Rising kids with different languages

Hi, Bulgarian here, with a child, who speaks Bulgarian, Romanian and hears English, as it's our common language with my husband. I would suggest to speak Bulgarian to your baby, and to translate when necessary immediately to your step daughter. She would pick up some words from the situations, and we'll probably understand enough Bulgarian but to feel left out, when you are alone with her and the baby. Things will be more complicated when the baby grows up, because you'll be the only one speaking bulgarian, and the language will not be very strong, simply due to the fact that there will be more German speakers, but hey, there are always holidays in Bulgaria with the extended family. My daughter stated speaking with sentences late, at 2.6 years old. Now she fluent in Bulgarian and Romanian, in this order. She currently refuses to speak English, though she clearly understands a lot of what we say, and watches videos in English. We hope one day she'll speak it. Her Romanian picks up event we visit family in Romania, when we return - Bulgarian takes over. So my advice is - speak Bulgarian to the the baby, it will need the phonetic input so that later it will learn Bulgarian faster. If you are both, use both languages, one after the other.

/r/Parenting Thread