnian.

I'm not sayying that it's super easy to learn a language but rather that if you're surrounded by a lot of people that speak different languages the chance of you learning the language is big.

[shanias.]

They are so stinking cute. My future husband is Hispanic, and our family will certainly grow up speaking, reading & writing both 🥰

[jaskobut]

Understanding a language is easier then speaking it. With a lot of TV programs and especially cartoons being in English on Croatia TV must help a lot, they can hear and follow the language but getting them to speak Englsih is most important where they have to learn pronouncing words and forming sentences naturally . The earlier the better.
Great job and the kids are too cute.

[laya]

I absolutely love this!! I was born in Zagreb, moved to Toronto just before the war broke out. I can totally relate to this situation except when I started daycare, I was telling stories to all the children in Croatian. As time went on, I learned English but was not practising much Croatian at home. To this day, my parents speak Croatian to me and my responses are always in English lol Wish I was pushed a bit more to keep speaking Croatian but I didn't have Croatian friends or cousins around me to kinda force me to practice - everytime I come back home to visit, everyone I know there wants to speak English with me. ugh. Hoping to brush up on my language skills over the next year and watching you and your children learning is really inspiring!! :)

[ReginaMcDaniel]

I think the Four Walls approach makes the most sense for your family. Since the kids are heavily exposed to Croatian outside the home, it makes the most sense to speak the other language only within the home.

I grew up in a bilingual family. My dad's native language is English, although he studied in a language school overseas to learn Arabic. My mom's native language is Arabic, although her side of the family also knows English, French and Italian (although not everyone spoke all of the languages fluently - different individuals spoke different combinations of the languages). I grew up predominantly with English, Arabic and French (with some Spanish and Italian influences mixed in).

My mom used the OPOL approach, not because she was concerned I wouldn't learn the languages, but because she wanted me to learn accurate pronunciation. Even though my dad knew Arabic, she did not want him to always use Arabic with me as she wanted me to be able to pronounce sounds accurately and vice versa. I sound completely American when I speak English and Jordanian when I speak Arabic, so I would say she met her goal. :)

Living in a mostly English language context, my English skills are the strongest, but I find it hard sometimes to only express myself in English. There are words in Arabic that I feel English does not have a strong equivalent to that I use more in my everyday vocab because I am bilingual. At home, we mix languages. Same with my mom's side of the family.

It all boils down to what is going to be functional for you as a family and what skills you want for your children. The early years can be hard (one of my little cousins refused to speak Arabic when she was young as they were living in Canada - it's better now, but she still prefers English), but keep doing what works and keep encouraging them to appreciate both as they get older. :)

[peterstewart]

That’s awesome!!! You’re doing an incredible job!!

[katrinastewart]

I grew up bilingually (English and Dutch) and realised the advantages from an early age. When I had kids of my own I was living in Norway with Dutch husband . I spoke English with the kids and Dutch with my husband, while he spoke Dutch with the kids. Living in Norway we knew that that language would become their main language, as school and peers/friends will decide that. We have four kids and they all responded in their own way. Child one used correct language with respective parent, but switched to replying in Norwegian from age 13. Child two only spoke English to start with, then only replied in Norwegian at home and eventually started using English at home again when he wanted to improve his English. Child three consequently spoke Norwegian at home until he was 17 and Child 4 started using both Dutch and English at home from the age of about 13. The kids are young trilingual adults now. They speak Norwegian amongst themselves. We speak English, Dutch and Norwegian to each other, without thinking about it. We do notice train carriages falling silent when we travel together, as people around us whisperingly try to figure out where we are from!

[ea]

im trying to learn Croatian and Croatia is my dream country so i started watch your videos. Then im also a mother from Asia and my husband is Caribbean and we hope my kids learn both language. This video is help me a lot. thank you <3

[dfensy]

Stvarno ne znam kako sam završio na ovom YT kanalu jer ovo nije content koji inače pratim, ali od kada sam pogledao prvi video samo sam nastavio pratiti. Sarah, ovako preko ekrana, ima neku odličnu karizmu, rekli bi: "Its hard to look away" i ne bi se čudio da je uskoro gledamo i na velikom ekranu!!
Čiča miča, gotova je priča... hahhahahaa komedijašica mala :D

[michikuji]

i'm bilingual twin. my mum is japanese and my dad is polish and we live in Poland. my mum speak to me only in japanese and yes, she was also pretending that she doesn't know polish (she didn't have to pretend that much haha) and now we fluently speak japanese and polish (and english 😏) i'm very grateful that my mum didn't give up and kept speaking in japanese to us. because even if we don't speak polish that well until we are in kindergarten or school, kids around us will speak in polish and we will naturally learn it.

[sonja]

Your kids are super cute. Awesome job with teaching them both languages. Bravo!!!! .... Predivna porodica! Volim gledati vas kanal. Uvijek je nesto novo i zanimljivo. 💕

[thatgirlblack]

My parents each spoke their own language to me as a kid and apparently I started speaking as if both were one language (mixing words in one sentence) and it apparently took a couple years until I completely differentiated the languages. Now I have no problem speaking either.

[TheTasha]

Jako mi se sviđaju tvoji videi, klinci su preslatki i mislim da je fenomenalno da klinci tako rano uče što više jezika jer lako upijaju kao male spužvice.
Svaka čast kako dobro govoriš hrvatski, hrvatski je težak jezik za naučiti pogotovo strancima, tako da BRAVO samo tako nastavi. I love english language and have been learning english since elementary school but I don’t have a lot opportunity to speak in english so after this pandemic subsides or at least when we all get vaccinated I would love to meet you and get coffee with you and speak in english. I’m born and raised here in Zagreb. Keep up the good work with the videos I really enjoyed them.🤗🤗

[kaoutermouslimhaliba]

My nephew had his mom speaking with him in Spanish, we are from Spain but with Arab background. Since my sister spoke only in Spanish he never wanted to speak in Moroccan /Arab. The rest of us would talk to him in Moroccan /Arab so he understood everything perfectly in spite of not talking back in that same Language. So one time he travelled to Morocco to visit extended family and he realised he had no choice and that was the first time he spoke in Arabic. From there it was easier for us to make him speak. Later on he travelled to France because my sister got work there and now he speaks three languages pretty fluently.

[johnnycroat]

I never thought of it before. As a Croatian kid growing up in Canada, my parents would speak to me in Croatian and i would respond back in English

[samobozja]

Gospođo vi simpatični, u očima vam se vidi pozitiva i radost. Djeca ijako mala lijepo odgojena. Vi, Ivan djeca, baka i dida prekrasna i sretna obitelj. Mogli biste biti dobra promotorica za Hrvatsku. Hvala 🌹👏🏻.