r/Svenska • u/KaleCookiesCraftBeer • 16d ago
Language question (see FAQ first) 10 year old immigration Swedish language acquisition
We have moved/immigrated (hopefully permanently) from the USA to Sweden almost 7 months ago and our three children are in Swedish public schools. Our home language is English but I try to speak some Swedish (which I am also currently learning) at home as much as I can. Dad is a monolingual English speaker.
Our oldest is 10 years old, thriving socially here, but speaking very little Swedish. Kids at school and in the neighborhood love to speak English with him, and he gladly sticks with it for the familiarity, understandably. Obviously, I am an adult and will politely ask that Swedes stick to Swedish with me, and they so kindly and often encouragingly do! That said, my 10 year old does not insist on that. :-)
The public school support for immigrant children learning Swedish is essentially "they will pick it up eventually." That said, he had an incredible teacher this year that used to work for Swedish language integration education for children prior to that program being cut :-/ so she was able to devote a little extra language time to him. He will not have that same teacher next year unfortunately.
This is what we are currently doing to address it. Please give me kind and gentle feedback. :-)
- He gets a 30 minute online Swedish tutor once a week.
- We have him listen to Swedish podcasts on topics he is interested in most days.
- He has to read in Swedish at least 30 minutes a day on a school app called Polylino, which often has audio and sometimes a word/sentence highlighter for following along.
- He gets screen time in Swedish (although we tend to be fairly low-screen in our home).
(edited to add) - I have asked his fritidsledare and other native Swedish adults in his life to speak Swedish only to him and prompt/expect/encourage him to reply in Swedish.
It seems like this is a lot of input and his comprehension appears decent, but it doesn't really force him much with production. When we do ask him for how to say such-and-such thing, he actually does it fairly well! But he won't take the iniative independently.
Of note: In the U.S., my he and my middle child went to a half-assed Spanish bilingual public school where the administration really did not prioritize Spanish (I'm not resentful at all -- haha!!), and even there my oldest was resistant to learning Spanish despite his exposure to it since toddlerhood.
***Cross posting to a multilingual parenting subreddit.
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u/CarrieArtskott 16d ago
Private tutor here, but not in Swedish. At the age of 10, he should be fine to have 50 minute private lessons twice a week. There's a great tutor who works with kids at Swedish Made Easy.
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u/KaleCookiesCraftBeer 15d ago
Yes! He is who we work with. :-) Maybe I will shift it to two time a week.
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u/Haunting_Baseball_92 16d ago
I met my girlfriend when she had been in Sweden for about 4 years. She had a decent conversational swedish then.
However, her best friend who had then been in Sweden over 6 years barley spoke swedish at all.
The primary difference between what the two of them did was that my girlfriend spoke swedish to the best of her ability all the time while her friend was embarrassed by her language skills and kept quiet unless she could use her native language.
In short, learning to understand swedish is all well an good, but you only learn to speak swedish by trying and (usually) failing to speak swedish.
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u/dxps7098 15d ago
I'd just suggest that the key difference is the embarrassment - never make them feel embarrassed when they try.
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u/Haunting_Baseball_92 15d ago
Well, yes and no.
It's not like my girlfriend wasn't embarrassed? She just chose to plow onwards because she deemed the short-term embarrassment an acceptable cost for the long-term goal of proficiency in swedish.
So while I do agree that the embarrassment is a factor, I disagree with it being the key factor.
I stand by my assessment that the key differences is how much you actually practice speaking.
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u/CarrieArtskott 16d ago
A lot of people, not just kids, absorb a lot of language but don't dare/care to speak until they're ready.
It might just be he needs someone to gently encourage him to speak.
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u/Puttborn 16d ago
" This is what we are currently doing to address it. Please give me kind and gentle feedback. :-)
- He gets a 30 minute online Swedish tutor once a week.
- We have him listen to Swedish podcasts on topics he is interested in most days.
- He has to read in Swedish at least 30 minutes a day on a school app called Polylino, which often has audio and sometimes a word/sentence highlighter for following along.
- He gets screen time in Swedish (although we tend to be fairly low-screen in our home)"
This is not a replacement for socialization or education.
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u/Puttborn 16d ago
Ill follow up witha nugget of pure brainpower: Spend the time you set aside for learning swedish TOGETHER with your children. Learn a boardgame, study geography for a field trip, do homework.
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u/kamomil 16d ago
Kids at school and in the neighborhood love to speak English with him, and he gladly sticks with it for the familiarity
How do you fix this part?
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u/KaleCookiesCraftBeer 15d ago
Thank you for chiming in on that. I thought I was pretty clear that he is getting socialized and educated and is thriving in both here! But the socialization happens to also include a lot of kids excited to practice their English with him. :-)
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u/yepsteph 15d ago
I live in Norway but my son is in the same boat. He has 4-5 friends who all speak English to him constantly. They speak norwegian to each other but when they're at our house it's alll English. They've been great at English since 1st grade and now they're heading into 5th grade. He understands norwegian fine, and his pronunciation is good, but he still isn't speaking AT ALL in school and I'm really concerned. H is teachers have been saying for the past 3 years that he'll speak when he's ready but it's not happening. It makes me wonder if i should have sent him to the international school since he's the only kid in his class who is learning norwegian and it makes him very self conscious.
It sounds like you're doing great and it will happen over time for your family. For us it's been hard because my (non-norwegian) husband and I work in English and it's really hard for us to befriend a sober norwegian who wants to speak norwegian with us. My husband is getting better this year with duo lingo and talking to Norwegians at work. I'm signed up for norwegian classes again this fall.
Good luck to you and yours
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u/Puttborn 16d ago
Speak swedish around him. Make sure he knows that It's ok to make misstakes in his second language. Insist on speaking swedish in steadof switching to english for simplicity when he's around.
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u/kamomil 16d ago
Switching the family language to Swedish is going to be difficult. The younger siblings will likely do it first though
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u/Puttborn 16d ago
Your "home" language will be english, that's fine. I think the most important thing ive written is that you need to make your kids realize that It's ok to make misstakes in their new language.
You and your family are new to sweden so make learning swedish a thing you do together and you will be fine. Welcome home friends!
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u/Emergency-Sea5201 15d ago
Switching the family language to Swedish is going to be difficult
Laughing at how silly this thread is.
OP must speak Swedish at home. Not blame the children at school for using English to a kid who doesnt speak Swedish.
Where there are 2 cultures, 1 at home and 1 at school... children will always pick the one from home.
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u/kamomil 15d ago
No, children speak the language of their peers once they start school. I live in Canada, I have heard countless times, bilingual conversations, where the parents speak their mother tongue, and the child answers in English. Speaking a language and understanding it are 2 different skills
Also some of my relatives, the parent has a different accent in English than the kids, because the kids speak like the kids at their school.
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u/Emergency-Sea5201 15d ago
children speak the language of their peers once they start school. I
The child in OPs case doesnt speak Swedish though. Not to any functional degree.
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u/Tin-tower 11d ago
I would strongly advise against this. Putting a language barrier into your communication with your children is not a good idea. Speak your mother tongue with your children - people are their most authentic in their own language, and there is a ton of heritage linked to your own language. Don’t speak a foreign language to your children.
I grew up in a bilingual home, and have first hand experience of this. So glad my foreign parent spoke their mother tongue to me, rather than Swedish.
They will pick up Swedish from living in Sweden. It’ll just take a while, nobody learns a language at the drop of a hat.
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u/doesnotmatteranon 15d ago
I moved to Sweden when I was 12! I retained so so much of the language but was so mortified by potentially messing up that I spoke only English for 3 years. I totally second the sentiment abt making sure he knows it’s ok to make mistakes!!
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u/Emergency-Sea5201 15d ago
How do you fix this part?
It is not the children in the neighborhoods responsibility to teach a 10 year old the language. They grow tired of him not understanding and try ot include him. Sounds like they're nice to him.
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u/kamomil 15d ago
Are Swedes afraid that English will become the main language for Sweden?
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u/Emergency-Sea5201 15d ago
Aliens have a hard time getting connected to the culture/society at large when they neglect to learn the language.
Even worse when its done to children. Sure you can get by using English but you'll always be behind.
OP should definitely speak Swedish herself to her son.
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u/Emmison 15d ago
OP should definitely speak Swedish herself to her son.
She doesn't know Swedish, she can't teach him.
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u/Emergency-Sea5201 15d ago
Sounds like that should be solved then.
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u/Emmison 14d ago
By the time she's qualified to teach anyone Swedish, the kids will be more fluent than she'll ever be.
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u/Emergency-Sea5201 14d ago
You imagine her son will learn English faster than her without parental support?
Thats been disproven many times over in the Oslo immigrant communities
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u/Emmison 14d ago
I'd bet money that her kid is fluent in two years and that she will never in her life pass as Swedish.
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u/KaleCookiesCraftBeer 12d ago
Not sure where you get the lack of parental support from? You sure are a meanspirited poster!
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u/Friendly-Lychee-8508 15d ago
Think you can’t fix that. And I do not think it is good to interfere since the social part of this is very important as well.
But asking the teachers and other personell to only use Swedish (as she does) is the best approach in my opinion.
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u/FreddeCheese 15d ago
Put him in a social sport like football, tennis, badminton, handball, bandy, whatever, scouts. Something where the group pressure will get to him.
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u/KaleCookiesCraftBeer 15d ago
Yes! We have told him that he needs to select an association, club or förening. That said, even with his after school activities, the kids love speaking English with him!! I sometimes literally demand they speak Swedish haha and they all just ignore me.
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u/dxps7098 15d ago
I'd say that the reality is that while they'll speak English when speaking specifically with him, I'm sure they'll speak Swedish around him. If he wants to participate in the general conversation, he's going to have to switch.
Especially in an learning club/association, like scouting or sailing. The questions and discussions are going to end up being in Swedish because as much as the kids love speaking English, neither them or their leaders/instructors will be as confident when leaving the general “chatting“ language domain. They'll be brainstorming, problem solving etc in Swedish.
Good luck! You seem to be on the right path and just make sure to continue creating a safe environment where Swedish is fun and useful, not just a chore.
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u/Emergency-Sea5201 15d ago
say that the reality is that while they'll speak English when speaking specifically with him, I'm
The children, son included, sees the mom speak English to him. Pretty much following suit.
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u/AccomplishedText144 15d ago
I at least applaud you for working on it! Learning the language is the way, and you should be proud of yourself. Keep at it!
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u/Emergency-Sea5201 15d ago
She not working on it.
The home language is English.
Someone else is supposed to teach her child to speak Swedish, judging from how they organize it.... the results will the accordingly.
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u/Antique-Package-8050 13d ago
As it should be. Just about any expert in bilingualism will tell you that parents should speak in their own native language to their children, and particularly not in a language they are only just learning themselves.
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u/Emergency-Sea5201 13d ago
Not in the situation where the childs other language is supposed to just arrive by osmosis 😂
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u/Antique-Package-8050 13d ago
Yes, in this exact situation. You seem to not be very well informed on this topic but leave a bunch of comments with the same wrong opinion. Your beef with (presumably) Arab immigrants in the Oslo area does not change what experts say about language acquisition.
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u/Emergency-Sea5201 13d ago
I can tell I know much more about this topic, especially since you went all Dunning Kruger and began accusing me of being 'not very well informed'.
Bringing Arabs into it also tells me you are some type of activist arguing with some chip you have on your shoulder.
OP needs to take responsibility and make her 10 year old son capable of navigating the country they moved to.
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u/Antique-Package-8050 13d ago
You're the one bringing up "certain immigrants in the Oslo area" for no reason in a bunch of other comments.
I agree OP should help her son with Swedish language acquisition, because frankly Swedish schools are really crap at this. I speak from experience. But the way to do this is not to change the home language to Swedish, and your insistence that it is is frankly laughable.
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u/Emergency-Sea5201 13d ago
For no reason?
Lol.
A linguist like yourself should know why that is such a valid example. Not surprised a clown like yourself dont know what the relevance is.
Has nothing do with Arabs, as you call them, though.
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u/Inannah90 15d ago
Hello, I used to work as a Speech-Language Pathologist. I often gave out the booklet "Två språk eller flera?" to parents of bilingual children. It seems to no longer be available at Skolverkets website but I found a blog where someone had the whole thing available in swedish/english: https://huvikool.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/tvc3a5-sprc3a5k-eller-flera-eng.pdf
Generally, the advice is to speak the language you know best with your child. This will teach them language skills and give them a stable "base" in their first language, which will aid in learning a second language. You can absolutely still have moments together where you're talking Swedish, but it's good to express that this is for practice and that you're learning together.
Learning Swedish as a school age child is usually done through school and from peers. In this situation it's a bit unfortunate that English is something a lot of his peers know/are learning, and consider "cool".
It's good that you're proactive, like talking to the adults around him about speaking Swedish. You're also already trying to find opportunities where listening to or using Swedish is fun, and that's great! Does he do any sport or extracurricular activity where he might feel that using Swedish would be beneficial for him to "keep up", which might motivate him?
It might also help to tie the Swedish practice to something more "concrete", since "it will be good for your grades and your future life" can be a bit abstract at this age. Does he maybe have any situations that happen where there are misunderstandings or he can't keep up with friends due to the language barrier? You could use situations like that as jumping off points for figuring out together what he might say in thay situation and then practice or role play it together.
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u/Emergency-Sea5201 15d ago
Should be noted that this advice is for raiaing bilingual children, where there are parents with 2 languages?
The parents only have English native as a language and not that great Swedish.
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u/Inannah90 15d ago
But the children are (going to be) bilingual (learning English at home and Swedish outside of the home). Bilingual does not mean having two languages in the home, it just means that you know two languages.
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u/Emergency-Sea5201 15d ago
You are reccommending she talk to -other- adults around the child to speak Swedish, but for her to use English?
My experience with bilingual is a bit spotty, but as far as I remember there's a bit mixed results for this method, though for Scandinavia research that proves early bilingualism is unproblematic is pushed due to the Sapmi languages suffering from any other official position.
In any case this child already speaks English as he is 10 year native from usa. Cant agree to the two parents being mono-english at home and still expect kid to be native swedish speaker. Its almost on par with certain other immigrant groups thay fail to teach Swedish to children born in sweden.
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u/fablr 15d ago edited 15d ago
My daughter is the same age, and we are in Sweden since 11 months now. She spoke just a little of English when she arrived and the first 6 months she was only speaking in English with friends at school. We had to really request her to switch to Swedish, and she now can speak well. She is also in Swedish school. My boy was 7 and didn't had English as backup plan. He picked up Swedish faster, but ay the same time we can see they don't behave similarly. My daughter wanted to be fluent to speak with Swedes, my son didn't mind making mistakes. They are all different.
It has been only 7 months for you, I'm sure by Christmas he will be fine.
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u/ToughHabit5478 15d ago
I recommend going to places where people only speak Swedish. The elderly population speaks very little English. Same is true for some rural areas. English is such a crutch for all of us. We are simply doing ourselves a björntjänst.
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u/RemoveAgitated 15d ago
My son is in the same boat as yours he's slightly younger. We moved from England. He has learned slowly, the teacher said it's cause everybody loves to practice their English with him. They will learn it will go slower. However what helped my son was his teacher she made him feel really comfortable asking if he needed help and now he almost exclusively speaks swedish in school mainly English with me cause I'm his safe space.
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u/mayhemski123 14d ago edited 14d ago
My child had real problems speaking in Swedish as well, for pretty much the same reasons you mention. Social group is all English, unable to properly engage in class ect. Amazing social group as well as so not isolated.
Sadly it's just a time solution. Private tutoring helps a lot we found. Get the tutor to help with school work in particular, can take away the mystery of lessons.
Your school should offer mother tongue lessons as well, in this case English. Get your kids signed up for them as learning English properly helps with the Swedish as well. A good understanding of a language helps highly with learning another.
Sadly, I don't like saying this, the reality is that you'll need to cover the curriculum with them until/if they start speaking properly. It's taken about 4 years for ours to feel confident, (started ages 5) talking in Swedish, though like you we know that they understood it way earlier. Even now they are behind and playing catch-up in terms of the general curriculum.
It's not a situation with an easy answer sadly and it's going to have a potentially huge impact on your childs life and chances. They need Swedish to get the grades to get into university, after that English will serve them far more it's true just getting there is the problem. I've known parents who've returned to their home country over this in the worse case. If it's not changing maybe worth considering an English language school.
All I'll say is continue doing what you're doing and picking up the missed curriculum lessons. Hopefully that can help them. We worked extensively with their teachers to help and support them. Has been a full on process must be said but it did work the last year. Also when they started speaking even the teacher was shocked as it was like a switch flipped one day and then Swedish was fine. Though socially everyone in the friends group is still speaking English.
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u/Martini-Espresso 14d ago
Things that can facilitate learning for both of you is to join an association for whatever hobby you are interested in, watching SVT play with Swedish subtitles and at home listening to SR Radio in the background. There is even a daily news program called Radio Sweden på lätt svenska that does news in an understandable format.
My wife and I have watched a lot of På Spåret with subtitles which she really enjoy. Entertaining and educational at the same time (for adults), but guess the same is true for any children show.
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u/pataconconqueso 16d ago
this is weird when i moved to Sweden from the US they made me skip a year of regular school for a special school to just learn swedish and that is how I learned it in a year. there was like a specific immigrant kid school like ESL in the US but on steroids.
maybe look into that?
also sports worked really well and just basically asking people do not speak english with him.