Growing up with Three Languages: Birth to eleven

by Xiao-lei Wang

This book is based on an eleven-year observation of two children who were simultaneously exposed to three languages from birth. It tells the story of two parents from different cultural, linguistic, and ethnic-racial backgrounds who joined to raise their two children with their heritage languages outside their native countries. It also tells the children’s story and the way they negotiated three cultures and languages and developed a trilingual identity. It sheds light on how parental support contributed to the children’s simultaneous acquisition of three languages in an environment where the main input of the two heritage languages came respectively from the father and from the mother. It addresses the challenges and the unique language developmental characteristics of the two children during their trilingual acquisition process.

Genres: Parenting, Nonfiction, Education, Language, Childrens, Psychology

234 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Alice Chau-Ginguene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the only one book on the subject matter. I am in similar situation - myself a Cantonese speaker, husband French Canadian and we live in Ireland. We want to know how to deal with the language issue with our baby boy.
Lots of useful advice and I think every trilingual family should buy this book!

[Alixe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Putting it as read even though I stopped when she started talking about teenage years as my son is just a few months old. But i d be surprise if the quality of the book changes in any way from the first part.

This book is pure gold! I had been looking for exactly that about raising kids in more than two languages: mixing personal stories and thorough scientific research (we really don't know much, the anecdotal evidence is the only thing we can say about many things.. not great, but better than nothing when you are a parent and you need guidance).

I will surely re read it at times and i recommend it to anyone who is expecting a child and is a bit struggling on the languages choice (or when there is no choice but you re afraid it s going to be "too much" for the kiddo).

[Teresa B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eu adorei simplesmente este livro. Dentro do tema, foi o que mais respondeu às minhas questões e preocupações no que refere à educação de uma criança trilingue. Ao escrever esta obra, Xiao-lei Wang focou-se na sua própria formação como linguista, baseando-se em conhecimentos ciêntificos aliados à sua experiência enquanto mãe de duas crianças trilingues.

[Tatiana · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book reminds a university thesis - a clear structure, which is a plus, but a looooot of dry academic repetitiveness. Author repeatedly mentions same events/examples over and over whereas I’d prefer if she’d included a wider variety of examples of daily situations with kids acquiring 3 languages. On the positive side, the book does help one to build a clear strategy in mind, on the negative - the ideas author shares do not pose anything new, they are mostly common sense. However, it’s still great to be aware of another person’s similar experience and be able to learn from it 👍🏼

[Vera · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of very good information and advice. We'll written and organized. And makes you feel normal :)

[Meriem Akin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I myself grew up bilingual and learned three additional languages due to moving and living in different places and marriage. There were no strategies nor parents extremely involved. It just happened that I speak at least four languages fluently. Teaching my kids these languages from birth (one mother tongue per parent, language spoken in day care, language spoken between parents) appeared to be a challenge. There are no children books, cartoons or educational material in one of my mother tongues. I have no idea how I learned it. The expectations for the language spoken in day care were high and learning many languages (especially those that are not considered prestigious by the country we are living in) was considered a foolishness. Reading this book helped me realize that we are on the right path, and that there are families with conditions like ours. I tried some techniques from the book for passive learning. My kids now speak, read and write in three languages, and passively absorb a fourth languages from time to time. My son is already expressing interest in a fifth language. As my kids are growing, I need to read the second volume about maintaining languages in the teenage years.

[Jozef Michalovčik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book. Strongly recommend to all mixed families. Racially, culturally and of course with multiple languages involved.

Can help you to answer some questions about in what language to raise your kids. Should you go bilingual or even trilingual. What are the challenges and how to overcome them.? What does it mean for kid, parents or community involved?..

Definitely worth reading even before kids are born, as all inputs from the very beginning count.

Help us to decide that we want at least to try to raise our daughter in 3 languages and so according to that i took immediate actions as recommended in a book.

[Kira · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was quite useful and I will likely want to re-read parts of it as my child grows. My family situation is different, but the strategies and tips will still apply. Overall, I learned a lot, although I couldn’t help but feel somewhat intimidated toward the end because her example is so specific & I felt that her family had certain advantages that our family will not have (although we will have others). As the author says, the most important is to be realistic about one’s goals, abilities, personality and environment. Good luck everyone!

[Romysh · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although very informative book, I struggled to read it due to the style of writing. Having said that it gave me a certain idea of what to expect from raising a trilingual child. Let's just hope it works out.

[Steve Coombs · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly fantastic resource!

[Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author includes an amazing level of detail about how she tracked her children's linguistic proficiency.

[Vora .tinklis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Daug teorijos ir mažai praktikos arba praktinių patarimų tėvams.

[Valeria Farinella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unique book in its genre. Very interesting, at times a bit demoralising (I thought things would have been easier 😅)

[Antonina Malyarenko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really great guide on how to raise trilingual kids. Thoroughly researched and subjective but happens to make sense intuitively without much additional input. Lots of good ideas and things to supplement our own thoughts.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of useful advice if you consider raising your kids trilingually. The author is a linguist and also mother of 2 sons that are raised trilingually and this book is mostly a case study / observation of the first eleven years in her sons' lives. The book really was a great help to us in confirming our decision to start a trilingual family, in clearing our doubts and in being aware of the extra challenges that come with trilingualism. The languages the boys in the book learn are Mandarin Chinese (mother), French (father) and English (They live in the US). On the downside: The book could be more detailed and longer, was quite expensive considering how short it is and some of the examples used are very language specific (for example the boys problems in mixing up chinese quantifiers), so it might be of less use to someone whose set of languages is completely different.

[KNCHNGL · Rating 3 out of 5]

Re-read of one of the only books of its kind on raising kids in three languages, a topic that has been a struggle to find good information on.

Excellently memoir of sorts, with insights exposed in such a way only a mother could have had access to, and analyzed in such a way only a trained researcher could have documented. I found the children's conversations in their various heritage languages with their siblings and parents the most insightful. Unlike most "self-help" parenting books, this book is superbly organized, with minimum fluff and redundancy, although slightly dry at times.

Would be highly interested in continuing on to her 2nd book documenting her kids at the later stages of their lives, and would love to see her kids interviewed at a later stage about their upbringing.

[Bistra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is full of great explanations on language learning and development in children, supplemented by the examples from the author's family. Moreover, what makes it so great is that it gives parents possible strategies to follow to teach their kids their heritage languages and making it a fun process for the kids as well. I can see it being useful not only for families with 3 languages, but for bilingual as well or families with one language but living in a foreign country. Highly recommend it.

[Marilyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book before my child was born, and we picked it up because there weren't many options for a situation involving more than two languages. It really was a good choice, raising multilingual children actually goes beyond the aspect of the language spoken and the book discusses well the different aspects involved. As my son got older and started to talk I came back to the book and still find it very insightful. I definitely recommend it to anyone wanting to embark on such a multilingual journey :)

[Nissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly insighful, gave me a lot to think about as a teacher and a future parent.

I especially liked the discussion on the impact of acquiring languages on the child's identity and personality development, which I never really realized until I read this book.