Although I mention parents specifically in the title, this isn’t just for parents to respond.
My wife and I are trying to raise our child to be bilingual (English and Portuguese). Currently we’re both speaking a bit of both to our child and when they eventually go to school we’ll speak more Portuguese as they’ll be exposed to English everywhere else.
Is this a good approach or is there something we can do better?
Kids are like sponges, especially when it comes to languages.
We lived in Romania until a few years ago, when we moved to Germany. We speak Romanian at home, and they have a decent grasp. The oldest is fluent, with no accent, the youngest lacks vocabulary, applies German grammar rules and has a bit of German accent. All of them speak German fluently, and they use it when they talk to each other, with friends and at school. They are also fluent in English, and that is because of the media. I only use English when it comes to devices OS/interface, streaming services etc, and they are used to it. They consume YouTube, Netflix etc in English only.
They sometimes mix the languages, especially when talking to us, since their exposure to Romanian is limited.