I have 3 kids. J., our oldest can speak a good amount of Dutch, our middle, K. can understand basic things and responds to simple questions and our youngest M. can count in Dutch, sing a song or 2 and that’s about it! I’d like to raise my kids to be more bilingual.
We love to read stories at bedtime. Every month we go to the library to read and get 10 new books to read. We read them all at once first thing when we get back from the library. Every night after dinner, bath, pajama’s and brushing teeth, M is ready to pick her 3 books to read. Unfortunately, all of these books are in English!
Dutch books
Our library here in the US, only has English and Spanish children’s books. Maybe a few German books, but definitely no Dutch books. When the kids were very little, I had some Dutch books at home. My parents brought over books from the Netherlands or I got a few as presents over the years.
“Nijntje” books (in the US also known as Miffy) are our favorite and very easy to read. The pictures are very simple and clear. M can understand some words, but she gets frustrated and looses interest if there are too many words, she doesn’t know. At Zwijsen you can order books for kids as young as 3 years old. Below are a few links for Dutch books.
- thriftbooks.com (type in titles of the books you want. Do not type in Dutch books or Nederlands. You will get dictionaries)
- app Vakantiebieb
- onlinebibliotheek.nl (registration needed.)
- wepboek.nl
- Spotify has Dutch books to listen to for kids
- Amazon has also Dutch children books.
Growing up bilingual
I started reading Dutch books to J., our oldest, when she was just a few months old. I was only speaking Dutch with her. It didn’t even occur to me, she would be raised bilingual. It was a natural thing to do. But there were other reasons.
First because I was uncomfortable speaking English. Second, because daddy was travelling a lot at that time and therefor he was not home very often, so she heard mostly Dutch from me. Third, because of my lack of the English language, I barely went out to meet other moms with kids, so J. didn’t hear English that much.
And then, she went to preschool!
Suddenly she picked up English very quickly and daddy was home more. K. came around and the two of them started to talk English to each other!
It got harder and harder to keep up the Dutch language. I think I gave up with M. Even though J. and K. speak Dutch when my parents and their cousins are on Skype. They also figured out to tell me something in Dutch, when they don’t want other people to hear it!
J. made a comment recently, that she’s thinking of going to college in the Netherlands. Most colleges and universities have English courses and classes…..and she doesn’t have to worry about crazy high student loans.
Start to read and speak in a different language with your child.
In general, I think it is very good to read out loud to your kids, whatever language it is. If you have a book in an other language, please use it! There are so many advantages for knowing more than 1 language:
- Kids recognize more sounds (not only English sounding sounds), which means their brain can recognize more information.
- There is more activity in the prefrontal and orbito-frontal cortex’s. These areas of the brain are associated with executive functions like personality, decision-making and other complex cognitive tasks.
- The bilingual brain is highly engaged in the cognitive challenge of evaluating between the two competing language systems. This requires executive function attention selecting and focusing on the language being used while intentionally inhibiting the activity of the competing language system.
That being said: I need to reintroduce the Dutch language into our household…including daddy!
Looking at the 5 points above, I use the Dutch language in our Indoor Treasure Hunts when we celebrate “Sinterklaas”. J can read the clues and the letter they get at the beginning of the hunt. In case they can figure out in English what it all means. Sometimes they keep communicating in Dutch.
Once I asked my uncle, who was the director of Zwijsen, what to do when I wanted my kids to be bilingual. What if they loose the things I taught them when they were little. Now they mainly speak English.
He just said:” Speak and read stories in Dutch to them as much as you can. Be sure that dad speaks English and you speak Dutch when the kids are still little. It will confuse them otherwise. When they’re comfortable at school reading and writing in English, then introduce reading and writing in Dutch.”
It is getting time to introduce more Dutch into our lives:0)
Hello everyone,
Welcome to my Crafty Dutch Girl blog! Grab a cup of “koffie” and browse through fun blog posts about our Dutch family expat life in the USA, Dutch history, Dutch recipes, Dutch things to do in the USA and all kinds of crafts and activities. Don’t forget to connect with me for new ideas! “Groetjes en tot ziens”.