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Bilingually raised children | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4623 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 9 of 16 27 February 2013 at 10:54am | IP Logged | ||
Being thrown into a German speaking schoolyard will have him up to speed in no time. As for grammatical mistakes, would they even register on another kid's radar? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| MixedUpCody Senior Member United States Joined 5257 days ago 144 posts - 280 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 10 of 16 27 February 2013 at 5:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hey Bismuth,
I took a class on language acquisition in college, and we covered some of the things you're wondering about. First, there are advantages and disadvantages to being raised bilingually, although the general consensus is that the advantages far outweigh any disadvantages. The main disadvantages are vocabulary size (billingual split their vocab over two languages, so 5000 words in language X and 5000 words in language Y, as opposed to 10000 words in language Z for a similarly aged monoglot), and a slightly slower reaction time in picture naming type games (very slightly slower: on the order of 200ms to say "duck" when presented with a picture of a duck). As for advantages, bilingual children are much better at executive control functions. A common executive control test is to have people read a list of colors (blue, green, etc.) with each word colored the same as the color the word relates to. Then read the same list of words where the word colors don't match word. Bilinguals are much faster at reading the disparate lists than are monoglots. Also, bilinguals have about a four year later average onset time of dementia. As others have noted, your brother is still quite young, and although your description does sound like he is slightly behind the typical developmental curve, it is only a little, and not a huge deal. If this phase continues for long, the school will most likely refer him to a speech language pathologist, for a more thorough evaluation. At this point, I really wouldn't worry about it. Best of luck to you and your family. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| solka Tetraglot Groupie Kazakhstan Joined 6549 days ago 44 posts - 61 votes Speaks: Kazakh, Russian*, Turkish, EnglishC2 Studies: FrenchB1, Japanese | Message 11 of 16 28 February 2013 at 1:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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I agree with the suggestions that it's more of an individual development issue than
bilingual one. Some children really do take longer to start talking. However, your brother's speech might benefit from more meaningful interaction at home and with teachers/other kids. Does your brother get enough interaction in either language? Do you or your parents read books/ talk about books/ sing songs etc.? I am raising my kids bilingually (Russian/Turkish) and it takes a lot of work by the parents/caregivers - that's, as far as I'm concerned, the worst drawback (along with the lower vocabulary, as mentioned by MixedUpCody) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 12 of 16 28 February 2013 at 2:13pm | IP Logged | ||
If the two languages share a lot of vocabulary (with minor adaptions in spelling and pronunciation) then 5000 words + 5000 words doesn't add up to 10000 words. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4623 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 13 of 16 28 February 2013 at 2:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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Vocabulary-wise, I would expect one language to dominate. If the boy in question is educated in German and the vast majority of his peers speak only German then his vocabulary in that language will outstrip the Russian learned at home. He might end up knowing all the kitchen utensils and car parts in Russian but not have a rounded vocabulary drawn from many sources. Edited by beano on 28 February 2013 at 2:27pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| DiegoESP Diglot Newbie United States es.yahoo.com Joined 4287 days ago 2 posts - 7 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (classical) Studies: Spanish | Message 14 of 16 07 March 2013 at 10:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have read somewhere that bilinguals take somewhat longer to acquire language
proficiency in the short run, but in the long run their proficiency is greater than that of a monolingual in both languages. I can't tell you where I read that, it was a while ago. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4445 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 15 of 16 11 March 2013 at 5:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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Language ability depends on the individual and circumstance.
Have a friend living in a small town in Canada. He and his wife are Chinese originally from Vietnam. Have 2 kids. When the kids were smaller they seemed to be multilingual. The parents speak mostly Cantonese at home and the Fukienese dialect with the in-laws. They also kept up with some Mandarin & Vietnamese from watching videos. The kids were sent to an English school and picked up some French on the way. In total 5 different tongues (Cantonese, Fukienese, Mandarin, Vietnamese, English, French). However, when the kids got older, they got into figure skating training and their are now comfortable speaking only in English. Have another friend from Ohio now living in a small city in N. Carolina in the US with less than 5% Chinese. Brought up bilingual in English & Mandarin. He took university language courses and kept up with both speaking & writing Chinese. His parents probably have some influence but has an interest to keep up later in life. The other day watched a documentary from Hong Kong on education. There is a large student population to number of spaces available in the schools. Many primary schools have an entrance exam requirement. 1 set of parents decided to enrol their daughter to an English-speaking school. The local Chinese speak Cantonese. For 1 month the parents decided to speak to the child only in English at home and limited her to watching only TV programs in English until the day of the primary school exam. Focusing on English probably won't affect her Chinese ability since it is the language of the majority and spoken on the street. Presumably in Hong Kong there would be less opportunity in the parents' social circle to get their daughter exposed to English. Edited by shk00design on 11 March 2013 at 5:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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