My husband, having grown up in Sweden, naturally speaks Swedish. My Swedish is not so hot, but, especially since we kindasorta plan on moving to Sweden, I definitely want Baby to learn to speak it. Plus, bilingualism is good for the brain. Husband seemed the obvious choice to be the one who taught it to her since the few things I can say I mispronounce wildly and mostly involve talking about how many closets my house has (this was a preoccupation of my sister-in-law, who has been my best Swedish teacher). And yet he just kept not doing it. Gah! He claimed he couldn’t remember words, and it was just too much trouble since he lives his life in English now, using Swedish only during his yearly trips to see his parents or on the phone. Bah!
I kept harping on it. I told him he had to start doing it by the time Baby turned 18 months, using specious reasoning I claimed was based on what I’d learned in my graduate linguistics program. Nothing doing. I mostly let it go. Then one day Baby turned 18 months old. Husband came home from work that very day and has spoken pretty much only Swedish to her thereafter. I’m so pleased.
At first this change spurred, I think now, some of the clinginess and contrariness Baby exhibited for a while. What kind of world was this where fathers can suddenly become incomprehensible? But as time has passed she’s started understanding more, and now she always seems to know what he is saying. She still only speaks English, but, say, if they’re looking at a book, and Husband asks her, in Swedish, where the car is, she’ll point to it, and say “car” in English. There are several things we’ll say simultaneously to her in each language, like “don’t touch that” or “it’s night night time” or “are you all done with your milk?” and I imagine that helps, too. And you can tell a lot from tone of voice and gesture and habit.
So far this hasn’t, so far as I can tell, slowed down Baby’s (English speaking) language acquisition. She picks up new things every day. I’ll ask her, “Can you say ___?” and she’ll watch my mouth closely and make a go of it. She’ll pull words I had no idea she knew out of nowhere, like “apple.” Sometimes we have entire conversations using language. It’s all quite astounding.
If she tries to speak Swedish to me I haven’t noticed, which is the norm with children learning a language from each parent, except that, of course, when she speaks English to Husband he’ll know what she’s on about and respond, giving positive reinforcement. So I expect her Swedish speaking will come more slowly, but I’m quite happy that this summer in Sweden she’ll be able to understand her myriad little cousins and adult relatives. I’ll be alone in my confusion, but better me than her! I remember moving from China to the US as a toddler and being so very frustrated that my cousins wouldn’t play with me since I wasn’t speaking English. Of course, she might not be speaking Swedish quite by then, either, but she will someday!
