Hi all, I’m in need of help! Myself my wife and daughter have been here (in Morges) since August and arrived due to a job based over here. The job is great, nice people, a good company to work and we really like Switzerland, but I suppose I’m having my first “worries”. Our daughter, who is approaching 5 has been in the local school and has been settling in OK. She already speaks English and German at home (my wife is German) and now she is learning in French at school.

My worry is that it is too much for her, we don’t speak any French at home, although we are having lessons. It would have been easier if we lived in the German speaking part of Switzerland, then she would have had some consistency with home and school. I could ask to move to Zurich and work from home a couple of days and commute acouple of days (yep, long commute) but this may not be the best solution and itseems a bit early to run off!

I suppose I’m asking if anyone has been in the same boat and how they and their children coped with a completely new language and how thingsturned out (or a turning out)!

Should we stay and stick it out or should we run away like big whimps!

We have done the opposite. A bit of a long post but as our experience is already 5 years old and directly comparable, I hope it will be useful to you.

We speak English and French at home and moved with our almost 4 year old to the German speaking part of CH.

My son didn't really get enough exposure to Swiss German and German to learn much until he went to kindergarten aged 4 and a half. At that stage, he kept quiet at kindergarten for about 6 months, then started slowly contributing and by the end of a year, was doing really fine. All children seem to learn and pick up at different speeds but I must say, the first 6 months of him being practically mute were really upsetting - he is a loud, excited and enthusiastic character yet overnight he had become silent and uncommunicative.

5 years on: His German and Swiss German are great. He gets top marks in class and scored highly in the Cantonal comparison tests, so we believe that for the moment, he is managing fine. Drawback: We speak some German (and my grammar is quite good) so I can help correct things but it is tedious as I always have my nose in a grammar book or dictionnary. I feel this would become more of an issue the higher up in school he gets. My cultural background is to assist my children with their learning at school (the Swiss approach can be a little different and more hands off) and it worries me that going forward I am not of much use. Plus his French is really going downhill. He speaks French with his Dad and English with me. I am at home all day so obviously English predominates. It is proving really tough to find enough time to keep his other two languages up to scratch.

In July 2012 we move to the French speaking part. This has mostly been provoked by schooling problems we are having with our youngest child who has learning difficulties, but a really great byproduct is that we will simplify our linguistic environment. Our eldest son is going into the bilingual German French state school in Delémont at least for the first year and then we will see how well his German keeps up, and if it in turn starts to flag, he can transfer to full time French education.

In short, we felt that by not being able to contribute to the language of his learning environment meant that whilst he was achieving at primary level, the lack of language exposure would hurt his progress (and perhaps not hugely) at senior level. But we want him to have the best chances possible, and anything which prevents him from achieving as well as he could do is something which weighed on me heavily.

Others have had different experiences, although if you have only one language in the home environment, I am sure this already simplifies life.

PS In answer to your question ... stick it out for now and in a few years, before schooling becomes really vital, do the whimpy running off thing if it seems for the best .. kind of what we're doing really .....

We have somewhat of the same situation, German and English mother/father tongues, living in French speaking area. However, our children grew up here with French from the earliest age and are tri-lingual now, but it is not easy to keep up 3 languages in the long term. I would note that we chose a private swiss bi-lingual school though (french/german) in part for the language issues but also for other reasons as well. I would say as they progress at school, it does get very challenging for a non-French mother tongue parent to keep up with the homework supervision and help with all the other aspects of their schooling. Even the swiss-french approch to non-language subjects like maths can be very different from what a parent learned in the swiss german part or another country, so yes for the parents it is not easy. How your children will do in the long run having no French spoken at home is hard to determine, it can be successful and it can be very difficult; some adapt better to languages than others, etc.

Anyhow, presume your child is in 1ere or 2eme enfantine so it is a bit early to have a huge impact and probably too early to tell how she will get on. Maybe give it a year or so and see how it develops. I would recommend keeping up her english/german as much as possible at home to keep open the options though. Also, if you can, perhaps look into bi-lingual school options in the area, there are indeed both french/german and french/english schools so this may give you some comfort level and your child too, in at least one mother tongue while pursuing French.

Thanks for the responses, it's great to have such good advice. I suppose my gut feeling is that it will be tough with three languages, also for us parents who's French is non-existent. Also, you're right, it's still early days and we don't want to jump to any decisions at this stage, just thinking ahead.

I also assume that all bilingual schools will be private schools, this would be a good idea to maintain English or German but then comes the cost.......

We'll see how things work out for the moment but have the feeling there could be some whimping out ahead....

I can't speak personally since I have no children, but I have friends who are of different nationalities (Egyptian+Spanish, South African+Ukranian) living in Switzerland that have bred their children fine with 3/4 languages. Some were born here and aquired the mother, father and local language automatically, others where slightly older when they arrived but got the local language with time. There are difficulties - like having the kids having problems switching between languages, ending up with a 4 year old talking to me in Russian - but they are even really good at school. The parents did meanwhile learnt the local language, which helps communication a lot.

I believe you should trust your child. 5 years is still pretty young and should be still pretty easy to absorve a new language. Kids are quite amazing when it comes to new languages!

Wish you the best of luck!

Kids will pick up languages so much easier the earlier that they are exposed to them, especially if they aren't being tested, rather it being a way of life, part of the backdrop.

I wouldn't worry at all, see it as a benefit of living in a multilingual country.

I'd be more worried about some of the adults who have been here for more than 10 years and haven't bothered learning a single Swiss national language, now that's just plain lazy.

I think it's awesome that you are considering "how much is too much".

At the same time, I think your little one is actually in a very fortunate position. Language learning is so much easier at a young age, and he/she has the benefit of two languages at home, and then all day at school with a third. Keep in mind that his/her brian is much more plastic and free of the snares that formal language learning brings as an adult (ie: that word or tense doesn't exist in this other language - incredibly difficult to make a new space in the brain for that).

As others mentioned, trust your little one, and stand back in awe.

Good points about children being able to cope with new languages, your right its a benefit of living in a multicultural and multilingual country. We will enjoy watching our daughter take it all in and make choices as we go on. I also have a French lesson tonight at 6 which I'm not so much looking forward to...

We moved here ten years ago with no German at all, with three kids, then aged 10,6 and 4. They're all in the Swiss educational system, speak fluent German/Swiss German, and are doing fine. My eldest is in Basel University.

Think of it this way - your daughter will grow up tri-lingual. That's a pretty cool gift.

I hoped you would contribute to this thread as your family is such a good example.

But I'd certainly be interested to know how you find their non school languages are (ie English and do you have another language as well at home?) I find as I am at home I can keep up the English level just about (reading and writing .. so not just talking spoken) but French is more difficult (also partly because it is disimilar to German/English sounds) and it has been hard work to get our eldest to read and now write in French . It is with the French that we notice the gap in language skills between his level and his French cousin's level (cousin is French, growing up in France). So although you can say he speaks 3 languages, I would not go so far as to say that he is trilingual .. more bilingual with very good French (but rusty and not very mother tongue)

Just to put my two cents in: We moved here from Colombia 12 years ago when the kids were 4 & 6 and spoke English and Spanish.They were enrolled in the Swiss educational system in Canton Aargau (German part of Switzerland). Zero German for them & me. Although Daddy studied at a German school as a child, he was busy travelling the first two years to help with any homework. The result? Both now speak 5 languages and are well adjusted, integrated, busy and happy teenagers. The oldest is a "Physiklaborant" apprentice (in last year of 4 year program) at a Siemen's subsidiary. The youngest just started a 3 year Chemistry apprenticeship at a Swiss cement group (multinational). Interesting enough, they speak Swiss-German between themselves. Kids are pretty resilient and absorb things very quickly. For me, the first sign of a problem for a child is when they have sleeping difficulties.

It has worked for us.

PS: Mommy also learned German in 7 months and went on to study her 2nd Master degree in CH.

Three languages for a child is perfectly all right. Children are all different on the long run, but they all cope in their own way. Don't worry, but keep up and remember: school language becomes the better one eventually, if it's absent from home, the home language(s) will have to be kept up to date by your child anyway, in a natural way because you really have no clue in French. The hard part will be on an emotional level for you: you will have to trust your child totally if you still don't speak French when the child is in middle school. The child will love it, you may not love it as much. You are the one for whom it is too much, the kids are ok.

These gaps are normal. I see that in my classes with trilingual (or more) students. Most countries have a distant schooling system of some kind. French CNED is wonderful but it's demanding academically. All my students of dutch, japanese or korean origin do that even if they don't all have a high level of proficiency if all aspects of the language. It only works if the relationship with your child is non-conflictual. In other words, those distant schooling tasks are to be used as support tool to spend quality time parent-child. Not focusing only on the academics (that does the school the child goes to) but focussing on the relationship and the exchange with your child as well. If it comes from you, if you are the one sharing your culture and your school experiences with your child, then the chance is higher that it will be accepted by the child even if that actually means working on texts and school material. Support all that with fun things, like videos, going to see French films in original version only and never make any exception. And like always, one has to accept that the children's "language of heart" will not be the same as the parents' one.

There is a risk: some child do cut off the one or other language. It's their life, they make choices and the only thing one can do is to make those languages available not only at academic but also at emotional level. The rest is a well kept secret of nature...

@ecb

We only speak English at home and with our children. We watch mainly British TV - 'cos I control the remote - and we bought our kids English books. My youngest (now 14) has just finished the Lord of the Rings in English. For Christmas she got it in German, and is now reading it again!

What we've found, especially with the younger ones, is that they don't gain the idioms that they would if the socialised more in English. So they tend to translate German idiom word for word. E.g. "There gave" rather than "There once". Spelling is often up the spout as well. However, both the younger ones love to write, so getting them to write in English isn't a problem. If it'd been me, that would have been another issue!

Of course it varies from child to child. At least he has got very good French, even if he's not trilingual. If he ever needs it, it should come back.

We're in a similar situation with our third child, although we are both native English speakers our French is very good and our daughter was born in France. When we moved here a few years back (she was 3), we put her in a French/German pre-school and now she's in primary school in our village. She's taught in german of course but seems to be picking up dialect too. So far we've had no problems, although we have let French completely lapse, apart from speaking with French friends whilst playing. She has English lessons on a Wednesday afternoon and I help with that but I can see that I will struggle to help her with her German in the future, and that it may be more difficult for her to get top grades without the German environment at home. This wouldn't bother me if the system here wasn't selective but so much importance is placed on mastery of German that I think that non native speaking kids are at a bit of a diadvantage.
I'm taking the view that we'll see how she's getting on at the end of primary school - if it's clear she'll get into the pro-gymni stream then fone, if not we'll have to see about tutoring or putting her into the International system, where she'll be using her native language. I hope she'll be able to stay in the swiss system

As NAT mentions, she also uses German construction at times and German idioms, - 'that goes', often pops up!

I would give it time, at least one full school year before making any decisions regards moving. She'll probably will do much better by then! Good luck

I can understand your concerns.

I speak French to my kids, my husband Turkish and we speak English in the house.

I speak French, English, Turkish. Hubby speak Turkish, German English.

My 3 years old daughter is exposed to 3 languages in the house and since September to Spanish and Catalan at school.

She is very outgoing so she speaks without fear and she doesn't really mind to mix them all. She doing well at school and have lots of friends.

I am sometimes very stressed about it but I can't do much than just observing how she goes.

I read an article exactly about this, but unfortunately I cannot find it again...

If I remember well children can handle 3 languages quite well. The fourth one in most cases seems to be too much for they to learn. Either they quit to speak it or never learn to speak it properly.

There is a delay in language development - kids simply take longer to learn it and speak it fluently. But, once the learn it, it will be forever. Learning more than one language gives several advantages. The kids who have grown in bi-lingual environments are able to take decisions faster and judge ambiguous situations in a more balanced manner. Also, it will be easier for them to learn languages in the future.

Actually, though I am Portuguese native speaker, I was schooled in French until I was 10. I don't remember it as being specially traumatic - only an added difficulty. My parents ended up with moving me to a proper Portuguese school as I seemed to have a lot of problems with spelling and arithmetics. What seemed to be learning disability, turned out that to be a strong myopia combined with mild dyslexia.... Anyway, my French is long gone, but I managed to murder be proficient for another 2 languages.

@the3musketeers: If you've not seen it already and even though your daughter is approaching 5, there are some excellent comments in the long-running related thread entitled Multilingual Toddlers.

I'm so content to read such positive responses. Personally, I feel that your child will adapt to any given situation aslong as you yourselves feel comfortable with your choices. It's absolutely great that you consider your childrens well-being in terms of language, but my advice is let it all roll out. As the happy stories above spell out, children can handle and make their own choices about language, and in my opinion, what a great gift of opportunity it is to grow up with 3 different languages!
As Kristanez has mentioned, child brains are much more mouldable than us adults, they're like sponges - he or she will work it out eventually and make sense of it all in her own time!

Best wishes

We are also in similar situation but we live in Zurich. We speak only Hindi n English at home since my child's birth, although SwissGerman would have been easier for my husband to talk to him in. My husband ia half Swiss n half Brit and I am indian. So we chose to stick to our own languages as DS would learn German outside anyways.
He started kg this year and even though he only spoke quite broken swissgerman to this point, he is now even singing n cracking jokes in the language. At the same time not forgetting that English n Hindi are still predominantly the only languages spoken at home.
I think children don't have that much strain from languages as long as it is systematically clear n consistent who speaks what with them. They learn to switch between languages very easily.
This fact I learned also thanks to the little girl I was babysitting when I first arrived in Zurich. She was only 6 but fluent in 7 languages. And I mean FLUENT!!!! Thus our decision to make our kid also trilingual n it has worked just fine.
Just don't worry. Your daughter will be fine.