He is American, his wife is Spanish. They are both fluent in the other. Raising kids to be fluent in both, as far as I can tell. Two kids I think are both roughly 6 or younger currently.

Email me if you want to be put in touch. He is a Domer, by the way.

They accomplished this differently.

My best suggestion is to start early. Introduce your boy to the language in
formal classes, and practice speaking both languages daily in the home.

Travel annually to Spanish-speaking countries to be immersed in the language.

A kid that age will pick up quickly a language he is exposed to for multiple hours every day. Retaining it will be a different story. Colleagues of mine with kids have generally hired nannies or au pairs who are native speakers of whatever language they're hoping their kid will retain after they've left a country where the language is spoken.

But I fairly routinely hear some version of "*sigh* S/he used to speak such beautiful [insert language here]."

I’m hoping they’ll get Spanish sooner rather than later.

With his mom and my ex wolverine-in-law. People like to hear him speak it. They think it’s funny. I’ll give him
Another year before I make him
Give the Joe Pesci bit from Goodfellas.

Undergrad degrees in English and Russian, Masters in Russian, studied several years in Kiev and Moscow during school.

The Netherlands, but had spent the last ten years living in Houston. She had developed a hybrid accent that was simultaneously charming and a little disturbing.

raised in a French/English household from infancy. Both are now teens and completely fluent on both languages. From an early age their parents also had them in French classes to read and write the language. Kids raised in bilingual homes seem to have no problem sorting out the languages. Even their dog was bilingual!

I think it’s a great gift to give a child. So few Americans are bilingual, it’s a shame but I don’t think our schools do a very good job in this regard. I think we probably start too late.

is a native speaker and speaks to the kids exclusively in their native language. I have a colleague whose Italian wife speaks to their kids only in Italian and it's really impressive to see the kids (who are 2 and 4) switch between Italian and English when talking to their parents (properly identifying which language to speak with which parent).

Very much anecdotally, I've observed it's less successful where one parent tries to speak to kids exclusively in a language they acquired later in life.

My wife will only speak to our daughter in Japanese. And she will only respond to my daughter if my daughter speaks to her in Japanese.

Daughter (7) is completely bilingual.

Writing is a different story. She knows her Japanese characters, but written Japanese also uses a lot of Chinese characters. My daughter does not know these as well as a 7 year old in school in Japan does.

They not only can't read or write the language, but also often have trouble passing professional speaking tests if they haven't complemented the home speaking practice with formal study.

They are 100% fluent conversationally (Germans recognize their Munich accents) but would have difficulty with things like literary analysis in German because they don’t have the cultural background like a native German with German parents. They do all read and write very well, though.

I would estimate that 60% of my students are fully bilingual. Another 20 % are at least trilingual (2 non-English native parents, plus education in English). G16’s best friend is native proficient in English, Turkish, and German, and proficient in Mandarin. I have another student that is Turkish, Hungarian, English, and German fluent. English-Spanish-German. The list goes on. My students amaze me every day. But the key to that is mother tongue development. Additional languages are easily acquired if mother tongue skills are good.

and lots of language study, it's that people toss the word "fluent" around much too freely. People seem to think being able to generally understand a news broadcast or a newspaper article connotes fluency.

And you're exactly right about having true fluency in a native language. It's nearly impossible to learn another language properly without a full grasp on grammar and syntax in your native language.

I have taught students who have no native language skills because their non-native speaking parents spoke only English to them as they grew up. It’s disastrous. Our EAL staff insists that parents speak their own language to their children—we can teach them English. Any pedagogical study will show that this produces the best outcomes.

because I don't know any of the science. But I have many friends who are excellent linguists and many friends married to people for whom English is a second language. I've observed the kids of the latter do much better with language acquisition in both English and the other language than the kids of the former.

I'm deeply sad that my wife didn't see it as such. One of my few deep regrets of my marriage and thus far brief experience in fatherhood has been my inability to convince her to use her native language with our son.

I know it's never too late, but that he now protests any time I try to read to him in her language with "don't use those words. Use the other words!" and shows no understanding of the language at all is incredibly dispiriting.

in the job market. As is dual citizenship. The kids who speak French are also French Citizens. My kids have Irish citizenship through their grandparents. All have EU passports, as well as US passports.

We moved to Germany on a three year employment contract almost 10 years ago, and decided not to leave. G7 (at the time) went to international school, because we didn't want her to have to go through the stressful Gymnasium entry process and then leave in the middle of Grade 5. G5 went to German kindergarten, and G2 followed about a year later. Both started in the international school by Grade 1, but they all had German friends even after that. G7 (now G16) has been playing soccer for the local sport club for several years. All three are bilingual, mostly because they spend a lot of their free time speaking German.

In grade 6 at our school, students choose a third language to study for the next five years. Older two chose Mandarin because they liked the challenge and wanted to learn about a completely different culture. Youngest will start French in the fall. I expect that her French will be better than their Chinese.

Bottom line, I would say, is that you should give your kid as much exposure to Spanish as you can. But, and this is extremely important, if your native language is English, even if you speak Spanish reasonably well, you should speak to him in English. He will pick up Spanish by living there, or in school if you go that route.

Where are you going? One of my close friends from here is moving to Valencia this summer. I can put you in touch if you are in the same place.

Enjoy it! Expat life is pretty great.

ewillND

We're going to Barcelona, I'll be attending IESE and pursuing consulting (Western Europe preferably).

We're excited to give expat life a try!

I think that you'll really like it. One interesting note, though--if your little one does go to preschool there, the language of instruction will be Catalan, not Castilian.

Clarifica, ese.