Raising a Truly Bilingual Child • Hacker News Board

Re: Raising a Truly Bilingual Child

#11

Post by kutkloon7 » Sat, Jul 22, 2017, 9:22 PM UTC

While I'm not exactly bilingual, I would like to teach my children (when I have them) multiple languages, just because I think that the potential for learning (and especially for learning languages) is at its maximum during childhood.

However, I'm not quite sure what the best languages would be. I want to give them some exposure to a broad spectrum of languages. I know that the best way to learn a language is to actually use it. In this light, I'm wondering what the best balance between casually exposing them to a huge number of languages and learning them just one extra language really well would be.

Re: Raising a Truly Bilingual Child

#12

Post by joeyo » Sat, Jul 22, 2017, 9:23 PM UTC

kutkloon7 wrote: post #10

ldd wrote: post #5

>True bilingualism is a relatively rare and a beautiful thing(...) Highly competent bilingualism is probably more common in other countries, since many children growing up in the United States aren’t exposed to other languages. I acknowledge that this article is aimed at Americans, but I don't really think that bilingualism is rare in the world, or for that matter, in certain parts of the USA. Perhaps this is not rel…

True. People from Switzerland or Luxembourg often speak 3 or more languages fluently. A lot of other people in Europe speak their native language and a bit of English as well. I don't feel Americans appreciate the luxury of speaking a language that is basically the lingua franca of the Western world. Also, sometimes I feel that many people don't realize that there is a wealth of information that is in Latin, Greek, R…

  > basically the _lingua franca_ of the Western world. [emphasis mine]

You're not wrong, but for some reason I always find it hilarious to refer to English as the language of the Franks.

Re: Raising a Truly Bilingual Child

#13

Post by JohnGB » Sat, Jul 22, 2017, 9:26 PM UTC

> “A child who is learning two languages will have a smaller vocabulary in each than a child who is only learning one; there are only so many hours in the day, and you’re either hearing English or Spanish,” Dr. Hoff said.

That is rubbish. It depends on how the child is exposed to the various languages and how much exposure they get. My daughter speaks 3 languages at home (one to each adult). We were told exactly this that she would be behind language wise, but we made sure that she was read stories in each of the languages, and had good exposure. She has just started at a bilingual school, and her monolingual English teacher has told us that she is far ahead of the rest of her class language wise.

Yes, this may be an outlier, but every family that I know that has bilingual or more children and who expose the children to enough of each language have children that are ahead of the norm in each of those languages.

If however you simply split the time that you would give in language related activities or conversation between multiple languages, then of course the child will be behind in each one, as you've only exposed them to half the language in each. This is true up to about 7 years old, and non-existent after that anyway.

Re: Raising a Truly Bilingual Child

#14

Post by zzzcpan » Sat, Jul 22, 2017, 9:27 PM UTC

lordnacho wrote: post #3

This is really, really hard to do properly. I'm native in two languages, neither of them my first. By this I mean native-accented speech, and able to do a degree in these language. The only way it was possible was that I went to school in one language and lived in a society that spoke another. So school was teaching me English, meaning I learned all of math/science/history through high school with English vocabulary.…

Some countries have true bilingual culture, where being a bilingual is a necessary part of life and not something to achieve. Meaning that it's not uncommon to see a group of people discussing something in two languages like it's a single language and not bothering to switch to other peoples language, because everyone automatically assumes that everyone else understand them in either one.

Re: Raising a Truly Bilingual Child

#15

Post by nneonneo » Sat, Jul 22, 2017, 9:27 PM UTC

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…

My parents are Chinese but I grew up in Canada. Consequently, I am fully fluent in English, but my Chinese is quite poor by comparison. I am "okay" by your standard, in that I can converse comfortably on day-to-day topics with native speakers, but my vocabulary falls apart with complex subjects. I am indeed fairly self-conscious of my "child-like" use of Chinese; on a recent visit, I was shocked that I could not read a 3-year-old cousin's picture book completely without stumbling on words. I have since redoubled my efforts to learn the written language :)

I did Saturday school, cultural programs, and got involved with the community. Consequently, I do feel closer to my Chinese heritage than most people of a similar "CBC" background. However, there is just so much cultural background that I will never see or experience, and that saddens me somewhat.

There's always a compromise. Had I been more fully immersed in Chinese, I can fully expect that my English would not be so good - and for my academic work, that would be a detriment. So, perhaps I should be happier, as you say, that I ended up maximizing my English skill.

Re: Raising a Truly Bilingual Child

#16

Post by Pulcinella » Sat, Jul 22, 2017, 9:32 PM UTC

ldd wrote: post #5

>True bilingualism is a relatively rare and a beautiful thing(...) Highly competent bilingualism is probably more common in other countries, since many children growing up in the United States aren’t exposed to other languages. I acknowledge that this article is aimed at Americans, but I don't really think that bilingualism is rare in the world, or for that matter, in certain parts of the USA. Perhaps this is not rel…

Yeah Bilingualism isn't that rare in America. I live in Texas and there a literally millions of bilingual speakers (largely English & Spanish, but other languages like Vietnamese (~200,000) as well.)

Re: Raising a Truly Bilingual Child

#17

Post by adzm » Sat, Jul 22, 2017, 9:41 PM UTC

joeyo wrote: post #12

kutkloon7 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. People from Switzerland or Luxembourg often speak 3 or more languages fluently. A lot of other people in Europe speak their native language and a bit of English as well. I don't feel Americans appreciate the luxury of speaking a language that is basically the lingua franca of the Western world. Also, sometimes I feel that many people don't realize that there is a wealth of information that is in Latin, Greek, R…

> basically the _lingua franca_ of the Western world. [emphasis mine] You're not wrong, but for some reason I always find it hilarious to refer to English as the language of the Franks.

... with a Latin phrase.

Re: Raising a Truly Bilingual Child

#18

Post by muninn_ » Sat, Jul 22, 2017, 9:43 PM UTC

kutkloon7 wrote: post #10

ldd wrote: post #5

>True bilingualism is a relatively rare and a beautiful thing(...) Highly competent bilingualism is probably more common in other countries, since many children growing up in the United States aren’t exposed to other languages. I acknowledge that this article is aimed at Americans, but I don't really think that bilingualism is rare in the world, or for that matter, in certain parts of the USA. Perhaps this is not rel…

True. People from Switzerland or Luxembourg often speak 3 or more languages fluently. A lot of other people in Europe speak their native language and a bit of English as well. I don't feel Americans appreciate the luxury of speaking a language that is basically the lingua franca of the Western world. Also, sometimes I feel that many people don't realize that there is a wealth of information that is in Latin, Greek, R…

Well sure, but what's the point of learning another language if you're an American if you will almost without exception not ever need to speak anything other than English in the United States? Even if English wasn't the lingua franca what would the point be? Conversely in Europe you're surrounded by a ton of other languages, of course it makes sense to learn them. If they spoke French in Oregon, Spanish in California, and Dutch in Colorado Americans would be just as bil-/tri- lingual as Europeans are. It just doesn't make sense to be.

Re: Raising a Truly Bilingual Child

#19

Post by grecy » Sat, Jul 22, 2017, 9:45 PM UTC

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…

> If you're committed to living in the States

I think you have to be insane to not travel. The learning opportunities it presents are unparalleled.

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 during high school, for example.

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime

- Mark Twain

Re: Raising a Truly Bilingual Child

#20

Post by mrtksn » Sat, Jul 22, 2017, 9:50 PM UTC

ldd wrote: post #5

>True bilingualism is a relatively rare and a beautiful thing(...) Highly competent bilingualism is probably more common in other countries, since many children growing up in the United States aren’t exposed to other languages. I acknowledge that this article is aimed at Americans, but I don't really think that bilingualism is rare in the world, or for that matter, in certain parts of the USA. Perhaps this is not rel…

Don't they count minorities as Americans or do the minorities in the USA don't speak their native language or aren't there minorities? How is it possible to say that it is rare in the USA to be bilingual?

At least in Europe and the Middle East, most countries have large minorities that speak the local and native language since early age and learn English on top of it. So trilingual or even more languages is pretty common thing.