Need advise from Senpai Dads!!

38 comments

1. In my experience, you need to speak ONLY English to the kid, and in front of the kid.

   That alone usually does the trick.

   This will also have the added benefit of forcing your wife to get out of her comfort zone and to use more English as well.

2. I’m a mum not a dad but similar situation. After our baby was born we only spoke English in the house. English books, media etc. Our daughter is 2.5 years-old now and both her English and Japanese is great for her age. Her English was a lot better at first but it seems to have evened out over the last 3-4 months. Our in-laws do not speak English and obviously nursery and every other place she goes will not be English speaking. Our daughter seems to be catching on to the fact that we speak English at home, and Japanese with other people. I don’t think she knows specifically ‘this is Japanese,’ and ‘this is English’ but she knows what words to use where. It can be difficult sometimes. When our baby was young we found ourselves slipping back into Japanese. Now, we’re seeing the results and it’s good motivation to continue the English learning in the house. Even if my daughter speaks Japanese in the house, we answer her in English.

3. As they grow up it is not just about you talking in English to them, it is about them talking in English to you. I’ve noticed it can be a challenge when a parent clearly speaks both languages to insist their kid only speaks English with them. In one case I know a guy in Spain with a Spanish wife, with a couple of daughters who are in their teens, can understand English perfectly well, but their father has been speaking Spanish around them their whole lives and they just never got into speaking English with him although he only speaks English to them.

   I’m in a similar situation to you, and my 7-year-old is quite bilingual and I am the main English speaker in his life. I only speak English to him and he speaks >90% to me. Mostly just pop culture and kids’ shows he likes but doesn’t know translations for he will switch to his mother’s language.

   It is good advice to talk endlessly to them at all ages. Even when they are way too young to understand you can talk about your day or just things you can see or make up nonsense stories.

4. Use English in the house. Once they are daycare age they will be getting Japanese all day, every day so in the home is probably the only time they will get it.

   My daughter and I (she’s two) are at the point where she understands things in English but responds in Japanese.

   We sing both Japanese and English kids songs at home. We watch kids shows in both languages, I repeat slowly and often to her but never enagage in “baby-talk”. I try to say the word she is thinking of in both languages. “Please.” and 「ください」

   If I were to do anything differently, perhaps I would just speak English with her exclusively.

5. Youtube is full of very good vids in any language (basically the same cartoons dubbed – captioned in many languages). Kids love it.

   Dad has his language / Mamma has hers, I think that is the way – kids are amazing at catching up.

6. Congrats on the baby.

   Just want to say thank you for this post.

   I’ve also been wondering what would be best because I’ll be in a situation like this in February.

7. According to educators the best way is for you to only speak english to the kid and your wife only japanese. This is supposedly the best way to raise your kid bilingually. We’re doing the same, but he’s not at talking age yet, so I can neither confirm nor deny whether it’s correct.

8. I get frustrated and speak Japanese to my son when he doesn’t understand english… which is not good. I’m trying to only speak english to my 2nd kid now, so it turns out better.

   Yes english only when you speak to your kid. My kid understands 70% of what I am saying to him, but he never responds in english except for “No.” He is 3 btw.

9. You speak English, she’ll speak Japanese. Your child will be bilingual. Unless you send them to English-only kindergarten, they won’t get reinforcement outside of the home. Don’t worry too much about it. Just let English be relaxing.

10. Another dad doing English at home, Japanese out in the world. Others have said enough about that method, so I’ll skip going into detail.

    However I wanted to add one bit of advice: I know a few parents in international marriages here, and something I’ve tried to internalize looking at their experiences is that at the end of the day it is going to be up to your kid.

    You could do everything “right” and your kid still might end up only ever responding in Japanese while mostly understanding your English.

    You just kind of need to prepare yourself for the idea that your kid might just not want to learn English, and that’s okay.

    Oh, and come join us at r/daddit.

11. I’m in exact situation but my kid is 2 years old. I speak to her in English only . I played to her cocomelon and few English shows including Ms Rachel. She learned a lot of words and can speak in sentences . In the beginning her English words were more than Japanese. But this changed now. Because she goes to daycare.
    It can get frustrating sometimes as I’m the only one speaking English and sometimes I tell her Elephant! She says zousan, and looks at her mom: zousan ne. Refuses to say Elephant only after several attempts. Or refuses some educational shows. “Rachel no” and wants to watch Japanese show.

    But sometimes it gets exciting when suddenly she remembers words I said once. Or when she started to understand those are two different languages. I’ll just keep it up but I’m thinking it may require taking her to an English school. It would help if I can meet more English speakers with kids around the same age.

12. We leaned heavily into English from the get-go but eventually relented and used Japanese half the time to give her a bit of a base for nursery school. She picked up a lot of the various commands and requests in Japanese as well as English and these days we’re still currently mostly half and half but as she’s using Japanese more than English at home we’re going to return to using a lot more English, or introducing both sets of words when she’s learning them.

13. I’m probably repeating things already said, but here goes:
    I have a similar situation to you. 90% English with my kid, common family language is Japanese (at the table, etc.).
    Here’s the biggest advantage: you can interpret. Whenever you accidentally speak Japanese to your kid, immediately say the same thing again in English. When they use Japanese with you, repeat the same thing back to them in English. (“Do you mean…?”) Most of the time it’s just a word they don’t know, and getting them to hear or repeat back what they wanted to say puts that word in their head.
    Also, teach them to say “How do you say XX in English?” and get them to try and ask you that before they blurt out Japanese. Also, be aware they’re just sometimes in a “Japanese mood” and not fight it too much. Don’t miss out on them just because they aren’t hitting the right language. Gently offer an “English with me, please” if it goes on too much, but don’t push it, or they may shut down.
    Siblings will probably speak in J with each other. If you want them talking in English—play with them, and then fade out. Most of the time, they may continue in English.
    Most of all, don’t make it a priority. Be there for them. Language isn’t a battle. You will “lose” a lot once they go to school and your wife can have great conversations with them while you can’t. They will grow out of this as long as you persist with their training.

    If course, every child is different. My oldest is very fluent but cannot read or write (8yo). My youngest speaks moderately well for a 4 year old, but he CAN read and write (for a 4 year old—he can write his abcs and gets phonics right most of the time to read beginner books).

    Good luck. It will only be hard if you make it hard. I find the hardest thing right now is finding other kids the same age they can speak only in English to. (None yet… 🙁 been trying for years)

14. I think the rule of thumb is: at least one of the following three needs to be in the second language to have a great chance at being bilingual. The country you live in, school, or inside the house. As you say if your wife speaks Japanese in the house(and your kid ends up going to regular hoikuen) you will have 0.5/3, which makes it not impossible, but difficult. I suggest exposing to as much English media as possible, books, nursery rhymes, alphabet posters, even YouTube depending on your screen time policies. Also if possible try and expose your child to as many other English speaking people as possible via in person or facetime with grandparents etc.

    I would strongly suggest only speaking English, even pretending not to know Japanese maybe, as when the kid realizes you understand Japanese they will stick to what is comfortable for them.

15. Kids are good at picking up languages. My wife and I are both bilingual, so we use both with the kids without any awkward unnatural rules about who uses what. It’s working fine so far, no issues.

    My advice is try to give the kids external reasons to want to learn / use English that aren’t just “because Dad says it will be useful” or “because Mum refuses to speak anything else”. Motivation is key for kids same as adults when it comes to learning so whether it’s a game, tv show, other foreign friends, a book or talking to inlaws if they have a real reason to use it, they will pick it up no worries.

16. Just speak to your child in English alll the time except for certain social situations where the child may or may not feel comfortable with everyone staring at the two of you . For example father -child school activity on Sunday morning. Read books to them, watch dvds etc etc.
    Most importantly provide a comfortable loving atmosphere of English at home and with you. If they are comfortable and confident it’s pretty easy. IMHO. When they hit hoikuen/yochien their English goes down, but it comes back up later around 6th grade+ , again IMHO

17. This is one of the recurring topics here, like every few weeks. You can find lots of anecdotes in old threads. However, apparently people are happy to provide answers every time, so that’s good…?

    – https://www.reddit.com/r/japanlife/comments/sef4o3/success_stories_raising_bilingual_kids/
    – https://www.reddit.com/r/japanlife/comments/f52dso/tips_for_raising_a_bilingual_child/

18. It’s a time investment. Put the time in for your kid! Quality time spent with your child is all you need. Communication will grow with your relationship.

    Spend time talking with him. Have intimate conversations. Ask him how he’s doing. Talk to him. Even though he isn’t even old enough to comprehend anything, it’s the connection between you two that will develop his communication skills.

    Netflix, Peppa pig, blippi, CKN toys (I can’t stand watching them but thanks to these shows my kids prefer English shows and movies so, yeah.)

    If he ends up speaking predominantly Japanese, that’s ok too. My kid gone through that phase and it stressed me out for a while which wasn’t good for our relationship. I learned to accept that this is the way he wants to communicate and I should listen and care for him just as much. This happened when I got busy with work as he started in kindergarten. There was a bit of distance between us at the time so I had to make up for the lost time, when I could.

19. As long as your wife can understand what you’re saying, the best is for you to speak 100% English and your wife to speak 100% Japanese.

    I have several friends who grew up as kids in this type of format and they are completely bilingual. Unfortunately my father only spoke and understood English, while my mother was completely bilingual, so only English was used when I was growing up.

20. My mother tongue is Swedish. My wife speaks Japanese and English, but no Swedish.

    I plan to speak Swedish with my child. But I have to speak Japanese with my wife, so it might be hard when we all three have to speak together.. Not sure how we will do then. Switch back an forth perhaps, say it in Swedish, then Japanese or vice versa.

21. Books. Buy loads of them. Ask family to buy books for birthdays and Christmas. Read to them from the moment they arrive. We have over 200 kids books now. I read to them every night for at least 30 minutes. If they learn to love books most of your work is already done.

    Try to make sure all or most of their screen time is English too. My kids have learnt a lot of vocabulary and phrases from their favourite cartoons.

22. Have you thought about International School vs. traditional Japanese school?

    In our case, since our kids go to a traditional Japanese school, we make it a point to only speak English at home. They talk to me in Japanese, I reply in English. I’m a hard ass about it. If they don’t understand, I say it first in English and then in barebones Japanese next. Repeat.

    We didn’t go with International school because we wanted them to be super crazy fluent in Japanese with all the cultural nuances, and they take some basic English classes at school.

    I have also locked the iPads to English. Some Japanese still sneaks in. You want to watch Disney+? English. I think that helps a lot.

23. I was in the same situation as you in 2017 when my daughter was born. I was fluent in both languages, my wife is pretty good with English, but we always used Japanese at home. I was worried about my daughter’s language acquisition because I was away on business trips about 50% of the time.

    In the end, we had a great experience and my daughter is now 5 years old and equally proficient in both languages due to one simple rule – we disconnected from the Japanese TV completely and only installed Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, and only allowed our daughter to watch shows if they were in English.

    I didn’t even really have to fully commit to English with my daughter – I was probably 80% or so English with her, and Netflix and Amazon Prime Video did the rest. Shows like Word Party, Peppa Pig etc. are like waving a magic wand and poof! bilingual child. I honestly don’t know why more people don’t talk about this approach because I couldn’t believe how easy and effective it was.

    I will say we also would sometimes see local English speaking friends and we would also take her to see my family in the US for a couple weeks each year. And she went through phases where she would only speak Japanese and I would wonder if English had been left by the wayside. But sure enough those phases would eventually end and she would swing back on the English side.

    Every once in a while we would give in and let her watch Oshiri Tantei or something, but I would say 95% of the shows we let her watch were English or English dubs of Japanese shows.

    Hope that helps!

24. My advice would be to speak ONLY English when talking directly with your kids. If your wife is part of the conversation, it’s fine to speak in Japanese – kids learn to distinguish that really quickly.

    Personally we also do mixed languages at home – i.e. I speak in German and my wife and kids reply in Japanese.

    Another thing I do is make sure to bring the kids along when meeting other German friends so they can hear someone else speak as well.

25. Hey fellow dad!

    I’ve gone through a lot of other comments to make sure I don’t just echo.
    One thing I haven’t really seen is show the kid that Mom=Japanese and Dad=English if you can. As others have said, if you speak English to them, they may still reply in Japanese. But if they see that daddy CAN’T understand Japanese (even tho of course you do), then しょうがない、have to speak English to daddy.
    It is good for their young age, and by the time they figure out that you can actually speak Japanese too, their English is already good.

    Also, don’t let mommy convince you to let them watch English movies in Japanese. The kids should be convinced that English is the only option. My wife said the kids would enjoy more if it was Japanese because they would understand more. My point was that they will watch the same movie 50 times, they will understand if it is English just fine lol

26. Japanese outside, English at home.

    Sometimes kids can pick up which language you use. My younger child naturally says “Thank you” to me (Anglophone) and “Arigato” to mom (Japanese).

27. Read a lot, lots of books, both English and Japanese.

    Also, browse/scan the (free) monographs of the JALT bilingual special interest group PDFs [here.](https://www.bsig.org/monographs) (lots of accumulated experience)

    Second, you and your wife can do a lot by exemplifying bilingualism, attitudes towards it, etc. That you are already bilingual yourself is a huge plus.

28. Time. Spend time with your son from day one—you and him. Take him out: share experiences, learn together. He won’t remember those early years, but you will, and that time will be the foundation of your future relationship through more difficult times. Also, it’ll give your wife a break, and some of her own time. So that she can identify as something other than a mother. Worked for us. Just came back from the pool with my 17-year-old daughter. Not so many teenagers who want to hang or go on road trips with their dad.

29. English entertainment works wonders. As much as possible, expose your kid to English educational shows, kids movies, etc. Watch it with them and talk to them while watching. My kid would start repeating dialogue of her favorite movie towards their 3rd birthday. Meanwhile, daycare is 100% Japanese. They can code switch like a champion.

30. I’m raising two kids here (both fully raised in Japan so far, mother is Japanese, I’m Canadian).

    They are both pretty fluently bilingual for their ages, with English being the more dominant language for them (as evidenced by the fact that its the language they use to communicate with each other when nobody else is in the conversation).

    With the older one after he was born I strictly spoke only English with him. My wife is Japanese but speaks English fluently, so our main language of communication in the home is English and he naturally picked it up as his first language since its what he heard mostly. We realized his Japanese was way behind when he started kindergarten so my wife switched to speaking mainly in Japanese in the home, while I continue to speak only English, so our second child had a more balanced development of the two languages but still got a bit more English since she hears more of it from her older brother.

    They also both tend to prefer English language TV shows over Japanese ones on Netflix, Disney, Youtube, etc which has helped keep their English up. But as they grow their interest in Japanese stuff is growing since its what their friends at school like. Which is cool, I’m just glad they can speak both languages.

31. Hi! Firstly, props for taking a year of paternity leave! I bet that will be awesome for your child, your partnership, and your kiddo and their future language abilities!

    ​

    We are due in September, and hoping that the OPOL method gets our kid going in north languages. But we have also discussed moving back to my home country for a year or so when our kid(s) are school aged to really get their English functional. We are not nearby an international school and it is out of our budget anyway, so hopefully us parenting in our languages plus books and intentional screen time will go a long enough way.

32. Play Dungeons & Dragons. It’s basically a talking game, so it’s great for developing speaking skills. I started playing with boy from about five. It got him interested in reading too. He taught himself how to read by obsessing over the the monster manual. He’s in junior high now and is more or less fluent. Can read anything too. I never sat down to teach him how to read. He just figured it out via D&D.

33. Watch Peppa Pig or other English shows. Try to cut out Anpan Man or Doraemon.

34. I’m in the same situation as you, but my kids are now in high school.

    Basically, the most important thing is be vigilant about speaking English to your child. It’s cool and fun to speak Japanese to them, but make sure the majority of communication between you and them is in English. That’s really the only way to do it. If you think they will only understand something in nihongo, then repeat it in English after!

35. I can only speak English, so I always speak to my daughter (3yr old) in English and she has been starting to pick it up more and has recently been making the effort to speak to me in English.

    She also video chats with my family on the weekends.

    She also can only watch TV in English

    Her comprehension is right where you would expect it to be for a child her age, but she is still hesitant to speak.

    Recently I have started to act like I don’t understand Japanese at all when she speaks to me and that has really made a world of difference. It feels a bit cruel though now because she knows how to express herself better in Japanese and she is old enough to be frustrated with me for not understanding.

    This is my one regret, all of my friends who had done this since their kids were born have way less issues with getting their kids to speak English.

    I am not sure if I did a great job explaining this, hope it helps!

    Best of luck, having kids is actually the best though!

36. Very good advise in the thread already, can add that teaching your child to read and write as soon as they are ready is good. Japanese school absorb a huge amount of time and kids are probably better off playing at least a little after homework is done, so having started reading and subsequently writing well before first grade is what I personally recommend. Worked well for my two boys.

37. I wouldn’t speak Japanese to him. I did and now my kid knows I speak Japanese and isn’t that motivated to speak English. I was just so excited when he first started understanding (Japanese) that I really wanted to talk to him like everyone else…

    If I have another kid I definitely will just stub up and pretend I don’t speak Japanese.

38. As much as I’ll get booed for this, English YouTube. Your kid is missing out on key peer-copy English by playing with Japanese kids. Little kids mimic, so let your kid watch other kids on YouTube. It’s done wonders for my family, despite me always being gone and my wife not speaking English. They speak better than mom almost no effort.