Hi welcome back to my channel and if you're new welcome my name is Ysis
Lorenna and today I'm gonna be giving you an update on how it's been for us
raising bilingual children I'm originally from Brazil my native
language is Portuguese but I also speak English fluently and my husband is
British and he only speaks English I've done a couple of videos already on this
subject so I'll leave them linked in the description box below but today I'm
gonna focus on our struggles mainly so if you are struggling to raise bilingual
children this is the video for you because I'm struggling and I want to
share some of my struggles with you guys in case there's people up there with the
same struggles because currently I'm feeling very alone in this struggle I'm
also going to share a couple of methods that I have researched there are
specific to our situation where one of the parents only speaks one language and
the other parent speaks both languages and also I'm going to share a few tips
to kind of help you still raise your children bilingual even if you're
struggling like me so I hope you guys enjoyed this video please give it a like
if you enjoy it don't forget to subscribe and share this video with a
friend if you think they might enjoy it too and now let's get straight into the
video
I've always known that I wanted to raise my children bilingual and I knew it
wasn't going to be easy but I never knew I was gonna find it this difficult I
just find it so so hard to include Portuguese in our day to day lives
because I don't know anyone around me where we live that speaks Portuguese all
of my family is still in Brazil and I don't have any Brazilian friends where I
live so I just don't get to speak Portuguese with anyone else and to me it
feels like it's feel it feels forced to start a conversation in Portuguese I
know it shouldn't but I'm being completely honest and that's how it does
and to me the biggest struggle is the fact that everything that I know from
being a mum everything I learned about babies in children I've learned in
English sometimes I even find hard to communicate with my family in Brazil
about parenting when I'm trying to explain something to them about the way
that I do things here or just general parenting terms like nursery school
things like that that I learned here like when you're breastfeeding terms
like let down and weaning all of these terms I learned in English so I find it
really difficult to talk about parenting in Portuguese I find switching from one
language the other so incredibly challenging and confusing and if you
have a bilingual brain you will understand what I mean when your whole
life is in one language and suddenly you have to flip and go back to another
language that doesn't get activated in that place where you live very often so
let me know if you can relate to that struggle I find that so difficult I know
this video is gonna be like this is so difficult so difficult and if you have a
bilingual child and you've done it and you're like it was really easy for us
then I'm so happy for you but this is not how it's been for me all I can do is
share my own experience and hopefully someone out there
can relate to this and make me feel less alone in this struggle another issue I
have is that I feel a lot of pressure for my children to be fully bilingual
and to have both languages a native level because I'm native in both like
not like native but I am native Apaches and fluent in English so why shouldn't
my children be able to have both I find that a lot of that pressure
unfortunately comes from people who aren't bilingual or people who don't yet
have children and I'm not trying to say that these people don't know what
they're talking about but it's much harder when you're in that position I
feel like once you're in that position you're a lot more understanding of the
struggles instead of just wondering how those children are not bilingual and why
isn't that mum making more of an effort for her children to be bilingual so yeah
in reality my children are much better at English than they are in Portuguese
they do know a few things in Portuguese because I keep trying so whenever I
remember whenever I feel like I can do it I speak Portuguese to them but it's
not as strict as you would have thought on Paul as most people would have
thought it is for so many years I've been so worried about the fact that my
children are not fully bilingual and you know thinking this is my fault this is
my mistake and it's if I don't teach them then who will and kind of putting
all of that pressure external pressure onto me to make me feel like if they are
not bilingual then it's my fault and then I'm not doing enough but then I I
had enough of that pressure and I decided to just embrace the fact that my
relationship with my children transcends language and I have a great relationship
with my children so I'm not gonna beat myself up anymore for my children not
being fully bilingual I wanted to share with you two methods that I learned
while stry searching for this video where you can try and teach your
children your native language if you're in a similar situation to mine where you
speak both languages in your partner only speaks one of the languages so I
sit down the first method is called language rotation and that basically
means that you choose maybe one or two weeks to speak one language so language
day and then the next two weeks you speak language B so some parents like to
mark the changeover between one language to the other with a specific song or a
theme in their bedroom or something just so the children know that the language
is changing and I thought that was so interesting and worth mentioning if it
works for other people out there if you've tried this method please do let
me know unfortunately I don't think that method would work for us but it might
work for other people and the second method that I looked up is called the
time and place or context method and I think that's the one that I use without
knowing it was a method so basically you choose a time a place in your house or a
context to speak the minority language of the language that you're trying to
teach your children and I do that with birth time so I've always spoken in
Portuguese with my children during bath time it's it's a time that of the day
when they're not distracted by technology or anything else so they're
in the bath they're playing with their toys but they're actively listening to
what I'm saying so I like to teach them songs and talk to them as much as I can
in Portuguese so that's my time of the day where I know if I want them to be
exposed to Portuguese this is where I'm gonna put my time and effort and I know
it's not a lot it's only what 20 minutes 15 minutes of our day but it's something
and you know you've got to celebrate the small victories and the opportunities
that you get to speak that language with your children when you're finding it
difficult like I am so these were the two methods that I found out and like I
said the second one is better from our family and for me so now I've got a few
tips for you to still teach your children some of your native language if
you're in a situation like me where you just can't get past that barrier of
trying to do it not being able to do it and then just giving up because it's
just too complicated and too hard my first tip is to focus on one thing at a
time so try one song
one Nursery Rhyme at a time one word at a time get your children to master that
word and to know it fully and then move on to the next one that for us for our
family is gold that's what gets my children to learn the most amount of
Portuguese if I try to teach them too many things at once it just doesn't work
for us so I focus on one thing at a time and I get them to learn that one fully
so a bath time I introduce a new song in Portuguese I sing it for the first few
days they don't even sing it back and then I start to just ask them to sing
with me so when I know that they know that like that song fully I move on to
the next one and the same with phrases and expressions and things like that my
second tip is to have consistent habits so have something that you always do in
your native language like saying good morning or good bye in your native
language with them even if it means you're saying it in both languages just
get that consistent habit of them knowing with my kids it's we always say
Bon dia which is good morning in Portuguese and we always say ciao which
is goodbye in Portuguese so they know these two words and they know it in the
right context which is what's important so if you try to develop some consistent
habits that might help your children pick up a few more words here and there
my third tip is to ask what something means in the minority language and get
your children to repeat that back to you so like I said I don't find introducing
Portuguese naturally in our lives but when I do remember it and if I'm talking
about anything if I'm talking about a car I will ask my kids
what is car in Portuguese even if they don't know it I will volunteer the
information and I'll ask them to say it back to me how I said it so little bits
of that throughout the day are so good for them to learn the correct
pronunciation of things in the minority language I find that that's the hardest
thing for my children to learn because some sounds in Portuguese are not
natural for them to say because they have been brought up speaking mostly
English so if I try and trigger those sounds and they train them they do get
better at it in my last tip which is something that we're currently doing is
to make use of our existing routines to
introduce the minority language so we have a morning routine and a bedtime
routine with our kids which we do every single day they know the routine they
know what happens after I have every single step so introducing one thing
about the minority language within these routines will make them expect it so now
we're saying good morning in Portuguese when we wake up and if they don't I
always expect them to say it and they know the look when mummy is expecting
them to say volunteer in Portuguese and in our bedtime routine I've introduced
something that I do with my oldest he has an alphabet poster on his wall
because he just absolutely loves looking at the letters and sounding them out in
English and now I've realized that I can actually use that to teach him some
Portuguese as well because next to each letter there's a picture of something
that starts with that letter in English and now I'm pointing to each picture and
saying their names in Portuguese and he's sounding it out to me in Portuguese
and telling me what they are in English and he absolutely loves that it's like
one of his favorite little activities to do I can see his little brain engaging
and the more we do it the more he remembers what the words sound like that
was to me an easy little thing to introduce which I didn't find it hard
it doesn't require me stopping something that I'm already doing to start teaching
them Portuguese it's already part of our bedtime routine so that's it for this
video I just wanted to quickly reinforce that if you are struggling don't put too
much pressure on yourself just remember that the situation now doesn't have to
be forever and you can always revisit your methods if something that you're
doing is not working try something else when your children are older also don't
worry about people saying that they they regret not teaching their children their
native language and you know you have the prime opportunity right now because
every person is different every family is different so don't make yourself feel
guilty for someone else's experience not having worked and for them wanting it to
work for you if it's working for you as well then that's okay
too you can get professional help you don't have to do it all yourself if you
can enroll your children in the language class do that you don't have to take it
all upon yourself to do it but if you can't do that like I can't do it because
I live in a very small village in South Wales and I don't think there's any
courses teaching people Portuguese around where I live so that really isn't
an option for me at the moment but it might be an option in the future and I
also think that you know our children will find their own needs or their own
desire to learn your language as long as you're passionate about it and you're
you make sure that you expose them to the language keep trying and keep
revisiting the language and if they find an amazing need for that language they
will find their way into fluency I hope you enjoyed this video it was very
specific to a select group of people who are in the same situation as me but even
if you're not going through this situation hope you enjoyed understanding
a little bit more about the struggles that can exist in families trying to
raise their children bilingual I find that so many people share how they got
there and the positive sides of it and how to raise bilingual children whilst
not many people talk about the struggles and when you're not quite raising your
children bilingual but you really want to and you're in a difficult situation
so hopefully that will serve as some some sort of comfort for people out
there who are trying but not quite getting the results that they thought
they would be getting give this video like if you enjoyed it don't forget to
subscribe to my channel if you're new I post on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays
at 7 p.m. if you have a friend who's raising their child bilingual then share
this video with them and I will see you all in my next video bye