Hellobee Boards

I'm curious about this too. DH speaks to DS in mandarin and he pretty much hears English from everyone else. We can tell he understands mandarin. He's only said "go go" tho. Chinese for dog. And he does say dog in English too. Otherwise his only other word is mama.

DS is almost 15 months and really only clearly says 3 words/phrases (uh oh, oh no, and no). My mom watches him all day and speaks Spanish to him. He hears Spanish and mostly English from DH and me. Honestly, I don't know if he is delayed. I was going to ask the doc at his 15 month checkup. Just recently, I've noticed he'll repeat words but not come up with them on his own.

We are also bilingual French/English. By 12 months DS had one word "truck!", but clearly understood both languages. Around 15 months we were living in France with my ILs and I was the only English speaker. He started learning and retaining about one word per week in both languages. 18 months was the major language explosion and his French was stronger at that point. By 2 years he had lots of words and 3-4 word sentences, but mixed the languages. Right after he turned 2, he started English/German daycare and, from what I understand, he speaks German fairly well at this point (I don't speak it). He still mixes the languages quite a lot, starting a sentence in English, finishing in French, throwing in a German word...it's really amazing to watch!

I know that by 18-months, toddlers should know 20 words (as per my ped).

When DD1 was 15 months, she knew maybe 10-12 words?

We speak English to DD...And so do my parents and in-laws (we asked them to).

@lamariniere: I'm glad to hear your experience since your son is older This makes me very excited for DD to have that language explosion! I think English will be dominant for her for now since we moved back to the US - but our long-term plan is to return to France so hopefully she will be 100% bilingual with very little preference.

My side of the family only speaks to DD in Vietnamese and DHs side only English. She definitely understands both but she speaks more Vietnamese. She started saying "hi uncle" in Vietnamese at about 11 months followed by "grandpa" "Mickey Mouse". She's 17 months now but I think her language explosion happened around 15 months when she started asking us to put on her shoes "wear shoes go outside" and she can name all of her relatives and more importantly to her all the characters in mickey mouse clubhouse haha.

@mrsjyw: I have heard that boys may have their language explosion later. My nephew is 4 months older than DD but only says a fraction of the words that DD does. He definitely understands though!

We are also bilingual and it is not true that it causes speech delays. It is just more words to choose from. You will notice if there are issues, that they manifest in mispronunciation of the same sounds in both languages. Often it is oral motor issues that cause issues, not the number of languages ( I have talked to a lot of speech therapists and oral motor therapists on two continents).

My son ins three and he also mixes up languages. He uses the German word for suitcase, as an example.

We are a bilingual Spanish/English household. With my oldest I spoke to him in Spanish and DH in English. He didn't meet the pediatrician benchmarks initially (18-24 months) but soon thereafter he "caught up" and zoomed past them. He's 11 now and he is completely fluent in both and never really mixed them up.

With our youngest (15 months) we each speak to him in both languages and have asked our family and childcare providers to do the same. He says 8 words, and aside from names/titles, it's an even split between English and Spanish words.