I am a native English speaker, my wife is Japanese (beginner/basic English) and we have a 3-year-old. I feel absolutely defeated (and often depressed) trying to get our son to speak English as I desperately want him to be able to talk with his grandparents abroad while they are still around. I realize that I am, for the most part, the only one in his life here in Japan who speaks English so I have been speaking it with (to) him every chance I get. Although I am amazed at his understanding and comprehension, I cannot get him to speak it (with the exception of a few often repeated words and phrases) for the life of me. He has made the realization that he does not have a necessity to speak English and any time I try to talk with him in English, I am met with either a one word response or a Japanese response. It has begun to feel like I am banging my head against a wall trying to get him to use the English he knows. Meanwhile, I am watching his mother, teachers, friends, and even strangers enjoy having fun conversations and exchanges with him in Japanese. Many times I feel mentally exhausted and just switch to speaking Japanese to him. I then finally feel like I am able to enjoy conversations with him and enjoy time that feels just like father and son bonding than an English lesson. (I should add, our son is very talkative and funny when speaking Japanese so him being quiet and almost stand-offish with English is a language issue rather than a personality one). However, I am then reminded (sometimes by myself in my own head, sometimes literally by my wife/friends/family/etc) that I have to speak English with him if I want him to learn it. I am mentally exhausted and at my wits end.
I am sure that I am not alone in this and would love if any others who have already experienced this or are currently experiencing something similar could share some advice. Thank you very much.
EDIT: Just a quick note before I pick my son up from school to say thank you for all of the thoughtful and insightful replies. I am reading through them and trying to process them. It sounds like a pretty unanimous agreement that I just have to keep it up. Getting my wife to agree to try using English at home sounds like another big key (it would be good for her too).
I’m praying that a day comes soon when it gets easier because, although I agree that I need to keep it up, I feel extremely defeated. I spend so much time with him (just the two of us) and we are always doing fun things; reading books, going fun places, playing inside and out, experiencing new things…but nothing seems to be clicking when it comes to getting him to speak (although I am sincerely impressed by his understanding). I think the thing that has worn me out the most mentally is that even his Japanese responses to my English questions have gotten shorter (I think because he realized that engaging in conversation just means being spoken to in even more English). It breaks my heart seeing people we barely know having more conversational interaction with him. Working by myself and having very little other interaction with people doesn’t really help. He is by far the person I spend the most time with and it has just become me talking to him with little if any response. I apologize as I’m now just venting my pent up frustrations.
But a sincere thanks to everyone who has responded. When I have more time tomorrow, I am going to reread all of these replies and rethink my approach to this.
26 comments
Small children tend to be disinterested in things that are irrelevant to their immediate life.
Would he be interested in talking to your parents or making friends who speak English?
You need to not give up. When your son is an adult and can’t speak English he’ll probably have a lot of regret about it so you need to do what you can while he’s young enough.
Do not speak Japanese to him. You only speak English in the house. The house is a no-Japanese zone. English TV only. My daughter is 3 and a half and she is proficient in both languages and has learned to speak English with mum. Even when I get her from nursery and speak to her in Japanese with her teachers, she’ll still respond in English. Your wife needs to help as much as possible. She’s a beginner but I’m sure she can manage colours/animals/food.
3 is tricky because they’re young enough that their brain is squishy enough to absorb lots of information by exposure, but old enough to fight back.
Raising a toddler is exhausting for so many reasons but I would urge you to give this priority and don’t give up despite how mentally exhausted you are. It’ll be worth it.
As someone who rejected their parents’ native language growing up, I understood from the beginning that you need to find a way to make English the “fun” language. In our house, all kids media (cartoons, movies, games) are only in English. I take my kids out on my own very very often, 4-5 days a week. The key is consistency. Hit the park for an hour on weekdays. Full day outing with Dad on the weekend. The whole time only speak English.
I’m in a similar situation, being the only English speaker in the house, with two kids. Mom, friends, daycare/school all speak absolutely zero English. Still, both of them were speaking full sentences in English by 3, and only use English when speaking with me. They started doing Kumon english lessons around 4-5 to keep up on reading and writing. Now they can play videogames with Dad and it just compounds their speaking, reading, and even typing. Current favorite game is minecraft.. big surprise there. I have 3 PCs set up in my office room and we all play together. The whole time we talk to each other in English and of course the game is in English.
Also, mental exhaustion is part of the experience. It is extremely draining teaching a whole ass language to a small human. It took over a year of constant near daily corrections before my older kid finally internalized how to switch the order of words when asking questions (“I am cute” vs “am I cute?”). Similar struggles for pronunciation (“th” being the biggest offender), things like “many” vs “much”, and countless other little things. There is no shortcut, it’s a lifetime commitment and you need to be consistent. If YOU start giving up, then the battle is already lost.
I had a similar situation, but never spoke a single word of Japanese to my kid, even words like “sushi,” and just didn’t respond if she said something to me in English. I don’t mean that I pretended like she wasn’t there, I just said “What?” “What does that mean?” “Can you say that in English?” until she spoke English.
A few other things:
Have a lot of time with your son that’s just you two, without any Japanese speakers. I had Monday off at that time, so I kept my kid home from daycare and made it daddy-daughter Monday.
Read to your kid. English YouTube is OK, but a minute of you speaking English is worth hours of YouTube. It’s great because it gets you to use longer sentences and more interesting words, unlike normal conversation, which tends to be repetitive: “Do you want [x]?” “Where’s your [x]?” “Go get your [x].”
Facetime the folks back home as often as possible. It might be hard to get your son to engage with them, but hearing you talk to them in English just by itself makes it worth it.
The post below has a lot of really good and important advice but here is something I would add. Where in Japan are you located? I know that on Facebook/Meetup there are a lot of groups for international/English-speaking families (or families that are raising their child bilingually) in Japan – I would encourage you to see if there are any in your area, and go to a playdate/meetup when they have them. I have been doing this since my son was little (he is now 3) and find that it’s a great way for my son to not only get more language exposure to English, but also see English used in a real-life context where it’s not just a “language that only mom speaks”. My son has gotten to the point where now he is starting to interact and play with the other kids there in English.
I would also look into the blog and forum (and books too if you’re so inclined) by Adam Beck, who is a coach for raising children bilingually. He has a lot of good tips, tricks, on this topic, and you’ll find more advice on handling issues such as this one. Good luck!!
https://bilingualmonkeys.com/
With our first lad, I found that his listening comprehension was much better than speaking at first. It was only really around 3 and beyond that he had apparently built enough neural connections for proper sentences to start being formulated.
Our second lad speingboarded off of our first, so he seemed to get a head start with most things like this.
I only speak English with our boys. My wife speaks both.
What has also helped a lot has been exposure to English language cartoons, films, and a fuckton of YouTube (monitor and curate). With the latter, our lads picked up things that didn’t come from me.
They’re both verbally bilingual.
The main challenge now is reading and writing. I don’t know anything about teaching, so this is proving to be a challenge for me too.
Regardless, you have to talk and talk and talk.
It’s important in language acquisition for the child to feel the need for the language. To create that situation in my home I never responded to my son’s Japanese when he was that young. (Responded might not be the right word, since I would react, just in a way that would encourage him to attempt English to get is meaning across). I have a slight advantage over you, since my wife is Japanese but speaks English well, but really she 90% or more speaks to him in Japanese.
If my son is doing anything with me, it’s in English. Watch a movie, it’s in English. Read a story, it’s in English. Play together, it’s in English. You may feel tired about it, especially at first as his English is noticeably below his Japanese, but in the same way you wouldn’t let him eat only his dessert, you as a parent need to make him do what’s best for him long term, and that’s to speak English with you.
Your spouse’s support is important though, even if she doesn’t speak English well. There are still things she can do to support your child’s English learning. She shouldn’t be translating for him or letting him cheat. If he asks you for an ice cream in Japanese, you ask for him to say it in English, she shouldn’t let him come to her instead and ask in Japanese. Also, if she’ll sometimes say things in English that she’s capable of it can make him feel like English is a normal thing for anyone to use, and not just a weird dad thing.
My son hit similar stage when he started going to preschool. I think it’s important to not get frustrated. This is very normal. What I used to do when I got a Japanese response was to echo what I got in English. Like, “Oh, you want to go to the park? Sounds great!”
Eventually we solved the English problem by sending our kid to international school. I have some friends who successfully raised bilingual kids through Japanese schooling, and they put a lot of effort into it.
My kid can speak both English and Japanese very well for his age. We only speak in English inside the house. If you wife isn’t that good at English then make sure you are only speaking to him in English. Only respond back to him in English and when he speaks English to you. Also for any TV, English only programs.
Go back to your home country for vacation and take your kid with you.
You need your wife to speak English too if she can. Tip the balance in the early years. It is key
Read an English book together for half an hour a day. Teach your child how to FaceTime grandparents in English. Have scheduled English only time – not as tough as it’s sounds. Go to an aquarium or whatever your child wants to do and talk about all you see and do in English. Context for learning helps. Be persistent ! You will get there and it’s worth it. Invite English relatives to Japan if you can, young ones love to show off their English skills. I don’t let me SO translate whole sentences, but key vocabulary is ok. Don’t compare English level to Japanese speaking level. They’ll speak both together initially . You got this 🙂
Story time at night. Download something fun to watch together. Don’t sweat the production. Let him get more time listening to it. Don’t do boring ESL type stuff. Speak English with him and let him enjoy SpongeBob or Disney films.
My 5 year old got hooked on Dr. Who, so we watched them together each week. And anything else I could get my hands on. But Dr. Who was special time together. I also read to him each night. We both cried over Old Yeller.
Make English cool. In your favour, a lot of Japanese resources are very childish compared with things from overseas. My child grew to really like Curious George and Muppet Babies over things like okaasan to isshouni and so on. We read together every single night. Books and TV then become stimulus for conversation. We go to the library every two weeks and take out the maximum allowance of books (15!). Even if written in Japanese, read them in English.
Don’t ever say “speak in English” or “what is that in English?”. That simply creates a situation in which they are reminded there are two options. If they say ‘sakana’, say ‘oh, fish, right?’. Repeat what they say, but in English. It will come.
Overall, if the child is interested in you, they will want to speak with you. Be interesting and stimulating and consistently speak in English and the English will come.
Also, show flexibility. Using both languages models the behavior you want from him.
let him watch english cartoons?
It seems you have raised a passive bilingual. Congratulations. But it doesn’t seem you have given him enough motivation to speak English. If you are the only English speaker in his world and he knows that you know Japanese then why would he try?
Here are some things we did with our kids who are now adults and work in excellent bilingual situations:
1) create all English home environment. Their first few years of TV for them were exclusively Disney and other English kid’s content. We ate meals to western pop music. We only spoke English unless entertaining Japanese monolinguals. Their books were predominantly English and I read them stories every single night. Their car trips were English karaoke times.
2) They were taken overseas very regularly to visit family. They had a good reason to communicate with their beloved relatives.
3) When they became older, we started taking them regularly to multilingual countries like Singapore as we wanted them to see that being bilingual is not something strange or かっこいい but is absolutely normal.
4) From high school they went to an international school where their reading and writing skills were boosted enormously.
5) We tried to make English fun, cool and decidedly advantageous but without explicitly stating it.
Your son needs more motivation. Go home, especially at Xmas! Find an English playgroup or kindergarten so he finds a need to interact with peers in English.
All it takes is a helluva lot of time, money and effort. 🙂
When he speak back in Japanese fake that u don’t understand. That work for me
Talking to him in english is enough. since it is his early years his brain get the conexions to understand and think in english. This will help him to use english later in life. Of course, would help a lot if he can interact with other children at the same age in english. It would be fun and a great way to let him interested. good Luck.
He’s… 3! Please relax that’s way early. He’ll speak much more in a few years. Keep up the constant English.
We have a bilingual baby here. 2 years old. The key is to make your English interactions fun and to ignore the Japanese phrases. It’s hard but the child will test you and try to make you speak Japanese. Every time you break, you set yourself back since the kid no longer “needs” English to communicate. They get better faster and retain the information more if you make it a necessity. If anything you might have to set up certain house rules with your wife. My wife and I agreed that our home is an English environment with tv and other things (when possible) in English while the child is home. We also only speak Japanese outside when in public to not inconvenience others. Our kid is now used to inside home and with mom and dad being English and everyone else Japanese. They don’t even question it. But we never make it a chore. It’s always fun and engaging instead of punishing or in home juku.
Also, it doesn’t matter if one parent is not that skilled in English. It’s all about exposure. The child will naturally surpass the parent with inadequate skills and never notice that they did.
We did it a bit differently because my wife is near native (so we are 100% English at home), however, FWIW…
Thomas the Tank Engine.
For a little North America…Paw Patrol. Maybe throw in some PJ Masks.
But definitely Thomas. It’s big here, they have some songs, the English is age-appropriate. He’ll be singing Down by the Dockside and naming trains before you know it.
Get him into the entertainment side and eventually it takes care of itself (until device time becomes an issue).
Apart from that, read stories before bed. My son loved that.
Fortunately, he is only 3, so if you get him hooked on shows and story time asap you should be fine. He will eventually start speaking more.
What language is the TV and youtube in?
That is what child will learn
You’re very focused on output, which I get, but how much does he get, even if he responds in Japanese?
My boy is five, I asked him “Get me one alcohol wet wipe and the box of regular ones please.” Understood no problem. Then there was that time I told him about the special episode of Anpanman, that…got me in trouble, but he understood me fine.
Keep it up, keep it fun, keep it positive. One of his teachers said in Japanese “Murasaki is paapuru!” Deadass, I’m told, he raised his hand and said “Purple, not paapuru.” So proud.
Personal experience but…
Take him back to visit the family. My daughter understood fine around three, but being in an environment where everyone spoke English for a couple of weeks really opened the floodgates – it was amazing to see how much she had inside her head.
Plenty of reading and YouTube in English (95% of “fun” media in English).
Your house doesn’t need to be an English only zone.
Your wife doesn’t have to speak any English.
You don’t have to be a dick to your kids and pretend not to understand Japanese. It should be normal for people to understand and speak two languages – like you’re trying to encourage them to do, right? Just clarify what they’ve said in English and carry on.
I don’t hide the fact that I understand and speak Japanese. I’ll talk to Japanese friends in Japanese when they come round. I’ll read books in Japanese if requested. I just talk to my daughter in English as default and it is accepted that this is how we communicate.
You’ve already gotten a lot of good advice. What goes into kids’ ears comes out of their mouths, but it takes time. He’s had a lot more Japanese input than English, so it’s going to take longer. I second the suggestion to show him fun stuff—books, cartoons, video games. Talk to him a LOT, but not enough to distract from any English being spoken onscreen. “That’s the Coyote. He wants to catch the Road Runner but he’s too dumb.” Don’t worry if he seems quiet or only responds in Japanese. He wants to communicate with you, but he only knows one way to do it so far. Rephrase what he said in English—“You want to watch that one again? Okay.” By exposing him to English, you’re giving him the tools he needs. One day the output will just happen.