My son is 25 months old. I talk to him in English (and sometimes Korean) while his father speaks to him in pure Korean. We had a lot of opposition when we decided to teach our son two languages. The women in my husband’s family were afraid that he might not learn enough Korean since I spend more time with him than my husband. They were worried that by the time he goes to school, he might not be that fluent in the language and he might end up a “wang-ta” or an outsider. The men in the family thinks he’ll eventually learn the language later.

I did a lot of reading on raising a bilingual child. All are in agreement that the best time to teach a child a language is when he’s still a baby. I don’t remember my son’s first word now but he can speak more Korean than English although he understands instructions in both languages. He isn’t as verbal yet as the other kids his age. I’m not worried though. He’s only 2 years old after all.

A great resource for parents who are teaching their kids two languages or more is Multilingual Children’s Association.