When my children were little, they were completely immersed in French.
Knowing that before the age of 6, a child’s brain is like a Rolls-Royce when it comes to language learning, I I started introducing them to nursery rhymes, then cartoons, and later video games in English. I never forced them. I didn’t say anything special to them. I didn’t ask them what they had learned. I didn’t ask them to show their progress. It was all presented as completely normal.
Back then, we also listened to the radio in English.
After all, in most countries around the world, it’s normal to speak several languages or dialects.
They spoke only French but listened to English.
I wasn’t worried. I figured that this gentle exposure to English would make it easier for them to learn the language later on.
When I was two and a half, my mother had an American partner for two years. So I heard them speaking English. I, myself, only spoke French, and no one pushed me. Later, I did have to learn English in school, starting at age 10, like everyone else. I had to study it, but it was easier for me than it was for the other children.
Later, we moved, and then my husband and I decided to enroll our children in a bilingual school. My son was a little over two years old and my daughter was four. And suddenly, they both started speaking English perfectly!
So, we enrolled them in public school. No need to pay for private school to have bilingual children!
Later on, we learned that they are both intellectually gifted. The gentle approach and their abilities had worked wonders.
We set up their tablets so they wouldn’t be exposed to inappropriate content. They didn’t have access to social media. We let them watch whatever they wanted, in whatever language they wanted, for a duration appropriate to their age.
Once, when my son was 6, he asked me if we could go to a Chinese restaurant. So we did. We sat down and ordered. Then the Chinese waitress came over to us. She said, “Your son speaks Chinese.” We told her, no, he’s just making sounds for fun. But, guess what? He was! Our son was repeating words from a Chinese video he’d seen on his tablet that listed different vehicles in Chinese. He was saying in Chinese: fire truck, ambulance, dump truck, and so on! Unfortunately, his Chinese didn’t stick, but what a surprise that was! But his English, on the other hand, did stick.
When my kids were young and and speaking English, people would assume I was American. I’d say no, that I was French. That surprised them, especially since the French are known for being bad at foreign languages. So they would ask if my husband was a native English-speaker. Well, no—he’s French too. And the kids? French too. They learned English on YouTube!
Now my kids are grown up, and, unsurprisingly, my daughter got a perfect score on her English exam, without ever having made any effort!
My son, on the other hand, prefers to speak English rather than French. So, at home, we mix the two languages. For a 100% French family, isn’t that surprising!
That’s the new generation! Welcome to the 21st century!
Translated with DeepL and Ollama translateGemma
