Hellobee Boards

I didn't vote e cause my LO is 6m old but I wanted to say: stick with one language and one language only (Cantonese). He will learn English in school. We all (6 kids) spoke only Arabic at home and knew zero English going into school. I picked up quick at school because I was forced to if I wanted to meet friends. My husband is the same...in his family: all kids speak Arabic until they learn English at school. They even speak Arabic at home (after school).
Don't give up!!! He will never learn 2 languages unless you start now.
*I am fluent in both and no accent in either

I didn't vote either, since we don't have kids yet. But keep speaking to him in Cantonese! Like @TurtleDoves said, he will learn it in school, and quickly! I used to teach ESL to eelementary school kids, and the kindergarteners who spoke no English on their first day progressed so quickly!

It will be so beneficial for your child to learn Cantonese at a young age. It is so much more difficult to learn a language when older, take advantage and do it now!

Our doctor told us the same thing about 18 months, but we only had 13 words and the majority were animal sounds (which apparently count). He had a language explosion somewhere around 20 months. Don't despair!

I've read that kids learning multiple languages have speech delays and its totally normal. Don't quit with the Chinese!

Btw like @turtledoves, I didn't speak a word of English until I went to Kindergarten. I spoke Cantonese only and as an adult I pretty much only speak English... My canto is quite limited these days.

Our immediate family isn't bilingual though I can understand cantonese fluently. My parents only speak cantonese so my kids are exposed to it when we skype with them once a week. I wanted to start speaking to my son in cantonese more at around age 1 but saw signs of possible speech delay. I also heard that bilingual kids might have speech delays so I hesitated and just continued speaking all english. My doctor wasn't concerned at all with his speech because he showed he was able to hear and comprehend everything we were saying. In fact, we ended up pushing her to have him get evaluated for Early Intervention at age 2. He did end up getting EI and didn't really start speaking until 2.5 years old. He just had a natural speech delay. Half a year later, at age 3, he started going to a language school where they teach entirely in mandarin. I was very worried, especially with his speech delay. His mandarin is much better than mine now.
So, don't worry about confusing them with multiple languages. Even before he started speaking, I knew he was able recognize that there are different languages. My son is able to speak 2 languages now even though he DID have a speech delay.

Our new pediatrician urged us to speak every language we know to DD, just so she can hear it. He thinks it's very important. She's 10 months old.

I speak to her in English with tiny bits of Swedish. DH speaks to her in Swedish, with bits of English. She hears DH and I speak English to each other. We live in Sweden, so it's reinforced by everyone else.

My mom and grandma, talk to her through Skype in Tagalog with bits of Ilocano. And I like watching Asian drama, like right now when she's sleeping on me, so she sometimes hears Korean and Japanese in the background.

Her first word was "hello". It really surprised me because it was so obvious. She said it when I tried calling my mom. She also has a toy phone that says hello, so I'm guessing it helped. She's said "hi" and "hej" before that, and will say it when prompted, but that's about it. She hasn't said mama or papa, except by accident. We haven't been able to get her to say mama or papa at all.

I heard it takes a little longer for bilingual kids to speak. Does your LO say words that are close to what they sound, yet understands the meaning?

I saw this post while on the train and I rushed into the office to let you know that you are doing the right thing by exposing your child to more than one language.

The delay that a lot of posters above are mentioning is a bit muddy, because depending on who you are talking to, there is belief that bilingual children are not any more speech delayed than their single language peers....that is the opinion of my pediatrician. The thing is that you can not simply look at number of words spoken as a benchmark, you must also take comprehension into account. In addition, kids do not know that they are being spoken to in different languages, they just understand that they have many words to express the same thing.

I was concerned that my son was delayed, even to the point of having him evaluated and was told by the speech therapist that one of the things they are looking for is comprehension. I'll give you an example. At age 15 months, we could tell our son in either English or German to pick a piece of paper up off of the floor and throw it away in the kitchen garbage and he would follow through with the instructions.

So, I'd suggest continuing doing what you are doing. The more you expose your child to other languages, the richer their vocabulary becomes. I can also tell you that since my son has started attending day care for half a day, he's speaking and singing more and more, as well as counting in Spanish. I was stunned when he busted that out in a restaurant the other day.

@irene: I've written about my son in other posts but he's speech delayed and receiving speech therapy right now (he's 3). He grew up speaking only korean when he was younger, and then a mix of korean/english from 12 months on. He said 10 words at 18 months but only picked up 5 more words when he was 24 months (he should have had 50 and putting 2 words together). So he received speech therapy for 9 months. He's 3 now and is still delayed but progressing rapidly! He saying 2-3-4 word phrases all day long now. We didn't stop with the bilingual language environment, even though he was speech delayed and I'm glad we didn't. He understands both languages really well now. If i say something in korean, like "ok, jah jah" (let's sleep) he'll say "no sleep! no sleep!" and vice versa. I know studies show that bilingual environments don't cause speech delays but in my gut, I really feel that it definitely could. I've met WAY too many parents with similar experiences. And I agree with everyone else. Comprehension is REALLY important. It was one of the main factors during his EI assessment. Sorry, kinda rambling on but I've been through it so I understand how you feel. If you're concerned, EI is great. Everything is free and they come to your house or daycare for therapy.