Children of the world: one language at home, another at school, a third with friends

“Muddled up”? No, it’s normal

A child starts a sentence in one language and finishes it in another, drops a German word into a Russian sentence, or answers in English when you asked in Spanish. This is called code-switching, and it’s a normal part of bilingual development, not a sign of confusion. Your child reaches for the word that’s closest right now – just as adults do after years of living in another country.

Over time, children get better and better at knowing who to speak which language with: Grandma in Turkish, the teacher in German, friends in English. This skill grows on its own, and play and conversation help it grow faster.

What we know about bilingual children

• Bilingualism doesn’t cause speech disorders. If a child has a real difficulty with speech, it shows in all of their languages, and having more than one language isn’t the cause.
• Vocabulary is split between languages. Some words your child knows only in the home language, others only in the school language. In each language on its own they may know fewer words than a child of the same age with one language, but count the languages together and the total is no smaller.
• A silent period is normal. When they start nursery or school in a new language, many children listen and stay quiet at first. This can last a few weeks or months.
• The home language needs support. Once school starts, the language of the country quickly takes over. The home language stays alive when there’s something to do in it: talking, reading, playing, calling the grandparents.

How to support each language

• Agree on which language goes where. For example: the home language at home and with the grandparents, the local language at school, whatever works with friends. Clear rules make it easier for children.
• Don’t shame the mixing. If your child slips in a word from another language, simply say the whole sentence back in the language you’re speaking: “Oh, you’re thirsty? I’ll get you some water.”
• Give them the phrases they need in advance. “Can I go to the toilet?”, “I don’t understand” and “Can I play with you?” in the language of the nursery or school take away a lot of fear in the first weeks.
• Read aloud in the home language. Books bring words that never come up in everyday chat.
• Look after the roots. Calls with grandparents, family celebrations, songs and stories aren’t “extra work”: they’re what connects your child to the family.

How Chatterbox helps

Every version of Chatterbox – English, Russian and Portuguese – has a My languages section for children who grow up in several languages. It appears when a child has two or more languages in their profile. You can choose from Russian, Ukrainian, Portuguese, English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Hebrew, Turkish and Chinese.

• One sound, many languages: how the same sound is made in each of your child’s languages, with words to listen to and say.
• Say it in all your languages: a picture and its name in each of your child’s languages; your child listens to each word and says it too.
• Guess the language: your child hears a word and works out which language it was.

The voices come from your phone or tablet: if it has no voice for one of the languages, the game tells you.

If your family speaks Russian, the Russian version has three more games in this section for now: the child’s own language map (which language at home, with the grandparents, at school or nursery, with friends and out and about); a game where the child picks the language for a person and a situation – “tell the teacher: can I go to the toilet?” – then hears the phrase and says it; and everyday phrases for nursery, school and the playground in Portuguese, English, German, Spanish, French, Italian and Ukrainian, plus the family’s own phrases to practise. They aren’t in the English version yet.

Whether English is your child’s home language or the language of school, the English version practises English sounds and early reading: see our guides to the R sound, the L sound, S, Z and SH and learning to read with phonics. And grandparents in another country can join with the family login (one login and a password of 4 pictures): they see what the grandchildren did this week, send them praise and play chess with them. More in Chatterbox for grandparents.

When to see a specialist

Mixing languages, an accent and a silent period at a new nursery are no cause for alarm. It’s worth seeing a speech and language therapist (SLT) if the difficulties show in all of your child’s languages, not only the new one: your child says little and struggles to understand both at home and at nursery, or even close family find them hard to understand. If you can, look for a specialist who works with bilingual children.

Chatterbox is home practice, not a diagnosis and not a replacement for a specialist.