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How to raise Bilingual Children? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Raincrowlee Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 6703 days ago 621 posts - 808 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Indonesian, Japanese | Message 25 of 69 26 October 2006 at 10:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think Hencke is overstating the problem. As a matter of fact, the link that Lengua posted says that you can learn a language as you teach it to a child, since you will only have to learn simple language and adults learn much faster than infants.
I personally wouldn't feel comfortable trying to teach my children any language I'm not fluent in. However, I would be as comfortable speaking to them in Chinese as I am talking to my girlfriend in Chinese, i.e., very comfortable. I think a problem might arise if you are not comfortable with the second language, or if you still used your native language to talk to your spouse. In the first, your discomfort would be apparent to the child, and in the second, you would make the children feel excluded. As a parent, that's the last thing you want. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6895 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 26 of 69 27 October 2006 at 2:15am | IP Logged | ||
Please note though that I was referring to speaking a language other than your mother tongue to the child exclusively. Here you are talking about "teaching" the child another language and that is a different matter. In the "exclusive" case it is not about "feeling comfortable". It is something much more subtle than that. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6895 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 27 of 69 27 October 2006 at 2:20am | IP Logged | ||
I was speaking from memory here, having read about such studies a long time back, but that was long before the internet-age I'm afraid. I'll see if I can dig anything up. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| vuisminebitz Triglot Groupie United States Joined 6575 days ago 86 posts - 108 votes Speaks: Yiddish, English*, Spanish Studies: Swahili | Message 28 of 69 26 November 2006 at 4:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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I really don't buy into the idea that speaking a non-native language to a child will mess the child up. I've known people who have done this, mostly the children of immigrants raising their own children but also some people who learned a second language in school and wanted their children to be able to speak it. Shifts in language demographics are common over time and the main reason for this are people who for whatever reason (whether they choose to or are forced to) end up speaking a second or third language to their children. My grandfather spoke to my father in his second language (English), I don't think it caused any problems between them. I would however, be quite interested in seeing if anyone can find any research on the topic of relationships and second language input from a parent. I've read contradictory things about the effect on language processing in the child but I've never seen anything on any emotional difficulties. The whole premise seems unlikely.
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| andee Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 7078 days ago 681 posts - 724 votes 3 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Korean, French | Message 29 of 69 31 January 2009 at 7:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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Wow.. old thread, but could only find a few in the searches...
I can't see problems with raising children in a language other than your own mother tongue. My grandfather raised my mother through English when his language was Polish, a friend was raised through English exclusively when her mother's language was Indonesian, and I'm reading a study of an Australian man that raised his children with German, which he learnt through school and university. Two first hand turned out ok.. and the Indonesian mother speaks English very poorly. Only the Australian man raised bilingual children. I'm doing a lot of research on this right now because we've just found out we're expecting, and even though it's very early days, we're trying to prepare the best course of action.. We are toying with introducing a third or fourth language, but not immediately. This is because my wife will speak Korean (her native language), me English; which will also be the community language for the initial stages. We will be moving back or at least visiting Korea, where I may be the only English exposure and Korean will become the community language. The problem is, our household language is 80% English in Australia because of living with parents while we're building a house - I would assume I'm going to have to up my Korean production with my wife so that the child doesn't believe English only will suffice with my wife understanding English with everyone else. And the main reason for wanting to introduce a third language is because we are serisouly considering taking positions in Japan at some point in the near future - we are both very limited in Japanese however! We don't want to damage the child obviously, but some marginal exposure may help prepare for being thrown into a Japanese environment. On the other hand, I want to introduce Polish because of my culture and my wife understands this, but we both realise that Polish is objectively not much use on the world stage - it's a difficult predicament. A language of my family, a language we may live with but are both poor in (Japanese), or a language of utility such as Spanish or French but only I can use. Honestly, if it weren't for the reality of going back to Korea and the English exposure being minimal, I would likely speak a different language from the onset with English being the lingua franca of the household.. So many articles to read! As an aside: I read a post some time ago by Professor Arguelles about his own children, but I can't find it again! Any suggestions? Edited by andee on 31 January 2009 at 7:27pm 1 person has 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 30 of 69 31 January 2009 at 8:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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Post 1; and here's a little more information; are either of these what you're looking for?
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| 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 31 of 69 01 February 2009 at 12:45am | IP Logged | ||
All the advice that I've read says that a child should be taught at least one language from a native speaker, and that preferably this is the mother. The child can pick up the full idea of expressing emotions from the mother, and after this it doesn't matter how good or bad the child's comprehension of any second or third language is, because the mother's language is the key source or linguistic development. What I take from this is that when I have children, my wife will use her first language when it's her and the kids, when it's me, my wife and the kids it'll be a shared language, and then I'll pick whatever suitable language I can for speaking when the wife's not there. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Emilia Newbie Italy Joined 6141 days ago 26 posts - 27 votes Speaks: Italian* | Message 32 of 69 01 February 2009 at 6:05am | IP Logged | ||
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I'd never raise a child in a specific foreign language, or artificially add other languages to our daily life, for the sole sake of child becoming a polyglot early.
I would speak my native language to my children, or my partner's language if we happened to live in a third country and decided to have his language as a "home language". I would encourage children to learn foreign languages, maybe even send them to bilingual school, but I would *not* speak those languages with them at home, or create an artificial different cultural environment for the sole sake of having polyglot children - there are so many things which would matter more to me as a parent than having my children speak a few languages, play a few instruments or doing high school maths at the age of 10. Just like I will, as a pianist, *not* teach my children how to play piano nor send them on any lessons unless they themselves insist on it, the same way I will as a polyglot *not* teach my children foreign languages, nor will in any way force MY interests and MY life priorities on them. If speaking two languages comes in any "natural" way (living in foreign country, foreign spouse, extreme cultural/heritage connections with a specific language or country etc), fine, no problems, but I'd NEVER do it unnaturally or planned just to raise little polyglots, just like I don't intend to purposely raise little Mozarts - and Mozarts, or polyglots, or maths geniuses will have their talent and interest recognized anyway, and the fact that nobody forced them to do those things when they are 3 or 4 will in no way harm them later. Don't get me wrong - I definitely don't think there is anything bad in raising bilingual or polyglot kids, especially if circumstances happen to be the way to 'force' polyglottery on kids, I just don't like the "artificial" way some people do it - and I've seen a lot of examples of that, unfortunately. It's also kind of sad, since language implies culture as well, to see somebody purposely giving up on one's culture only to raise super-kids. There are plenty of ways of encouraging kids to learn languages without purposely speaking foreign languages with them - there are travels, tutors, language classes, immersions abroad, stuff of the kind if children show interest in languages. And if not, who am I to determine their life priorities? Life and formal education will force them to learn some languages to some extent, and for them that might be enough. No big deal. (Mind you, my kids probably will be bilingual anyway, due to one of the aformentioned "natural" situations, but I certainly won't teach them my second native language or any other language I learned, nor will my partner.) Edited by Emilia on 01 February 2009 at 6:07am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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