Raising trilingual kids. You won't find a better example of how little multilingual children talk.

We asked trilingual children and their mums to talk to us in all the languages they can speak. In this video, you can see how the children switch from one language to another, depending on what they hear.

[ic]

The father when the kids fight: ;-;

[LS-engs]

I wish my parents would've raised me trilingual (Italian, Turkish, German). I absolutely love different languages and I enjoy learning them.

[atlasgb]

I live in a country where everyone speaks at least two languages so I spoke 4 since I was little and now I'm trying to learn more :)

[Charls]

I wish I was lucky enough to grow up bilingual. I'm only about A2 with french at the moment even after many on and off years but there's something satisfying about the journey of language learning.

[t.a.k.palfrey]

In my village in Kenya, three mothertongues meet: Kibukusu (a Bantu language), Iteso and Kisabaot (two mutually unintelligable Nilotic tongues). Add in English and the lingua franca Kiswahili, and most kids here speak all five, often across conversations, by the age of five. Around our dinner table, when my kids have friends over, we often hear all five of these being spoken in different conversations at the same time.

[juliasandor]

I have been able to speak Hungarian, Norwegian and English since I was little and I am now learning Spanish at the age of 14

[nfqdwru]

Im trilingual too, i speak spanish, english and FACTS





Woow no me esperaba tantos likes y taaaan rapido y asi de la nada xd

[OnganiBandaThest]

Interesting - language is like another dimension.

I can speak Nyanja, Bemba, Portuguese, English and some words in Tumbuka and understand some more conversation in Soli & Zulu

I am from Zambia.

[camille]

I’m trilingual, but I can’t speak my 3rd language (Spanish) unless I’m actually speaking with someone. I can’t do an oral or anything, it has to be an actual conversation. I actually had problems integrating school in kindergarten because I couldn’t speak the school’s language very well. I manage pretty well, I only have an accent in Spanish (despite it being my second language, it’s the one I struggle with the most). My sister learned mostly our first language, but developed knowledge of the second by me because I didn’t stop speaking English and a bit of the 3rd by my grandma. Still, she mostly speaks our first language. Growing up I saw people impressed because I was trilingual. Here it’s not rare for someone to be bilingual but trilingual was a bit harder to find. I just thought of it as normal. I was raised multiculturally and so had the knowledge of 3 languages. Sometimes I wish I knew Spanish better but I know that for languages, I’m doing quite well. But it’s INFURIATING when I know a word in 2 languages but the third is just whoosh and that’s the language I need at that moment-

[neptune]

I'm myself a polygot, 15 yo..
Languages are the most fascinating thing on this planet for me!

[NikoruNinja]

Ahh I'm so jealous, I wish I had the opportunity to learn other languages when I was young! Not a soul in my family speaks anything other than English. I used to study Korean, and got quite good but not fluent (lower B2 level), and I've also studied German, Gaelic, BSL and Japanese, all to about A2 level. I just hope that one day I can confidently say, "YES, I speak two languages!! :)"

[helmterbang]

The problem with skill talking in several languages is sometimes there's word existed in one and none in other. That kinda frustate me because I can't express myself clearly in certain language lmao

[jillian_shaw]

haha i’m in ib right now in high school and can only speak english but everyone around me can speak like 3 languages each! i find it so impressive and i hope my future kids can learn more than just english

[zlizgirl]

I was so confused by the title of this video. I thought it was insulting how few words the children knew. Instead, it's using 'little' to mean young children.

[tamarahill]

I grew up trilingual too. English (my dad), German (live there and school and such) and Czech (my mom). I also learned Norwegian and am currently learning Spanish :)


Edit: Oh and I have Latin in school, but I don't know if that really counts 😂

[lizzie]

I wish I could speak more than one language these kids are amazing and all of these people in the comments saying they can speak like 10 languages. I learnt French for 5 years in school and couldn't tell you a whole sentence. As soon as I passed my exam it all went out my head 😂

[corvarts]

I wish I was lucky enough to grow up like this. I could've learned Italian, German, and Spanish, but my great grandparents were too ashamed of their languages to pass them on to their kids. I've tried to learn all three but it's just so hard. Xenophobia is a terrible thing. Great on these parents for fighting that.

[Xavenger]

I would say most Indians are trilingual, its rare if you know only 1 language.

[grace_ly]

wow! i am 14 and these kids truly inspire me 😍

i speak english, about fluent spanish, and am learning portuguese and italian:)

[edezagon]

I was lucky to grow up in the US with French speaking parents. So school in English, then French at home. We then moved to Belgium and were put in French speaking school, then we moved to Italy and we went to local Italian schools. After that we all went our own way; I went back to US, learned Spanish, then back to Belgium, and learned the basics of Flemish/Dutch, my sister is fluent. I learned some Portuguese and German along the way. So we all speak 3-5 languages in our family. My daughter graduated Belgian/French high school and I always spoke to her in English. She learned some Spanish and understands Italian. Life was good for us in traveling the world!