Location: Netherlands
Parents: Mom=Greek, English, Dutch, Spanish & German; Dad=Spanish, Dutch, English & Italian
Children: Greek, Dutch, Spanish, English
Who speaks what language when to whom?
Veronika: Thank you very much for taking the time and doing this interview. My first question for you would be: What languages do you actually speak at home and who speaks what?
Stella: Yes, my pleasure to be part of this interview. I think our home language situation is a little bit complex. We have three boys. The first one is my stepson and the other two are from me and my partner. I speak to the eldest in English and Dutch and Greek to the other two; and then my partner speaks Spanish to all three of them; and then my partner and I speak English with each other.
Veronika: Okay.
Stella: So at home we have Greek, Spanish, and English and we also have Dutch because we live in the Netherlands and the kids learn Dutch in school and at day-care. So we have four languages total.
Veronika: Wow! How old are the kids?
Stella: The eldest is almost eight and the other two are 4 ½ and 3 ½.
Veronika: And how come that’s such a patchwork family in terms of languages?
Many languages—but one that is closer to the heart
Stella: I was born in Germany, but my parents are Greek. So I grew up bilingual. I left Germany 10 years ago. I lived in the U.K, then I lived in Greece, and then I moved to the Netherlands. When I had my children, I had to choose between German and Greek because I didn’t want to speak both languages. It would have been confusing.
I went for Greek because it’s the language that is closer to my heart. I would say I’m more connected to Greece in my life right now than Germany. And then my parents’ language is Greek even though they speak German. But I felt like for me it would have been more natural to speak Greek; so I decided to speak Greek to them.
And then my partner is from Argentina. His mother tongue is Spanish. He decided to speak Spanish with the kids even though he speaks perfect Dutch. He wanted to give them his heritage. And then, since we live in the Netherlands, we are very positive that our kids will learn Dutch without any problems. Also I grew up bilingual and I never encountered any problems with it. So we were very positive towards the fact that even though we won’t speak Dutch at home, our children will learn the language.
And then, finally, English is the language we communicate with each other because—I mean I do speak a little bit of Dutch and I do understand some Spanish, but the language we share is English.
Planning language use in the family
Veronika: Okay. You said you speak English to your stepson too?
Stella: Yes.
Veronika: So that’s a foreign language for him too, right?
Stella: Yeah, yeah and that’s actually something I regret a little bit because when I met him, I didn’t think about it. I mean I did think about which language I should speak to him and, of course, he didn’t speak English because he was very little. I thought if I spoke Greek to him, his dad won’t understand it. So I decided to just go for English. But then I didn’t think about how that will be if we later have kids. So now I regret it a little. I wish I had spoken to him in Greek because then we would now have a shared language amongst the three of us: Greek.
Veronika: Yeah, I can see that it can make it a bit complex at times.
Stella: Now sometimes it’s a little bit tricky because sometimes I have to translate things. Then I sometimes have to switch into Dutch because all of them understand Dutch, but my Dutch is not that good. So, yes, that complicates things. But my stepson also understands a lot of Greek now because he’s surrounded by the three of us speaking Greek and we travel to Greece for vacations.
Language use among siblings
Veronika: What do the children use when they speak to one another when you are not around?
Stella: That’s a good question! So when it’s the three of them, they usually speak Dutch with each other, with some Spanish. When the two little ones are together, they speak either Greek or Dutch, but they also use some Spanish. They don’t only communicate in Spanish.
Veronika: So it depends on who is talking to whom. A common misconception out there about bilingualism is that it’s going to affect academic success in school. Have you encountered that with your eldest, your stepson?
Stella: No, no, no, no!
Veronika: Everything works well?
Stella: Yes. The different languages do not create any issues at all. It’s actually more of an advantage for him.
Veronika: Why did you want your children to grow up with multiple languages?
Making the decision for multiple languages
Stella: For me, it was something that came naturally. I never doubted it. I never thought, “Oh no, they have to grow up just with one language or with maximum two languages”. And also I’m very strict– maybe a little bit like you. I try to be consistent and keep up the different language as much as possible.
Veronika: Yes, me too.
Stella: They have to learn them for many different reasons–heritage, the need to communicate etc. But the fact that I grew up bilingual never made me doubt the concept of bilingualism or multilingualism. When I went to university, I studied linguistics. So I did a lot of work on code switching. Actually, I wrote my dissertation on code switching and multilingualism.
I also looked a little bit behind the scenes and investigated those myths and misconceptions that bilingual and multilingual children are automatically semilingual. So when I had my kids, it was clear for me from the beginning that I wanted them to learn our languages.
Languages are tied to emotions and identity
One of the reasons why I wanted my children to learn Greek is an emotional one; Greek is the language that I speak the best—I mean I also speak English and German pretty well. But Greek is my native language if you want. So for me, speaking to my children in English or in Dutch would have been somewhat unnatural. English and Dutch are not my mother tongue and I don’t speak them that well. So it would be really weird to talk to my children in a language that is not my language.
Of course, English has become my language somehow because I speak it a lot at work, in my daily life, and with my partner, but really it’s not my language. And mu children will learn English anyway. Everyone learns English. So, for me, it’s Greek. That’s my language. It’s where my heart is. This is the language that I want them to learn. There was the emotional reason. Greek also connects them to my home country and then they could speak with their grandparents and relatives and so on and so forth. So it’s the language that is connected to their heritage.
Languages open doors into other worlds and cultures
The other reason is that if I look to their future also, like work-wise, the more languages you can speak, the more doors will be open for you. Also Spanish is my partner’s the language. It was also important that they learn it because this is him and this is part of his identity. I wanted them to connect with his identity and with his family too, so they’d be able to communicate with their grandmother, with their aunts, with cousins and everyone. We wanted them to be able to go to Latinamerica and be able to spend time with family without thinking that they are foreigners.
Also, I feel that the more languages you speak, the more open you become towards the world. Something happens to you; something happens to your brain, to your way of thinking, and the way you approach people, the way you look at the world. I always say, with every language, you’re a different person. You can read different poems, you can listen to different songs, so many doors open for you, and your brain becomes different.
I always say you can fall in love in Spanish; you can read a book in Greek; you can have access to maybe authors you’ve never heard of; and if you decide one day that you want to go and study in Argentina or in Colombia or in Spain, you just go for it; or you want to spend six months in Greece doing an internship or just… It changes who you are as person and to me, it’s very important that my children grow up with an open mind towards the world.
Veronika: Sounds like that is something you have or are on track achieving. With Spanish, English, Greek, and Dutch, your children have a large portion of the world covered. [both laugh] Have you encountered any kind of challenges with the multiple languages at home?
Having dinner can be a linguistic challenge
Stella: Sometimes when we have lunch or dinner and we sit around the table, there are a lot of languages coming together. Sometimes it irritates me a little bit because I speak with my partner in English and then he says something in Spanish and I say something in Greek. I mean for now, it is fine because we do understand each other. It’s still very basic because the children are still very little; so no one is excluded.
But I sometimes wonder how we will do in the future, maybe if we will in the end have English as our as our dining or lunch language or—because I am also learning some Spanish—Spanish will become our family language. It is something we will have to negotiate later, but for now, dinners can be a bit challenging because there are a lot of languages.
But we’re all trying things out and it is funny. AT the moment, Spanish is probably the weakest language. So we’re doing different things to increase the input in Spanish. One of the things we started at the dinner table is we try to have Spanish as our family language. Of course then I cannot express myself that well, but still…
Playing games at the dinner table to provide kids with language awareness
Sometimes we also play games with the kids because we also want to make the eating time fun. One of them is not so much into food; so we try to play games. What we do sometimes is that we have cards with words and then let’s say it’s his turn and he starts describing the word on the card. Let’s say ‘elephant’ or something: it’s an animal, it is grey, it has very big ears; and then the rest of us have to guess the word in Spanish and then they get points. That’s what we sometimes do during dinner.
Veronika: Okay. That’s cool. Keeping things engaged and fun is key to promote a positive relationship toward minority languages,
Stella: Then it’s my turn and I have the cards and I do the whole thing in Greek and they have to guess the word in Greek. So we try to include all of our family languages. Sometimes we ask one of them. “Can you translate this into Greek because I didn’t understand it” or “How do you say that word in Spanish?” We create a little bit of language awareness amongst the children which I think also helps a lot. And they’re aware of it; like the little one says, “I speak Dutch and Spanish and Greek and English”. They talk about this a lot and it is really funny.
Veronika: Yes, even if they are only 2 years old, bilingual children tend to already be aware of their languages and their linguistic identities. Ella has a clear grip on her languages, English and German.
Stella: Yes, yes, they do know even if they are very little.
Veronika: Do you have any words of wisdom, like anything you would kind of give out as a piece of advice to other parents who are raising or are planning to raise their kids bilingual or multilingual?
Don’t let people scare you—speak the language you would like to speak with your children…
Stella: One, they shouldn’t be scared. They should not let other people influence them. I know a lot of examples where doctors advise parents not to speak their native language to their children because they said to them ‘your kids will have speech delays and they will be at a disadvantage later in school’. That happens quite often to people who don’t speak “prestigious languages” like English, French or Spanish; so people who speak maybe Arabic or Turkish or even Greek. That is a typical and unfortunate pattern.
They have been given this advice by people in higher positions and that always makes me very angry and sad. No one has the right to judge the language that you speak or even tell you not to speak your language. Your language is part of your identity and part of your personality; and for someone to tell you that you should not speak it to your child, I find it really bad. So this is one piece of advice.
…but make sure your children also get exposure to the language of the country you live in
Another is: they should speak whatever they want to speak to their children. They should not worry that their children will not be able to speak the language of the host country. Of course, you need to make sure that your children learn the language of the host country. For instance, when I was living in Germany, my parents didn’t speak German, they always spoke Greek, but they made sure that I went to Kindergarten and they made sure I had German friends so I would have daily encounters with German from a very young age. It is the same I did with my children. From a very young age, I sent them to day care to make sure they learn the language, the songs, the Dutch traditions, and all these kinds of things.
I think on the one hand, you should not be scared. You should really speak your language if this is what you want to do and don’t let anyone tell you that this is not the right thing to do. But then of course on the other hand, also make sure that your children get regular exposure to the host language.
Find a language model that works for your family
Also find a way that works best for you. For us, it’s the one-person-one-language principle. So I only speak Greek to the children and my partner speaks only Spanish to them. But there are other families that have different approaches like “at lunch, we speak this language” or “we only watch TV in that language”. I think it’s important that you find a structure, whatever that structure is, and that you stick with it because I do believe that children need consistency. They know, they like to have rules. It gives them a sense of stability. They know, for instance, one day I took the book and I started reading in Spanish and one of my children says, “Hey no, this is not your language. Don’t read in this language. This is not your language”. So they know and I think that’s very important.
Veronika: Yeah, they love their routines. That’s certainly right and important to make it work with multiple languages.
Stella: Yeah.
Veronika: Thank you so much! I think that was really insightful and there’s a lot in that interview. I’m looking forward to sharing that.
Stella: Thank you.
