are your kids bilingual?

[Dancing Fire]

before my daughters started kindergarten they only knew how to speak in Cantonese, then by the time they reach 2nd grade they only knew how to speak in English. i wish they can speak in both languages.

 

[Enerchi]

My oldest speaks french and english fluently, but not my second and third. Third has dyslexia and its a challenge for her to learn so we took her out of french immersion way back when she was in kindergarten.

Now --- they barely speak to us, let alone in a second language!

 

[madelise]

Don't have kids yet, but I've researched into local programs that are multilingual immersion schools. There's one in OC that does a 100% Spanish until a certain age, then slowly brings it to 80%, 70%, 50%.. etc. There's another preschool in LA that does Mandarin and Spanish (I've got my eyes on that campus!).

I plan to either enroll my future behbiez in one of those campuses, or raise them to speak Mandarin with me and Urdu with SO. They can learn English at school. I will refuse to feed them if they talk to me in English. That's what my grandma did with me, and it worked! My sister and my cousins all don't speak Mandarin because they never got those threats!


Me: I'm hungry, I want food! (in English)
Grandma: What? What did you say? I don't understand you, use Chinese! (in Mandarin)

I think I huffed and puffed a few times, and eventually gave in cus my tummy was rumblin'!

She used that same line on me for EVERYTHING. If I didn't talk to her in Chinese, I didn't get my ride to school, my lunch pack, my homework checked, etc.

 

[mayerling]

They will be.

 

[AGBF]

No, and and it was a real bone of contention between my husband and me that he would not help to raise our daughter to be bilingual. The man who had been the best man at our wedding was an American married to a Japanese woman. They married before us and had children before we did. (They lived in Japan.) They sent us some materials on the best way to raise a bilingual child. Studies from the Netherlands had shown that if the native language of the father and the mother were different, that the best way to raise a bilingual child was for each to speak solely in his native tongue to their offspring. This is what our friends in Japan had done, with great success. Although the children were living in a house with Japanese speaking grandparents and in a Japanese speaking country they also spoke perfect English.

Since my husband was a native Italian speaker and well educated (he has a university degree from Italy as well as degrees from American universities), I wanted him to speak only Italian to our daughter. She would have learned the Italian of Dante, not street Italian or some regional dialect. But my husband wanted to be "American" and not Italian. He would speak other languages, but not Italian. So the best I could do-given that I am not a native speaker of any language except English-was expose her early to a native speaker of another foreign language. Since I speak French, I started to take her to the home of a Belgian friend when she was four months old and while we were there we spoke only French. At least this gave her early exposure to another language, spoken by a native speaker of that language.

AGBF

 

[Deia]

before my daughters started kindergarten they only knew how to speak in Cantonese, then by the time they reach 2nd grade they only knew how to speak in English. i wish they can speak in both languages.

DF, is this because you didn't speak Cantonese with them at home?

I don't know your background but I have seen a lot of parents who instead of teaching their kids their own mother tongue, speak to the children in the language of whichever country they are in so that the parents can learn it faster. It's a real shame. Or parents who are worried their kid will get "confused" by learning two languages. That doesn't happen unless your child has a pre-existing condition, in which case it can be difficult. Little kids brains are like a sponge, throw anything at it, it will just absorb it all.

Other than the obvious positive point of speaking several languages, it also changes the way kids learn. They are far more adaptable, and better at problem solving than kids that are mono linguistic. Almost as if the brain rewires itself to think differently.

I don't have kids but if I ever do, for sure they will speak multiple languages, just like I do.

 

[princesss]

BF and I were talking about this the other night - he is Welsh and spoke Welsh at home growing up (as far as I can tell, the first time he spoke English 24 hours a day was when he went to university, but I could be wrong about that), and insists that if we have kids they be able to speak Welsh. I think it's a great idea, and from the linguistics class I took in college, I'm with AGBF - parents speak their native language to their children. It does affect their vocab when they are young (they will have fewer words in each language than their peers), but in the end they will be bilingual if you keep at it.

 

[JewelFreak]

It's wonderful for children to be bilingual or more. Gives them a door into other cultures and best of all, develops their ability to pick up new languages more easily later. Many people worry they'll mix up vocabularies but that doesn't happen, at least after they're very young, because each language has its own internal logic into which the vocabulary fits.

DH had a work colleague who was Greek & his wife Mexican. They each spoke the other's language, so to their kid spoke only Greek in the a.m. & Spanish p.m., and sent her to a regular American school where she spoke English. She grew up tri-lingual, native in all 3 languages. What a lucky child! I, having studied French, Italian, Spanish, German, Russian, Hebrew & Japanese, but native only in English, envied the heck out of her.

I dated a Colombian guy who was divorced & had a 3-yr-old son at the time. Their maid spoke only Spanish; he would say in English to the boy, "Go tell Dora blah blah," whatever the issue was, and the child ran into the other room & delivered the message in Spanish, never garbling the two. It was very cool.

Always mourn when parents do not pass on their native languages to their children; it's a waste of a marvelous broadening opportunity.

--- Laurie

 

[madelise]

So the best I could do-given that I am not a native speaker of any language except English-was expose her early to a native speaker of another foreign language. Since I speak French, I started to take her to the home of a Belgian friend when she was four months old and while we were there we spoke only French. At least this gave her early exposure to another language, spoken by a native speaker of that language.

AGBF

Did that work, AGBF? Did she pick up French?

 

[artdecogirl]

My children are not at all other then the high school french and german they all took. I wonder DF if your children may not speak cantonese but can they understand it still?

 

[Dancing Fire]

before my daughters started kindergarten they only knew how to speak in Cantonese, then by the time they reach 2nd grade they only knew how to speak in English. i wish they can speak in both languages.

DF, is this because you didn't speak Cantonese with them at home?

well,before they started school we only spoke in Cantonese and when their grandparents baby sit they must communicate in Chinese since they do not speak any English,then when they started kindergarten we started to communicate in English at home, so i guess it is our fault for them not being bilingual.

 

[Dancing Fire]

My children are not at all other then the high school french and german they all took. I wonder DF if your children may not speak cantonese but can they understand it still?

very little now.

 

[Christina...]

My son is bilingual but he has a different situation. He's deaf so his primary form of communication is ASL, however because of his diagnosis and the fact that he's had speech therapy several times a week for many years he can also speak english and read lips. Obviously this will serve him well both now and in the future. He starts 7th grade this year and we have signed him up to take french, not sure how it will go, but we are hopeful. We don't expect him to be able to speak it, but we would love for him to be able to read and write it. We'll see how it goes.

I think that it's great when kids are exposed to many different languages and cultures.

 

[pandabee]

Don't have kids yet, but they sure as heck will be!! I was fortunate enough to have my parents always speak to me in Mandarin (and also Chinese school, but I don't think I will subject my kids to that) and compared to my other Chinese-American friends, my Mandarin is much better and it's definitely something I'm proud of. When I talk to my grandparents I am much more comfortable talking to them in Mandarin than trying to understand their broken English hehe. My brother doesn't like to speak to my parents as much in Chinese so I don't think that my parents have rubbed off on him enough but I hope that my kids will appreciate having bilingual skills.

 

[Lulie]

English is my 4th language. Raising multilingual children requires a lot of patience, much easier if you're practical and realistic.
IMHO, it should be as 'natural' as teaching the kid how to ride a bicycle. I'm not saying that it's easy. Making the effort with enthusiasm from all family members has made a huge difference.

 

[AGBF]

So the best I could do-given that I am not a native speaker of any language except English-was expose her early to a native speaker of another foreign language. Since I speak French, I started to take her to the home of a Belgian friend when she was four months old and while we were there we spoke only French. At least this gave her early exposure to another language, spoken by a native speaker of that language.

Did that work, AGBF? Did she pick up French?

Sorry to reply so late, madelise. Yes and no. There was nothing wrong with the concept; she picked up French and understood it between four months and three years old. She mixed up French and English words at times, asking my mother for a "pomme" when she wanted an apple, but I knew it would get sorted out. However, as I had been warned by many people, the use of the language had to be continued as she got older...and it was not. I sent her to both French and Spanish "Befores" and "Afters" classes at her elementary school to keep her learning some French and Spanish, but the learning was minimal. We (my husband and I) had discussed sending her to a local French-American School and I think only that, or living in in a French speaking country, would have enabled her to keep hearing enough French to keep up the French after it became impractical for her to spend time with Germaine due to her school schedule.

She can still make the sounds of the French language, and I suspect it is lurking in her subconscious, but she cannot speak French. She has been exposed to enough Spanish, French, and Italian to be quite savvy about all three languages, however. She often corrects me when I mix up Italian and Spanish, which I do a lot!

Deb/AGBF

 

[natascha]

As a former bilingual kid (or in my case trilingual) you don't really mix up words as you get older. You might forget one word for a moment in a certain language and know it in others but monolingual people momentarily forget words too.

However it has been in my experience that simultaneous bilingual people (as in not just fully fluent in another language) don't always realize what language they are speaking, reading in etc. This can lead to funny situations. Eg if I am writing in one language and someone speaks to me in an other I will often start writing in the language that I am having the conversation in without noticing. I once didn't double check before handing in an assignment and the teacher made me rewrite it since half of the text was in a language that she did not understand . Or if speaking to someone else is simultaneous bilingual, then a conversation will often change language if a word is used from a different language (like a place, food, name, etc) and can quite often fluidly move between several languages without it being noticed, only being discovered when someone else points it out. Of course you sometimes make funny comments like why do they have several copy's of the menu, not realizing that they are in several languages (to my defense I was really tired and hungry and just wanted to get to the right part of the menu).

 

[Enerchi]

^^^
Natascha, that is amazing! I have always envied people who can grasp another language- including my oldest who just this past w/e was discussing his bilingual skills at a family event. I have such trouble speaking my own language... I think its a mental block, but nothing gets in.

But that is incredible that you can flip so easily from one language to another and not just in speech, but the written word as well. I hope you never lose that!

 

[pandabee]

natascha that is amazing! I wish I still had the ability to read...most of that has been lost because I don't practice it. in my defense though, Chinese is very difficult to read due to all the characters!!! hehe. I do flip back and forth between English and Mandarin when I talk to my parents on the phone though and my friends all love to listen in on my "Chinglish" conversations!

 

[sonnyjane]

As a former bilingual kid (or in my case trilingual) you don't really mix up words as you get older. You might forget one word for a moment in a certain language and know it in others but monolingual people momentarily forget words too.

However it has been in my experience that simultaneous bilingual people (as in not just fully fluent in another language) don't always realize what language they are speaking, reading in etc. This can lead to funny situations. Eg if I am writing in one language and someone speaks to me in an other I will often start writing in the language that I am having the conversation in without noticing. I once didn't double check before handing in an assignment and the teacher made me rewrite it since half of the text was in a language that she did not understand . Or if speaking to someone else is simultaneous bilingual, then a conversation will often change language if a word is used from a different language (like a place, food, name, etc) and can quite often fluidly move between several languages without it being noticed, only being discovered when someone else points it out. Of course you sometimes make funny comments like why do they have several copy's of the menu, not realizing that they are in several languages (to my defense I was really tired and hungry and just wanted to get to the right part of the menu).

English is my first language, but I got a B.A. in Spanish 8 years ago. I don't use it very much (I used to live in Miami and used it FREQUENTLY there), and it definitely gets rusty, but every once in a while I'll have weird resurgences of Spanish vocabulary... like out of nowhere I'll remember the word for "bald" or "meatball" out of the blue lol.

Also, even though I don't speak Spanish at home and probably use it only a few times a year at work if someone asks me a question in Spanish, I still have entire dreams in Spanish every few weeks, and while I'm dreaming, ALLLLLL of my vocab comes back to me... verb tenses, adjectives, long lost phrases. It's amazing what my brain still has up there even though I don't really speak the language anymore.

 

[AGBF]

However it has been in my experience that simultaneous bilingual people (as in not just fully fluent in another language) don't always realize what language they are speaking, reading in etc. This can lead to funny situations. Eg if I am writing in one language and someone speaks to me in an other I will often start writing in the language that I am having the conversation in without noticing.

Henry Kissinger was quoted as saying that there was no language that he could speak without an accent and my husband liked to say the same thing about himself since, like Dr. Kissinger, he spent so many years in the United States that he no longer spoke his native tongue unaccented.

Although my husband did not start to learn English until relatively late in life (his late teens), it being the fifth or sixth lanuage he learned, it is probably the one he speaks most fluently now. He was certainly not bilingual from birth; his English is accented; and occasionally he gets a preposition wrong (very rarely). Nonetheless, he speaks better than 99 out of 100 native English speakers.

I am trying to get to my point.... I wouldn't have classified my husband as being one of the "truly bilingual" people-although he now is bilingual-because it didn't happen to him early in life. But he has had episodes similar to those that you describe, natascha. They are rare, but I have found him earnestly speaking to me in Italian, not realizing it wasn't English.

Deb/AGBF