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More than trilingual? | ||
Tags: Children | Multilingual | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| John Smith Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6043 days ago 396 posts - 542 votes  Speaks: English*, Czech*, Spanish Studies: German | Message 65 of 80 21 October 2010 at 2:25pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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^^ Neither will be spoken at native fluency. Both end up being native like because the languages interfere with one another.
Basically people will be always able to tell that your child is not monolingual no matter what languages he or she speaks because your child will sound a little strange. Just a little odd. You don't notice it most of the time. This is my personal experience. I know that I can't speak for anyone else. Edited by John Smith on 21 October 2010 at 2:28pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6440 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 66 of 80 21 October 2010 at 7:35pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Your personal experience is what it is. Your generalization of it is absolute nonsense. I know a lot of natively bilingual people. Some speak a bit strangely, some don't - and the percent that speak strangely seems to be about the same as the percent of monolinguals who speak strangely. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7016 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 67 of 80 23 October 2010 at 7:20pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
We have two children and they only do extra-curricular activities which they have asked to do and really want to take part in. Whether they want to take any activity to an advanced level, or if they want to stop learning said activity, it's fine by us. The only thing we have tried to teach them "by force" is Spanish (just by talking to them and using it all the time when they are present) but unfortunately, it hasn't worked out very well since their output is quite poor and their comprehension is so-so. We continue trying, though. Edited by patuco on 23 October 2010 at 7:22pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 6126 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 68 of 80 23 October 2010 at 7:52pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Monolingualism has a downside too though. Growing up with parents who speak other languages, it was kind of a drag never being able to understand my grandparents on my father's side. As a child I never realized this, but these days I think it was kind of a shame. Also, if you learn English from non-native speakers, even if English is your only language, I think it's possible to pick up some quirks even if you never learn a single word of your parent's native language. I suspect your language problems don't come from speaking another language, but rather being taught by non-native speaking parents. Edited by cathrynm on 23 October 2010 at 7:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 69 of 80 24 October 2010 at 1:25am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Unfortunately my notes on this ended up in the recycling during a house move, but he's right. Studies of truly bilingual children indicate that they generally only achieve a 98% accurate native model of either language. As I recall it they say that they're not able to tell whether this is a consequence of bilingualism or...
Children of mixed-language parents are generally exposed to a lot more non-native input than children in monolingual households. Whether it's their parents, grandparents, parents' friends, it's still people who will be close to them. The sort of language bilingual kids have trouble with is fairly complicated things -- multiply-embedded clauses and the like. The forms in question are relatively rare, so exposure is low, and these are among the forms that kids don't develop with their peers, but from adults. But it is impossible to say whether the problem arises because A) the exposure is so low that the child generalises between the two languages. or B) they are exposed to a non-native model from one of their main caregivers. Theory A suggests that interference between languages occurs in the child. Theory B suggests that the interference is the non-native pattern of someone else learned by the child as a native language. Regardless, the general feeling last I looked was regardless of cases like John Smith who resent their bilingualism, it's still the right thing to do. Using your mother tongue with your child not only teaches the child the language, it prevents the child being exposed to a non-native model. Many immigrant parents speak to their children in the language of their new home, thus passing on a broken model of the language. The child won't achieve 98% accuracy that way. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| fireflies Senior Member Joined 5182 days ago 172 posts - 234 votes Speaks: English* | Message 70 of 80 24 October 2010 at 4:20am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I know someone who learned English in school as a 2nd language (he has no degree in it ) and you couldn't tell he was non-native except for a slight accent. In fact, he can speak better English than a lot of natives can. He sounds natural and has a good understanding of the culture too (there is no tv show he has not seen. no movie he has not watched).
He probably has a great deal of natural talent but it can even be done by people who learn it at school without a native parent. Edited by fireflies on 24 October 2010 at 4:38am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Lucas Pentaglot Groupie Switzerland Joined 5168 days ago 85 posts - 130 votes Speaks: French*, English, German, Italian, Russian Studies: Mandarin | Message 71 of 80 24 October 2010 at 6:14am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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@patuco
your children's ouput in Spanish is poor? Don't worry, it is ABSOLUTELY normal: a child won't speak a foreign language just for fun or to satisfy their parents...but you're right: keep on speaking Spanish with them! Now they are too young to realize how lucky they were to have Spanish-speaking parents...but when they'll grow up, they'll thank you for having spoken Spanish when they were young. @ Caintear your "98% theory" is very odd...how can you claim that somebody has 60, 80 or 100 % of fluency? Then 98%!?!? Where did you get those data? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 72 of 80 24 October 2010 at 11:50am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Bilingual education was a topic in my undergraduate study of English language. I can't remember the details of that unit now, but they demonstrated certain patterns (embedded relative clauses mostly) that a monolingual native could not produce and were clearly influenced by their other native tongue. But as I said, the conclusion was that whatever the cause of this confusion, bringing up the child monolingually was not the answer. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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