Thanks ever so much for your reply. It’s Lisa’s blog that made me send you my question. Up till now I have always assumed that they would speak the majority language eventually and that it was something I would need to accept. I’m not sure it would feel right for me to force them to speak a language amongst each other. With me on the otherhand, I insist they speak my language. What happens now is quite interesting. My 3-year old plays mostly in the minority language (long may it last!!) and with his brother (who can’t speak yet) he speaks the language of the parent who is there at the time and who he wants to hear what he’s saying if that makes sense. Anyway, thanks again for your reply. I look forwards to reading more on your site. Regards, Kat

welcome to Bilingual for Fun and thanks for your interest. Now, I don’t personally have this experience, but the literature and other families tell quite a consistent story: it’s very normal for siblings to speak the Majority language between themsleves, even if they are very bilingual. It can be frustrating for parents, but at least be reassured that this doesn’t mean in any way that the children are not bilingual.

Just to give you a real example I can tell you about a lady I know: she is perfectly italian-spanish bilingual, one parent is italian the other from Colombia, they grew up in Colombia, but italian has always been the family language. Both she and her sister now live in Italy, but they can’t bring themselves to speak italian between themselves, they have to speak spanish, because as kids they always spoke italian in the family, but spanish between siblings. And that’s just the way it is…
She says that spanish was the play and kids language for them, which leads me to think that attending mL playgrups or seeing other mL children might help changing this perception, so if you have these opportunities would encourage you to go down that route.

That said, there are some parents who do manage to enforce the minority language also among siblings, the best example is Lisa, see her post here http://blog.bilingualforfun.com/2009/04/26/lisas-recipe-for-trilingualism/. However it will really depend on how firm you want to be or can be, taking into consideration also the personalities of your children, your parenting style, and your family dinamics.

Once you decide how to go about it please le me know how it goes, and of course feel free to come back if you have more questions,

L.

I just came across your site and find it very interesting. I was wondering if you have some experience with raising two or more bilingual children. What happens when they start talking to eachother and it’s not in the minority language? What’s the best approach? At the moment we use OPOL. I speak the mL with my two children (3 and 1) and the ML with my husband. Would appreciate your thoughts.