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How to raise Bilingual Children? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Trapy Newbie United Kingdom Joined 6612 days ago 5 posts - 5 votes Speaks: English* | Message 17 of 69 21 October 2006 at 7:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hmm, not to bump an old topic, but...
How "difficult" or helpful/damaging do you think raising children with 1 parent speaking more than 1 language is? I am an English speaker, but I am more or les fluent in french. Along with french, I know intermediate Spanish,and am a chinese student with already 500 words, aiming at over 3000 words in about 3 years. I also know basic malay, and intend on learning atleast intermediate (1,500 wordsish) in 3 other languages. (total 2 fluent, 6 intermediate-ish languages) So with all these languages easily avaliable to give my kids, how could I do this without: confusing the kid between languages/ ensuring that the languages stay retained/ giving him an identity crisis/ other unforseen problems. I'm planning on a "worst case" scenerio, where my partner will only speak english, so I'll be speaking mostly French to the kid. But, I don't want to "waste" any of my intermediate languages either. So does anybody have tips on how to teach more than 1 language to the kid? All I can come up with is something like French (which is most important) all the time, andevery day/ other day of the week, using one of the intermediate languages at dinner or after dinner or something. So please, Polyglot parents, tips? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7016 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes  Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 18 of 69 22 October 2006 at 3:52am | IP Logged | ||
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I'd suggest speaking to your child only in French and getting your partner to speak to them in English. The trouble might arise when you have to speak to your partner in English since, if your child realises that you can understand English, then s/he will probably not make the effort to speak in French. However, you could still only reply to them in French.
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| Raincrowlee Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 6703 days ago 621 posts - 808 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Indonesian, Japanese | Message 19 of 69 22 October 2006 at 5:10am | IP Logged | ||
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I've been reading a few of those sites about raising kids bilingually, and they seem to agree that having one parent speak multiple lanugages results in the child unwilling to speak any of the languages. They seem to create the idea of "mommy's language" or "daddy's language," and respond to the person in that context. Apparently, even if the mother speaks "daddy's language," she shouldn't (except if it's the community language). This forces the child to use the language with you, and not just listen and respond. It's making them use the language that's the most difficult part, after all.
Mind you, this is only for the first three or four years, from the sounds of it. After that, the children gain a concept of a language as an abstract concept, and start being able to code switch. I think it's in the third or fourth year that the parents can start speaking the "other person's" language. So, for the first few years, you have to focus on teaching them one language, which should become a native language for them. You can add others after that, which will give you more time to master them. The sites do point out that there are diminishing returns after the fourth language. Most kids seem to be able to absorb four languages in infancy. More than that, and it doesn't sink in. One site said that an infant needs to hear the language 30% of the time for them to really absorb it, which is where the limit comes from. This isn't a permanent restriction. When they're older they can learn more, but not as creche languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sir Nigel Senior Member United States Joined 7105 days ago 1126 posts - 1102 votes 2 sounds | Message 20 of 69 23 October 2006 at 7:28am | IP Logged | ||
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Another problem I've noted when I hear about ones that grew up bilingual is that they didn't use the language when responding to their parents. These that only used English to respond can't speak the language well when they're older if they don't continue to use it and simply understand things.
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| Raincrowlee Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 6703 days ago 621 posts - 808 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Indonesian, Japanese | Message 21 of 69 23 October 2006 at 9:57am | IP Logged | ||
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I think the kids are mostly embarassed because the reason their parents speak to them in the other language is that they are not comfortable using the community language. That would be especially true if it's regarded as a "low class" language, such as Spanish in America, or perhaps Turkish in some European countries.
If the parents were comfortable with the community language, and were smart about it, they might be able to avoid that. I think one of the keys would be getting the kids to think of it as the "family language" or a "secret language," depending on the kid's personality. Or if the child was taken on a trip to a place that uses the target language, so they have the experience of using it in real life. It sounds like it takes effort and planning to really raise children to be bilingual, but it's an effort that truly could only have a beneficial effect on them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lengua Senior Member United States polyglottery.wordpre Joined 6685 days ago 549 posts - 595 votes Studies: French, Italian, Spanish, German | Message 22 of 69 24 October 2006 at 11:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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This site is very informative about the issue. It answered a lot of questions I had about dual-raising.
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 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6895 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 23 of 69 26 October 2006 at 11:04am | IP Logged | ||
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lengua that link was broken, though easy enough to fix manually. The url is www.multilingualchildren.org
Having grown up in an environment where dual-raising was common and having had my daughter raised this way too I can perhaps contribute with a couple of points. First, there is generally no problem in being raised in two languages as such, but the language development will lag a little behind a monolingually raised child of the same age. This should be considered lest the bi-lingually raised child be incorrectly diagnosed as retarded or less talented than they really are - or lest the bi-lingualness be unjustly perceived as a problem. The full language development will take place in these cases too. It is just a little later in coming (and well worth the wait imho). Second, there is some kind of very intimate psycological communication link between parent and child, especially the mother but also the father, which makes it absolutely essential that you speak your own mother tongue to your child. No matter how well you speak a second language - if it is not your own mother tongue, there will always be a subtle element of "pretending" which will raise a psycological barrier and affect not only speech, but the parent-child relation as well. I have the impression even child-care and education system professionals can often be unaware of basic things like these. A Swedish family we knew in the UK were given the absolutely HORRIBLE advice, from some professional people in the education system, to try to speak English to their toddler-aged childred. This is akin to advising them to add a dose of rat poison to their breakfast every morning. Adding more languages sometime later might be OK, when the child is old enough to know the difference. Edited by Hencke on 26 October 2006 at 11:06am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| unlocked87 Groupie United States Joined 6621 days ago 42 posts - 44 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 24 of 69 26 October 2006 at 8:05pm | IP Logged | ||
I never knew this. I was going to speak German to my children if I have any... but now I'm not so sure. Does anyone have any links to studies that show this? Thanks. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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