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Negative side of growing up multilingual? | ||
Tags: Heritage Language | Multilingual | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Avid Learner Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4662 days ago 100 posts - 156 votes  Speaks: French*, English Studies: German | Message 1 of 20 15 December 2012 at 4:32am | IP Logged |
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It feels a little strange to ask this question here because I expect most members will say children growing up in a multilingual environment are lucky, and I'm not saying there aren't huge benefits, but this is a question I've had in mind for a long time. I'm not sure every child benefits from it.
I once had a French class as a young adult and of my classmate was speaking three languages: the one spoken in the country his parents were originally from, French, because that had been the language he had always studied in, and English because he learned it in the street. We had to write texts and then we'd each take a turn and read our own text to the teacher and a small group of classmates. My collegue was struggling greatly, his sentences were poorly constructed and one day he expressed his frustration that he could speak three languages, but wasn't great at any. What striked me in this example was that it was the first time somebody actually said out loud something I had suspected on many occasions previously. I grew up as a unilingual and learning English has been very difficult for me. I doubt that even if I found myself in an English environment, English will ever feel as natural to me as French is, so I can definitely appreciate the fact that it is a chance to grow up in more than one language and feel at ease in each of them. Yet at the same time, not having a great mastery of one language is a real problem in my opinion. In theory, if I am able to form a complex idea in a language, then it means that the idea is right there in my mind and I have a chance at being able to express it in a different language. Not mastering any language means that expressing complex ideas and debating will be much more difficult and it narrows down the possible choices of career. I've always doubted that writing would come as easily to me if I had not gone to school in the same language I grew up in. Of course, I know many people in my situation who struggle in writing, and there are also people who have a great command of the language even though they grew up in more than one language, so there is no automatic correlation to be made. However, it seems to me that some people would have benefited from focusing more one language as children. Am I alone in thinking so? Are there any criteria which could help determine at which point, and for whom, it might be better to focus mainly on one language? Edited by Avid Learner on 15 December 2012 at 6:48am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Enki Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5833 days ago 54 posts - 133 votes Speaks: Arabic (Written), English*, French, Korean Studies: Japanese | Message 2 of 20 15 December 2012 at 5:47am | IP Logged |
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Obviously I can only speak from my experience, but I also had a multilingual
upbringing. I grew up in the Middle East, and my father's side of the family spoke Arabic, while my mother's side spoke French, and my parents spoke English to each other. English ended up being my primary language (countless hours of American TV and an obsession with video game magazines will do that!) and as a teenager I was always frustrated by how I couldn't express myself (though now that I think about it, isn't that what all teenagers feel like? ;) ) in Arabic and French as comfortably as I could in English, especially in writing. I think the problem was worse because, except for my parents, all my friends and family were monolingual and couldn't really empathize with the situation. However, I found that my writing abilities improved tremendously when I learned how to parse sentences, constructing and deconstructing Arabic and French sentences to see how they "work". That's why I believe in explicit grammar instruction in foreign languages. As for your question about whether it might be better to focus on one language...I don't know. I appreciate my multilingual upbringing and I would definitely raise my kids that way if I have any. In fact, children these days growing up in a multilingual household have a big advantage over those of us who grew up in the pre-Internet days, since they have access to a lot more resources in many different languages. But I think that parents need to understand that one language WILL be dominant, whether because of the environment or the kid's inclinations, and so they shouldn't assume that the kid will pick up "naturally" the nuances of the language, especially when it comes to more advanced, academic stuff, i.e. what won't be normal household conversation. It sounds like your friend expressed frustration at being unable to communicate in academic French, since they he not have been exposed to at as much as other people, maybe? (Incidentally, my younger sister's dominant language ended up being French, and now she asks me to help her write her English essays. Funny how that works!) Edited by Enki on 15 December 2012 at 5:59am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Maralol Nonaglot Newbie France Joined 5018 days ago 35 posts - 75 votes Speaks: Spanish, French*, English, German, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Portuguese, Catalan Studies: Polish, Danish, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 3 of 20 15 December 2012 at 11:08am | IP Logged |
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I think there are some negative sides, indeed, but they don't overweigh the positive
aspects. The big hazard here is that a multilingually brought up kid ends up alingual. That is, he can't speak any language at an advanced (or academic) native-like level. Now, if he spends time reading, if he doesn't slack off when it comes to learning the languages he takes for granted, he won't end up alingual. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| petteri Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4932 days ago 117 posts - 208 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: German, Spanish | Message 4 of 20 15 December 2012 at 1:08pm | IP Logged |
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Building up native academic level vocabulary takes time. Some words and idioms are learned at home, some at school or in other social interaction.
If a child or a teenager has three languages to learn it certainly delays vocabulary build up compared to learning just one. If persons are good to grasp meanings and eager to read they usually get native academic level skills in one or even in several languages but later than if they learned just one. There certainly are hazards, especially if schooling language changes during critical years and multilingual is not really up to reading and writing, person can grow up without real native tongue. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6439 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 5 of 20 15 December 2012 at 1:20pm | IP Logged |
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I'd say multilingual people benefit both from getting some education in their native language(s), and from engaging with their school language(s) outside of school as well - ideally, with both people and media they enjoy. Leave out either or both of these, and I get the impression people struggle more.
I don't think this is a downside of being multilingual - as you noted, plenty of monolingual people are unhappy with the eloquence of their own speech, and even more with their own writing, and some people juggle multiple languages well. I could be entirely wrong. What I base the above on is what I've read and know of French immersion instruction in Canada, students being taught in an L2 they don't speak at home in other situations (such as being immigrants or the children of immigrants), and studies showing better results if children are initially taught to read in their L1s. Secondarily, I'm thinking of the research in 'interrupted' language acquisition - for instance, with foreign adoptees who change language entirely before they start school, interrupting their L1 acquisition. Edit: No, I don't think focusing more on one language is a good idea. Rather, I think having both academic and social engagement in all the languages is crucial, and to get more exposure to whichever combination is weakest if ones' language competency starts getting too lopsided. Edited by Volte on 15 December 2012 at 1:23pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Leurre Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5425 days ago 219 posts - 372 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Korean, Haitian Creole, SpanishC2 Studies: Japanese | Message 6 of 20 15 December 2012 at 2:18pm | IP Logged |
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Negative side of growing up multilingual?
None really, it's baller. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Γρηγόρη Tetraglot Groupie United States Joined 4455 days ago 55 posts - 154 votes Speaks: English*, Greek, Latin, Ancient Greek Studies: German, French, Russian | Message 7 of 20 15 December 2012 at 3:17pm | IP Logged |
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Why must we blame the multilingualism? I meet monolinguals every day who can't express a coherent thought,
whether in speech or writing. Every time I teach a class at the university, I am dumbfounded at how poor most students' speaking and writing skills are. They are often bright students, but schools have simply failed to teach them how to use language. When you meet someone who is trilingual because of the circumstances in which they were raised, it's not surprising that they haven't reached a high level in any language, not because the other languages have held them back, but simply because they haven't been educated well in any of those languages. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4909 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 8 of 20 15 December 2012 at 3:29pm | IP Logged |
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When I taught at an international school, we had a lot of students who came in speaking
no English, but soon were having their entire education in English. Many of them did very well, but others didn't work as hard, and ended up speaking pretty poor English. The problem was, their first language didn't progress either once they began to be educated in English, so they spoke both of their languages like a child. On the other hand, others I have known who have grown up multilingual have succeeded well in all of their language. Being aware of the potential downsides can help you prevent them. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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