Zero Budget: A Practical Guide to Raising Trilingual Baby in a Low-Income Family

Brief background |My trilingual journey

It's me, Regina, a young mom living in the capital city of Indonesia, where Bahasa Indonesia still reigns as the dominant language in my current neighborhood.

I have two sons, ages 1 and 5, whom I am raising to be trilingual in English, German, and Indonesian. Naturally, I converse in Bahasa when interacting with random people I meet regularly, reserving Deutsch and English exclusively for communicating with my children. Considering I'm also a full-time caregiver for my baby, with no days off, I've embarked on transforming our predominantly monolingual home into a trilingual one.

Baby Vin, my second and likely my last child, is currently 1 year old. He speaks, sings, listens, and reads with me in German and English. Meanwhile, his elder brother attends a local monolingual kindergarten five days a week and speaks English and Bahasa with me at home. Although I began introducing Deutsch to my baby from birth, about half of our conversations were still in English since I had to teach my baby both English and Deutsch simultaneously.

So back to the topic, my trilingual journey started here..

  I was raised in a small city in Indonesia, not in Jakarta, which surprised many people I met that I can speak English well. The truth is, my proficiency in English owes much to my parents, who invested in my bilingual education for three years during my secondary school years. I also attended a TOEFL preparation course when applying for university. As for Deutsch, I credit platforms like Duolingo, DW Deutsch Lernen, Bussu, my online Polyglot group, the Nico's Weg Series on YouTube, short stories on German websites, Kinderlieder, and songs by Tim Bendzko.

During my upbringing, I was exposed to Mandarin through my grandmother. However, once I started secondary school, I predominantly used English because I was accepted into a Bilingual Immersion School where all subjects, books, and exams were conducted in English. My foreign language journeys have been somewhat intermittent. After three years in an English school environment, I had to transition back to using Bahasa Indonesia entirely for another three years during my Pharmacy Technician school. Nevertheless, my interest in becoming a Polyglot persisted, leading me to maintain my English and Spanish skills by conversing with online language partners I found on the internet. And during that time, I also self-learned Spanish.

Now, what about my husband? He is fluent in Bahasa Indonesia and can hold conversational English. My husband exclusively uses Bahasa when communicating with our children. He's a staunch nationalist who has a deep love for our country, to the extent that a few times he's jokingly referred to me as a Nazi simply because I teach our kids German. Of course, it's all jokes, but there are moments when I wonder if he genuinely thinks I'm a Nazi.

Please don't take offense or misinterpret my use of the word 'Nazi' here. I'm well aware that there hasn't been any Nazi movement since Hitler's demise. Also, let me clarify that my choice to speak another language with my children on a daily basis, instead of my mother tongue, doesn't in any way reflect a lack of love for my country. Quite the opposite, in fact.