Growing up with three languages

"British Airways to London Heathrow on Saturday, ready to land."

"Aereo Alitalia in partenza per Roma."

"Lufthansa Flugzeug von Frankfurt nach Chicago."

The other day I was listening to my three-year-and-ten-month-old son while he was playing alone in his room. The way he could switch languages was absolutely fascinating. He was playing with his little planes and one minute he was speaking English, the next he was making an announcement in Italian and 30 seconds later he had moved on to German.... 

There are so many studies showing the positive effects of growing up with more than one language and yet I still hear a lot of doubt and prejudice on the subject. For example, people often tell me that children learning more than one language start to speak later. It might be true in some cases, but in my experience it's not the rule. 

How many times have I heard the story about when I said "pwetty twee" in front of the Christmas tree at eighteen months?
 

Multilingual playground in Berlin

I grew up in a bilingual (English/Italian) environment, my son goes to a bilingual (German/Italian) nursery and I know several children that are growing up with two or three languages (including German, English, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Bulgarian and Farsi). 

A friend of mine was recently telling me about her son's new German nursery, in Berlin Mitte, where the majority of children speak two or three languages.

I haven't noticed any significant difference in the way multilingual children speak compared with monolingual children. In fact, in some cases I would say that their skills can be more advanced.

Of course, sometimes they mix their languages ("Io voglio mangiare Vanille Eis!") and the Grammar is not always perfect ("Io sono finito" instead of "Io ho finito"), but surely that's no big deal.

I remember when I was expecting Leo, I told my midwife that I was hoping he would grow up speaking three languages. She seemed to think that Italian and German would suffice and that English could be a secret language between Mamma and Papa. Well she couldn't have been more wrong: Leo already understands practically every word we say in English and, if we need to speak in code, we either have to spell the words out ("P I Z Z A" or "I C E"  "C R E A M") or say them in French (il est fatigué; never mention that little one is "tired" in English, Italian or German!). 

That works, at least for now.

Are you raising a bilingual or trilingual child? What is your experience? Comments welcome!