In Praise of Mixing Languages

We are raising our daughter to be multilingual.  We are not following any strict approach to that end. We are doing what comes naturally to us.  Luckily, my husband and I have always agreed on passing down our native languages to our children.  I am impressed with families who take on multilingual parenting as a challenge, as a goal that they have to work hard to reach.  Maybe only one parent is motivated to encourage bilingualism.  Maybe the language at hand is not native to the parent(s).  So I guess in those situations it makes sense to have a strategy in place, such as one-parent-one-language (OPOL) or minority-language-at-home or some other system that keeps the "second" language at the forefront of parent-child interaction.

But in our case, we just speak to our daughter the way it comes naturally.  And this means that we mix languages.  I speak Polish to Natalia.  But I also speak Spanish, so when my daughter is interacting with my husband (who speaks Spanish to her), I often chime in when invited (by her) in Spanish, and generally repeat myself in Polish.  And my husband has been picking up more and more Polish since hearing me speak it with our daughter, and wanting to know what we're saying.  (Especially when she addresses him directly in Polish!)  We speak English to each other, and there are times when we address our daughter in English as well, either as a repetition of something we said in our native language, or when we're around English-only speakers.

Natalia has already shown that she understands there is more than one way to say the same thing.  She will pause and think for a moment and then repeat the same thing in another language, often accompanied by the ASL sign as well.  This generally happens when we are having a hard time understanding what she's saying, either because she is a relatively new speaker and her language is still being finessed, or because we are thinking in one language and not expecting to hear what she's saying in a different language.

Recently I read that some children develop a language-person association which can prove to be problematic when they refuse to allow that person to communicate with them in a language other than the one they came to expect.  As I read this, I realized two things.  1) I didn't think our mixing languages was a bad thing, but until I read this research, I didn't think it was a good thing either.  Now I do see it in a positive light.  And the reason is related to 2).  I have a mild case of language-person association when it comes to my mother.  I grew up hearing her speak to me in Polish, and I always replied likewise.  As I became an adult, the topics of conversation became too complex for me to know the advanced or specialized vocabulary in Polish, so we started to code-switch between Polish and English.  But when I hear my mom speak all English (to others), I feel funny about it.  It doesn't sound like her.  It's like I don't know the woman I'm hearing, because the woman I know to be mother, well, she speaks Polish!

Likewise, I've found it is problematic in mixed-language gatherings such as holiday dinners when I try to include everyone at the table in our conversation by saying what I have to say to my mom in English.  These prove to be very short exchanges.  My mom responds to me in Polish, while I keep trying for a few more turns in English.  Then I just sort of hope the English-only guests strike up a conversation among themselves so that we can continue in Polish without anyone feeling left out.  So there is definitely something to be said for how limiting it can be to be so used to a certain language with a particular person that hearing that person speak a different language actually presents a communication blockade.

Since reading about language-person association among bilinguals, I've been consciously aware of mixing languages with my daughter, and it doesn't give me pause anymore.  I didn't lose any sleep over it before, but I did always think about how I am "not supposed to" mix languages.  I no longer think that.  Instead, I think about how in the future, my daughter will be able to have a smooth conversation among my in-laws with me there, all in Spanish, with no problem.  And how we will be able to do likewise with her dad and whatever Polish he will have picked up by then, and she won't be distracted by the words coming out of his mouth.

I suppose this was never going to be a problem in our family because we speak English to each other, so our daughter has always heard each of us speak both our native language and English.  But now even more so, I'm happy to chime in with Spanish, or read her a book in Spanish instead of insisting that her dad does it.

At two years old, she communicates best with me because I speak all the languages that she does.  But even so, there are words she learns in Spanish and ASL from her dad that I am not familiar with and have to rely on his translation.  In close second is her dad, who certainly knows what she is trying to say more so than any other person outside our immediate family.  I do worry a little when she isn't being understood by her peers or other adults, but I try to remember that there are monolingual kids her age who still use such a strong "baby accent" that they have a hard time being understood.  I think with time, these things will straighten themselves out, and in the meantime, we will have established a strong bond in multiple languages.

When I think back to my childhood, part of what makes me fond of those memories is that it involves my "mother tongue".  It's like balm to my soul to hear Polish spoken on familiar subjects.  It's that same sense of reminiscing that I hope Natalia will have about all the languages we are using with her in these her youngest years.