We are a family of three currently living in awesome Sydney/Australia, with the mother (Yin, myself) born in China, the father (Nicolas) born in France, and the daughter (Nina) born in Sydney in January 2012.
This blog was created initially to document our experience, frustration, learning, and evolution of raising Nina as a trilingual child, and I continue to do so. The first post of this site ‘Trilingual Family In the Making’ shall provide a bit of background of us as a family. The entries under ‘Trilingual Parenting’ category on the right side of the site are all around this topic.
Then in Dec 2013, we set out to another adventure – a 9-month round-the-world trip. With a toddler in tow, it was truly a lifetime experience. I hence started to use this site to document our trip too. See ‘So Where Did You Go’ and all the entries under ‘Round-the-World Trip’ category on the right side of the site for more.
Trilingual parenting and round-the-world trip with a toddler share at least one thing in common: they are both scary and exciting.
In both instances, there is very little existing recipe of success. There are a lot of controversy and doubts. There are people giving the ‘are you crazy’ look.
Fortunately, however, in both instances, there are people saying ‘bravo’ all the way along . There are plenty of opportunities to answer some unanswered questions. There are people who said that they are inspired and probably take one thought, or two, away. There are endless instances for discovering and growing as a family and for each of us individually.
Scary and exciting. This is what this blog is about.
Trilingual Family 
Hi! I couldn’t help but leave a comment on your blog! We are a trilingual family (also in Chatswood!) with a 7 month old. We have decided to use a very natural and open “method”… Speaking whatever language comes at that moment. This means that i speak Hungarian and english with her, and my hubby speaks Spanish and english (and i sometimes throw in a couple of basic spanish words too). A friend of mine is a speech pathologist and she advocated this type of method. She says that a baby will figure out the various languages as she goes and that it’s not necessarily important for a parent to stick to only 1 language. I am a little worried about delayed speaking but I guess time will tell! I’ll be very interested to see how you guys go as your a few months ahead of us! Good luck!!
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Hi Sara,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and your story. So one more trilingual family in Chatswood. Should we start a trilingual family club or something like this in the area? 🙂
I’d love to see you guys go with the open method. One thing many books suggested is not to mix languages in one single sentence or conversation when talking to the child, which I try to follow as much as can. But as it has been such a habit for both my husband and I to throw in different languages in a single conversation, I found it really challenging to keep to a ‘pure’ language all the time. Overall I still make an effort but sometimes it just comes so naturally to use a work or two of another language. When I do that I feel quite unsure about the effect it will bring on Nina’s language development. So I’d love to hear back from you how it goes …
Look forward to exchanging more of our stories 🙂
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Hi ! We are a bilingual family (French mum + Canadian English dad) although I would love to teach my daughter a third language (Spanish or Italian) and although I am very interested in the subject, I am kind of hoping she will be bilingual just because. Because I speak French to her all the time, and her dad in English. Would that be enough? I guess I have a lot more to read…
I will be following your blog which is a great source of info for us !
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Hi Deb!
Welcome to the trilingual club!
I’m just starting this journey of raising my first child – now less than 1 month – trilingual. Certainly lots and lots of learning, trial and error on the way. I hope to be able to share with many others who are experiencing or planning to give it a go like yourself, and certianly look forward to hearing from you about your expeirence and learning as well.
I have been reading some books, which gave me lots of different perspectives and think of aspects that i’ve never thought of. I have shared a few books in one of my blog titled ‘A Few Books on Bi/tri-lingualism’: ‘https://trilingualfamily.wordpress.com/2011/12/29/a-few-books-on-bimulti-lingualism/. feel free to have a look. As and when I read more (some books, some online resources) I will share my thoughts on this blog too. As you are French mum, you would be able to read that one book in French too, yeah!
Just one note – I borrowed most of the books from library, so just to reduce the potential unnecessary cost. Just buy the one(s) that you think worth re-reading.
Now talking about your thoughts on Spanish or Italian, that’s another interesting element. Assuming that neither you nor your partner is native in these two languages (just from the info as you described, I might be wrong), there are a lot more to think of when introducing this third language to your child. How to make sure the enough intake/exposure? When to start this language? Who to speak this language to the child? How to sustain the level of usage and interest, etc etc. In one of the books I read, it talks about particulay the challanges and methods of introducing a third language that none of the parent speak. something to think …
In any case, it’s a wonderful thing to embark on this journey. Bon voyage et bonne chance !
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