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Raising a Truly Bilingual Child

nytimes.com

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Re: Raising a Truly Bilingual Child

#151

Post by wfunction »

rak00n wrote: post #90
grecy wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree wholeheartedly! That's why I spent 2 years driving from Alaska to Argentina, learning Spanish as I went, and am now spending two years driving right around Africa, learning French and Swahili as I make my way around! I have learned more in the last 12 months of my life in West Africa than I did in the 34 years that came before...

If you don't mind me asking, what did you learn?

I would love to know too, though I wouldn't be surprised if the genuine answer is that most of it can't really be put into words.

Re: Raising a Truly Bilingual Child

#152

Post by anton69 »

freyfogle wrote: post #6

It's interesting that the article starts with the line "True bilingualism is a relatively rare thing". That's probably the case in the US or English-speaking world, but definitely not the case in many other areas. I live in Catalonia, it is very normal for locals to be fully fluent in Catalan and Spanish, I've seen the same in the Basque region. Go to India and almost every person you meet at all levels of society sp…

Yes. I’m Latvian, born in the Soviet Union. Many of my generation grew up speaking Russian and the language of their country (Ukraine, Polish, Georgian, etc). Sure, I moved to the US when 10 but true bilingualism seems pretty normal to me. In my case speaking Russian with one parent and Latvian with the other.

Re: Raising a Truly Bilingual Child

#153

Post by uiri »

barry-cotter wrote: post #80
Cyph0n wrote: post #77

As a person fluent in both Arabic and English, I always wonder if Arabic dialects count as "languages". Note that basically no one speaks "written" Arabic; everyone uses a dialect based on their region. For example, North African dialects are basically unintelligible to Middle Easterners. Even within North Africa, the dialects are vastly different: for instance, Tunisians have trouble understanding the general Algeri…

Whether something is a language or a dialect is a political question, not a linguistic one. The Arabic dialects are as varied as the Romance languages in grammar and vocabulary.

While this is true to some extent, I think the question is mostly one of mutual intelligibility; that is, whether a speaker of dialect A and dialect B can understand each other by each speaking their own dialect. This is obviously a spectrum - there can be no mutual intelligibility at all, some amount of mutual intelligibility (like among some of the romance languages), near full mutual intelligibility, and full mutual intelligibility. So, where the line is drawn depends upon political factors.

Despite all of the PRC's claims to the contrary, Chinese is not a single language but a language family. There isn't really much you can do politically when mutual intelligibility is low.

Re: Raising a Truly Bilingual Child

#154

Post by pbhjpbhj »

spynxic wrote: post #56
justinmk wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The world would be a much better place if every person living in a developed country were forced to spend a year living in a different one Not unless they also were forced to earnestly interact with the different culture. May also need to force them to be curious as well. Lots of forcing should do the trick. Everyone's "solution" to every problem...

Forcing exposure onto someone is, physically, the only way one can leverage their own ability to change another's mindset. Beyond exposure, it's a matter of individual choice. ( i.e. consider when one tries foreign foods for the first time)

What's wrong exactly with individual choice? Foster exploration, present opportunities, allow choice, no?

Re: Raising a Truly Bilingual Child

#155

Post by geomark »

KayEss wrote: post #150
geomark wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was thought provoking for me since I am raising a child in Thailand and there seem to be many parallels. Surprising to me is that despite being surrounded by the local language my child has chosen English as his first language. It seems to be due to my constant interaction with him plus he gravitated to English media at a very early age, particularly YouTube videos of American kids unboxing and playing with toys…

(A bit OT, but) Just thought I'd say Hi as it sounds like you have a very similar set up to me. Also in Thailand, also got a kid at an international school. I'm Norwegian and grew up bilingual in the UK and I see my daughter doing many of the things that I did as a kid. Effortlessly switching language mid-sentence for example. I do expect her to (and hope she does) end up with stronger English than Thai. I think that…

I did not grow up bilingual so I was pretty impressed when I saw my kid effortlessly switching between English and Thai. I would tell him something in English and he would immediately turned to his mother to tell her what I had said in Thai. As early as 3 years old no less. I guess that is just normal!

The question of which language is going to serve kids better in the future seems to depend on where they are going to live. I have friends with teenage kids who go to international schools in Thailand and their ability to read and write Thai is pretty weak. How are they going to be successful living here if they can barely read the newspaper or fill out a job application proficiently?

Re: Raising a Truly Bilingual Child

#156

Post by shas3 »

hkmurakami wrote: post #2

>But if a child grows up speaking that second language — Korean, say — with cousins and grandparents, attending a “Saturday School” that emphasizes the language and the culture, listening to music and even reading books in that language, and visits Korea along the way, that child will end up with a much stronger sense of the language. Did this from Kindergarten through 10th grade. "Saturday School" was a full program…

I grew up in India with an Indian language at home and school medium of instruction, English. I'm generally considered very good at written English (attested by great grades, scores, etc.) and good at articulation but average at getting spoken English correct. But I'm improving at spoken English as I live in the US. Dunno if your situation is similar.

Re: Raising a Truly Bilingual Child

#157

Post by gurkendoktor »

almostApatriot1 wrote: post #68
hartator wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> maximizing your English skill is imo a better investment of finite cognitive resources. I wonder in which extent this apply to programming languages.

Spoken languages are much more complex than programming ones, and the vocabularies are immense. You're talking about 200K+ words in English alone.

The comparison works a little better when you take the whole ecosystem into account: you can pick up Java in a few days, but that doesn't mean you'll understand Java EE configuration files, or know how to animate your Android app. Once you start specialising, you will realise that 24-hour days are very finite.

Even then, I don't think the comparison works because programming ecosystems come and go. The rate of change is much faster than in human languages. So whether you specialise or try to be a generalist - you can undo that decision within the next decade.

Re: Raising a Truly Bilingual Child

#158

Post by gurkendoktor »

vacri wrote: post #122
Manishearth wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Adult bilinguals mix their languages all the time; it’s a sign of language ability I think I'll caveat that with "in the presence of other bilinguals". I am trilingual (formerly bilingual) and I, as well as people I share >1 languages with, freely switch when talking. It's quite liberating since you get access to idioms from multiple languages, and certain phrasings work out better. (There's also a lot more potenti…

I used to work with a Thai office manager, who'd speak bilingually on the phone to her parents. I noticed that she'd switch to English when the comment was about something negative. Not necessarily severe, but things like "oh, we have to wait until wednesday?". Maybe she switched to English for 'negative idioms'? Her Thai sounded light and bubbly, so the effect was magnified. I have no idea if she also said negative…

Saying it in a foreign language might be easier for her because she's less emotionally attached to the language:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2017/mar/27/bad-lan...

https://newrepublic.com/article/118191/people-speaking-forei...

Re: Raising a Truly Bilingual Child

#159

Post by pbhjpbhj »

GuiA wrote: post #117
Manishearth wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was really taken aback by the first line. For context, I'm trilingual (used to be bilingual). I grew up near Boston. A quarter of the kids in my class were bilingual. I don't know how many had native proficiency in their non-English language, but I'm guessing most. So I thought maybe "true" bilingualism was some hard to attain thing that none of us had. Nope, it just means "native proficiency". AIUI that's a relati…

> The article seems to be mostly written in the context of unilingual parents who want a bilingual child. Yes. The core target audience of the article is likely unilingual families who will put their kid in French/Chinese/whatever classes to give them a leg up for Harvard admissions, 15 years later (or, in the NYTime's subtle language: "parents who want to give their kids a bilingual boost"). Obviously if the kid onl…

>In a realistic context, true multilingualism is very achievable, and not particularly exceptional throughout most of the world as many other commenters have pointed out. //

Implicitly you appear to suggest multilingualism is easy to achieve in [almost] all contexts?

Where parents are monolingual, and the pervading culture is monolingual then there's little opportunity for immersion and few people from whom to learn.

Re: Raising a Truly Bilingual Child

#160

Post by gurkendoktor »

orless wrote: post #64

We're native Russians and live in Germany for quite a while (17+ years). My children (8 and 5yo) were born here and we're raising them bilingual. They went/go to normal kindergarden/school and have natural exposure to the German language. At home, we speak Russian with children, unless there is a non-Russian-speaker present. The older son additionally goes to the Russian school on Saturdays. We often talk to our pare…

> It is way too easy to start using German words where Russian translations are cumbersome or unusual. (Prime example is "Termin" - "appointment". In Russian there's just no good translation for this word.)

I've noticed that the Taiwanese community in Germany will generally speak Mandarin, except for a handful of words that they borrow from German. "Termin" is one of them :) I'd never have expected that such a little word could be so useful.

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