Will two languages confuse my child? 7 myths about bilingual children – and what is actually true

“Jag want mjölk!” If your child is growing up with two languages, you have probably heard something like it – and perhaps done some worried googling afterwards. Relax. Most of what is said about bilingual children is myth, and what is actually true is good news. Here are the seven most common myths, checked against what Swedish child health services, speech-language therapists and the research say.

At Svenska Internationella Förskolan we meet these questions every week at drop-off and pick-up. Swedish and English live side by side in our everyday life, and many of our families have a third language at home. The worry is understandable – the advice parents are given points in every direction – but the evidence is unusually consistent. This is what it says.

Myth 1: “Two languages confuse small children”

No. Newborns can already tell apart languages that differ in rhythm, such as English and French, and by four months babies can separate even rhythmically similar languages like French and Spanish. Children growing up with two languages keep them apart early on – they build two systems in parallel, not one muddle. Speech-language therapists are clear: all children can learn more than one language, including children with developmental delays. Globally it is closer to the rule than the exception – roughly one in three people in the world is bilingual or multilingual.

Myth 2: “Bilingual children start talking later”

Children growing up with several languages start talking at the same age as monolingual children. The Swedish child health handbook, Rikshandboken, puts it plainly: multilingualism in itself does not cause delayed language development, and children with typical development reach the early milestones at roughly the same age – babbling, first words around the first birthday, two-word sentences around age two. The only requirement is that the child gets enough of at least one language. Nor are bilingual children more likely than monolingual children to be diagnosed with a language disorder.

Myth 3: “She mixes the languages – so it isn’t working”

Mixing languages within one sentence is called code-switching, and it is neither a mistake nor a warning sign. Rikshandboken states that code-switching in multilingual children is not in itself a sign of language disorder – children with and without language difficulties code-switch about as much. Speech-language therapist and researcher Eva-Kristina Salameh goes a step further: code-switching requires a good command of both languages. Usually the child simply reaches for the word that is closest to hand, or the word that so far exists in only one of the languages. Bilingual adults do exactly the same. We hear “can I ha den?” every day, and we respond to what is said – not to which language it is said in.

Myth 4: “Their vocabulary will be smaller”

Counted one language at a time, a bilingual child may know fewer words than a monolingual child of the same age. Counted across both languages, the vocabulary is comparable – that is the child health services’ own wording, and the research says the same about the child’s total conceptual vocabulary. Words are learned where they are used: breakfast words at home in one language, building-block words at preschool in another. How fast each individual language grows depends on how much, and how richly, the child hears and uses that particular language. That is why any assessment should take all of the child’s languages into account.

Myth 5: “Speak Swedish at home and your child will learn Swedish faster”

The opposite is true. Children need rich language models, and the richest model is a parent speaking the language they know best – their “heart language”, as Språknätet, the child health and speech-therapy network in Uppsala, calls it. The Swedish National Agency for Education writes that children who get to develop their mother tongue also have better chances of learning Swedish, and Salameh describes how the advice to drop the home language to speed up Swedish simply does not match reality – it risks the child losing a language instead. Your child gets Swedish with us, several hours a day in play, circle time and conversation. So carry on in your language at home, even when your child answers in Swedish. And you need not be rigid about “one parent, one language”: it can work well, but it is not necessary. What counts is plenty of rich interaction in each language.

Myth 6: “It’s enough for the child to hear the language – on TV, in an app, in the background”

Language is learned through interaction, not through hearing. In a classic study, nine-month-old American babies heard Mandarin in twelve short sessions. Those who met a real person learned to distinguish the new speech sounds – those who got exactly the same content via television or loudspeaker learned nothing at all. The speech-language therapists put it simply: children do not become multilingual by listening to people around them; they need to talk themselves, be answered, and play with the language. It is the same logic behind the Public Health Agency’s screen recommendations, and the reason English at our preschools comes from the teachers at circle time and at the lunch table – not from a screen.

Myth 7: “Bilingual children get a smarter brain”

Here we have to be honest: that myth is overblown, and it is often spread by those of us who love languages. The idea of a “bilingual bonus” for concentration and impulse control has been tested in a large review of studies covering almost 11,000 bilingual and 12,500 monolingual children. The effect was small to begin with and could not be distinguished from zero once the researchers accounted for the fact that positive results get published more often than negative ones. The gains from two languages lie elsewhere – and they are plenty: your child can talk to grandma and the cousins, grows into two cultures, and carries one more language into school and life.

Bonus question: “We moved here when she was four – is it too late?”

No. According to Rikshandboken it takes one to two years to learn a new language to a level that works well in everyday life, and roughly three years of regular exposure before a child performs like their peers on formal language tests. In the first months the child may be fairly quiet in the new language – that is common and a kind of listening, not a stop. Count in years, not weeks, and let preschool do its part.

When should you seek help?

The child health centre (BVC) follows language at the regular check-ups and does a language assessment at 2.5–3 years, in the language the child uses most and with an interpreter if needed. The sign to take seriously is when development is slow in all of the child’s languages, not just in Swedish: a language disorder shows in every language, and multilingualism in itself never causes one. Språknätet’s pointers for when to talk to a speech-language therapist are a child who seems slower than siblings and peers, or who after one and a half to two years in a Swedish-speaking environment still has not got going in Swedish. And if you are worried anyway – ask BVC. It is never wrong.

How we do it

Swedish is the foundation, English a natural part of every day, and the home language always welcome – three languages fit in the same child. During settling-in we map the family’s languages together with you. Our teachers answer in the language the child chooses, and rather than correcting they add on (“milk – mjölk, here you go”), and we read aloud every day in both Swedish and English. Four things at home make a big difference too:

• Talk, sing and read in your heart language – a lot, and preferably about whatever your child is into right now.
• Respond to the content, not the language choice. If your child says “mjölk” at breakfast: “Milk? Here you go.” The word comes for free, without a correction.
• Keep going in your language even when your child answers in Swedish – children understand more than they say, and the language is still there the day it is needed.
• Count the words across both languages before you worry – and ask BVC if the worry is still there.

So the next time you hear “jag want mjölk” at the kitchen table, you can smile. What you are hearing is not confusion. It is a child with two languages, using both.

This article was translated from the Swedish original with the help of AI.

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