The #1 Mistake That Makes Bilingual Kids Stop Speaking Your Language
- Ka Yee Meck
- 13 minutes ago
- 6 min read
Six years ago, another multilingual mum said something to me that I never forgot:
“Just wait until they go to school. They’ll end up speaking English anyway.”
Our children were only two and three at the time. My husband and I were raising them to be trilingual in English, Mandarin Chinese and Russian in the UK, and I remember wondering: Is she right?
After all, our children would eventually spend most of their waking hours surrounded by English. They’d go to school in English, their friends would speak English, they’d read English books and watch English TV. Almost everything outside our home would happen in English.
Surely English would eventually take over?
Well… I waited. And waited.
Six years later, I’m happy to report that both of my children are still trilingual. They speak English, Chinese and Russian, and their abilities in all three languages are continuing to develop.
That doesn’t mean it’s been effortless. FAAAAAAR FROM IT!!!!
Maintaining minority languages can sometimes feel like pulling teeth. Really.
But there is one thing my husband and I have been extremely consistent about over the years: we haven’t allowed English to become the default language between us and our children.
And I think that’s one of the biggest reasons they still actively speak our languages rather than simply understand them.
I’ve also made a video about our experience and exactly how we handle this in everyday life. If you’d rather watch than read – or you want to hear more about what this looks like in our family – you can watch it here:
Why do bilingual children stop speaking their minority language?
There’s a term worth knowing here: language attrition. This is when someone’s ability in a language gradually weakens because they’re using it less and less, and I’ve seen the same pattern happen again and again in multilingual families.
When your child is a baby or toddler, maintaining your home language can actually be relatively straightforward. Not necessarily easy, but straightforward. Your child spends a lot of time with you. You speak Chinese, Russian, Spanish, Polish or whatever your language happens to be, and that language simply forms part of their everyday environment.
Then they start nursery. They start school. They make friends. And suddenly, the majority language is everywhere.
For us, that’s English. Our children go to school in English, speak to their friends in English, read books in English and hear English every time they leave the house. Naturally, their English becomes incredibly strong. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.
The problem comes when English starts creeping into our relationship too.
Imagine you speak French with your child. One day, you say something to them in French and they answer in English. You continue in French. They answer in English again. This keeps happening until eventually, perhaps without consciously deciding to, you answer them in English.
Then you start initiating conversations in English too.
Gradually, a new habit develops: they speak English, you speak English.
In othe words, English becomes the default language between you.
Your child might still understand French perfectly well, at least initially, but producing it becomes increasingly difficult because they’re simply not doing it very often. Over time, even their comprehension may begin to weaken.
Anyone who has learned another language will probably recognise this phenomenon. Stop speaking a language for long enough and you can get rusty surprisingly quickly.
That’s why I think one of the biggest mistakes we can make when raising bilingual children is automatically switching to the majority language when they do.
But this raises an uncomfortable question: what are you supposed to do instead?
Surely you can’t force your child to speak your language?
Are we “forcing” bilingual children to speak a language?
I see this concern a lot among multilingual parents:
“I don’t want to force my child to speak Chinese.”
“I don’t want speaking Spanish to become a negative experience.”
“What if they resent the language?”
I completely understand. I certainly don’t think we should constantly criticise children for making mistakes, and I certainly don’t think speaking your family language should become a source of stress, shame or conflict.
But I’m also not sure “forcing” is the most helpful way to think about it.
I prefer to think of it as setting an expectation.
As parents, we set expectations all the time. You probably don’t let your child throw their spaghetti onto the floor and eat directly from the table because you don’t want to “force” them to use a fork. You probably don’t feel guilty about encouraging them to say please and thank you.
You simply teach them: this is what we do in our family.
I think language can work in much the same way.
In our family, Mama speaks Chinese with you and you speak Chinese with Mama. Papa speaks Russian with you and you speak Russian with Papa. That’s simply how our family communicates.
What do you actually do then when your child answers in English?
Here’s where it gets practical.
Let’s say your child comes home from school and says, “Mummy, can I have something to eat?”
But you’re supposed to be speaking Chinese together.
You could shout: “SPEAK CHINESE! I’VE TOLD YOU 47 TIMES!”
I wouldn’t recommend it. Even if I’ve occasionally done exactly that!
Instead, I might simply say:
你可以用中文再说一遍吗？Nǐ kěyǐ yòng Zhōngwén zài shuō yí biàn ma? Can you say that again in Chinese?
Or sometimes I’ll simply ask:
你说什么？Nǐ shuō shénme? What did you say?
That’s often enough to prompt the switch. If they know how to say what they want in Chinese, great. They repeat it in Chinese and we carry on with our conversation.
But what if they genuinely don’t know how?
Then I help them. I give them the vocabulary or model the sentence for them. They can repeat it, and then we move on.
No lecture. No drama.
And the next time they answer in English? We do it again.
And again.
And again.
The boring secret to maintaining a minority language
This is perhaps the least exciting multilingual parenting advice you’ll ever hear: consistency.
You might have to repeat this process hundreds or thousands of times. Not for a week or a month, but potentially for years.
That can sound exhausting, so I try not to think in terms of years.
Instead: can I keep speaking Chinese with my children today? Can I gently encourage them to answer me in Chinese today? Then I do the same thing tomorrow.
Thousands of tiny interactions eventually add up to something enormous.
What this looks like after nearly a decade
My children absolutely still speak English to me sometimes.
Sometimes they’re trying to explain something complicated and the English comes out first. Sometimes they simply don’t know how to express something in Chinese or Russian. And sometimes, presumably, they just can’t be bothered. Which is completely understandable!
I also have to be realistic about what we’re trying to achieve.
My children are growing up in Britain. I can’t expect their Chinese to develop exactly like that of a child growing up in China, or their Russian to develop exactly like that of a child growing up in Russia.
But we have managed to prevent English from becoming the default language between us.
When my children speak to me in English, I’ll usually encourage them to switch back to Chinese. If they don’t know how to say something, I help them. My husband does the same with Russian. We’ve been doing this for years.
And today, despite growing up surrounded by English, our children still actively and consistently speak all three languages.
Not perfectly, but actively.
For us, that’s an achievement in itself.
Language attrition isn’t necessarily inevitable
So, was that Russian mum at the playground wrong all those years ago?
Not entirely.
She was absolutely right about one thing: maintaining a minority language gets much harder once children start school. The majority language has an enormous gravitational pull.
But I don’t believe that means we have to accept that our children will inevitably stop speaking our languages.
If your child has started answering you in English – or whatever the majority language is where you live – don’t panic. But I also wouldn’t automatically give in and start speaking the majority language back.
Keep speaking your language.
Keep encouraging your child to speak it too.
Help them when they don’t have the vocabulary.
If they genuinely don’t know how to say something, they need support, not criticism.
Don’t turn every interaction into a battle but DO keep setting that expectation.
Because one tiny interaction probably doesn’t make much difference. Thousands and thousands of tiny interactions over the course of a childhood do.
My children are nearly ten and eight now, and we’re still doing this.
Will they still be speaking Chinese and Russian with us when they’re 15? When they’re 20? When they’re 30?
Ask me again in another ten years.
But so far, that prediction I heard at the playground six years ago hasn’t come true.
And I’m hoping we can keep it that way.
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