{"id":322,"date":"2007-01-01T16:08:25","date_gmt":"2007-01-01T07:08:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2007-01-01\/322"},"modified":"2007-01-01T16:08:25","modified_gmt":"2007-01-01T07:08:25","slug":"more-on-raising-a-bilingual-child","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2007-01-01\/322","title":{"rendered":"More on Raising a Bilingual Child"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n

Over a year ago, I posted<\/span> an entry on how to raise a bilingual<\/span>\nchild<\/a>, describing the approach that Fumie and I are<\/span> taking with\nAnthony.<\/p>\n\n

These days, Anthony is quite fluent in both languages, at least as much\nas one would expect of a four<\/span> year old. I make a<\/span> point to quietly correct\nhis grammar when I hear<\/span> the same mistake over and over, such as the “I is<\/span>”\nthat he says a lot<\/span> these days. I'm careful<\/span> never to ram it down his throat,\nand he seems to pick up the changes, eventually, so I think<\/span> we're on track.<\/p>\n\n

My worry now is about his reading and ability to write. I need to<\/span> spend\nmuch more time reading with him than I currently<\/span> do, but it's difficult\nbecause I didn't<\/span> read to him enough early on, and now it's not habit. He'd much rather<\/span> play with his cars than read a book<\/span> together, so my work is\nclearly cut out.<\/p>\n\n

Anyway, I write<\/span> about this because of a comment<\/span> left today on that old post:<\/p>\n\n

\n Hi Jeffrey,\n \n I came across your interesting blog when surfing the net how to raise kids\n bilingual. I am Japanese<\/span>, however, grew up in Germany most of my life. I am fluent<\/span> in Japanese, German and English and I intend<\/span> to teach my son (just\n gave birth to him end of Nov 2006) Japanese. However, I am very<\/span> nervous\n that I won't<\/span> be able to accomplish this...My husband is American who only\n speaks Japanese a little<\/span> and I am<\/span> very comfortable speaking in English and\n don't have any Japanese friends here...I even<\/span> have a little<\/span> fear of making\n Japanese friends because I feel<\/span> like I am<\/span> too Westernized and different (I\n only<\/span> lived in Japan when I was<\/span> little for 7 years...)\n\n <\/p>

\n\n Do you think I have to stay home and quit work to spend most of my time\n with my son in Japanese? I wanted<\/span> to continue working and I asked<\/span> my mother\n who still lives in Germany to help me out by coming over to the US but she\n rejected...I have<\/span> a part<\/span> time nanny but she only speaks Spanish and I am<\/span>\n afraid three languages will be too complicated for him someday.\n\n <\/p>

\n\n I live in\n Northern VA and getting a Japanese<\/span> speaking nanny is a very<\/span> difficult\n task-- Or do you think I am<\/span> worrying too much? Sorry, I am kind<\/span> of blabbing\n here but hope you can give me some advice. I have a<\/span> feeling I am<\/span>\n over-concerned about this at an early stage but I am<\/span> pretty depressed over\n this because I really<\/span> want him to learn Japanese.<\/p>\n\n

Many thanks in advance.\n Megumi<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

I was writing a reply to Megumi when I realized<\/span> that posting my reply\nmight help others, and would allow others to chime in with their thoughts as well.<\/p>\n\n

So, based on the little bit that Megumi wrote, along with my own limited\nexperience and a lot<\/span> of wild assumptions on my part, here's my reply to\nMegumi:<\/p>\n\n

First, some preface material:<\/p>\n\n

  1. Congratulations on the birth of your son. With him comes much\nlove, as I'm sure you know, and much worry. Much more of both will come. It's every<\/span> parent's job to worry, and if you think you worry now, wait\nuntil he starts dating. <\/b> Try to pay attention to what's\nimportant, but at the same time, try not to worry too much.<\/p>\n\n

    By the way, you might find my second ever post,\n essentials for a first<\/span>-time parent<\/a> of interest.<\/p><\/li>\n\n

  2. Before considering teaching him Japanese, make sure you understand\nyour own level. Japanese is a living<\/span> language, and has changed since you\nlived in Japan (as indeed you have changed since you lived in Japan). Your\nJapanese likely sounds a bit<\/span> old and strange to those in Japan now.... not\nthat I<\/i> have the skill to notice, but Japanese certainly would. Plus,\nhaving grown up in Germany, your culture is very different from the\nJapanese, even if your parents kept a “Japanese house.”<\/p>\n\n

    Anyway, I don't say this to make you feel bad, but to encourage you to\nproactively embrace it and understand it, not to fear it. Your Japanese\nability, whether good or bad, merely opens the door for friendship with\nthose that speak only Japanese. In the end<\/span>, whether you maintain that\nfriendship will have little to do with your language ability, but you can\nuse that ability to your advantage. For example, you can offer\nEnglish\/German lessons in exchange for pointers on how to modernize your\nJapanese, or in exchange for spending time with your son.<\/p><\/li>\n\n

  3. Before considering your son's language development, make sure you're\non the same page as your husband. A friend<\/span> of mine and his wife, when they\nhad a baby,<\/span> really tried to do the best for her.... they potty trained her\nat 6 months, gave her only food that they prepared from scratch, and raised\nher speaking English, French, Japanese, and Chinese. And they divorced<\/span> when\nshe was 5. I see a<\/span> correlation there — they concentrated so much on her\nthat they neglected each-other, and in doing so they took away the thing\nthat is most important for a child<\/span>: loving parents. So whatever<\/span> you choose\nto do, make sure your priorities are in order, and that you're on the same\npage as your spouse. <\/p><\/li> <\/ol>\n\n

    Now, about your son's language development. Since you live in America,\nhe'll certainly learn English natively, even if you both never speak a word<\/span>\nof English to him, so don't worry about that.<\/p>\n\n

    Don't worry about three languages — kids can handle a lot<\/span> more\nthan that. One of my<\/span> high-school teachers grew up in a household<\/span> where each\nday of the week was a different<\/span> language (Monday was French, Tuesday was\nRussian, etc.). I had him<\/span> for Spanish. He could<\/span> converse in 20+ languages,\nand was studying Chinese when I graduated.<\/span>\n\n<\/p>

    \n\nI know of a number of trilingual kids. As one example<\/span>, a well<\/span>-adjusted\nVietnamese\/American couple I know<\/span> in America send their oldest to a\nSpanish<\/span>-language school simply because they want her to have three\nlanguages.<\/p>\n\n

    Don't worry that your son's time spent with other languages will detract\nfrom his Japanese. The main thing<\/span> for his Japanese is the amount of\ninteraction he has in Japanese. Whether you quit work or not is a larger<\/span>\nquestion than his language ability, but certainly, the more time spent with\nsomeone speaking Japanese, the better.\n\n<\/p>

    \n\nWhichever you choose, make an effort to speak only Japanese to him when\nyou're alone. (If your husband doesn't understand Japanese, you'll probably\ngenerally want to stick to English when he's around, because your\nrelationship with your husband is much more important than your son's\nlanguage abilities.)\n\n<\/p>\n\n

    \n\nMake good use of Japanese-language videos and other materials. Fumie and I\nare<\/span> very anti-TV for him (he never watches live TV at home), but I make<\/span>\nliberal use of English-language DVDs for him, such as Dora, Caillou, Little\nEinsteins, etc. It really<\/span> helps. Get a region<\/span>-free DVD player, and order\nvideos and things from Japan.\n\n<\/p>

    \n\nOne I can strongly recommend is the Shimajiro<\/a> “5 year\nprogram.” Fumie's folks got this for Anthony as a present,<\/span> and it's\nreally wonderful. Every month, a packet<\/span> arrives with age-appropriate\nactivities, and a short<\/span> (20 minute) video. The lessons<\/span> learned are all very\nbasic — colors and shapes and animals for younger ages, and older\nages learn why you should brush your teeth and how to use the potty. It's very well<\/span> presented and I highly<\/span> recommend it.\n\n<\/p>

    \n\nOnce he gets older, the Japanese dubbed versions of animated kids movies\ncan be good. The first<\/span> movie Anthony ever saw was “Finding\nNemo,” and he loved it. It wasn't until he was older that he started\nto understand that parts were scary, but in any case, it was and is still\ngood for his English.\n\n<\/p>

    \n\nAnother thing to consider once your son gets older are trips that will\nexpose him to Japanese, whether to Japan itself or to your folk's place in\nGermany. It's not uncommon<\/span> for a Japanese<\/span> mom married to an American in\nAmerica to take the kids to Japan for the whole summer, while the dad stays\nhome, so you might consider that as an option as well.\n\n<\/p>

    \n\nDo make an effort try to find other Japanese parents that you can spend\ntime with while the kids play together. Many Japanese wives in America\n— there because their Japanese husband has been assigned there for\nwork, or because they married an American — face a lot<\/span> of loneliness,\nso they tend to form “mama groups.” See if you can find one.\nPlaces to look for pointers include universities and corporate housing\nlocations. If you're near DC, check in with the Japanese embassy to see if\nthey have any information.\n\n<\/p>

    \n\nWell, these are just some thought, borne mostly from assumptions that your\nsituation is exactly the same as mine.... only different. I didn't<\/span> even\naddress German here. If your husband<\/span> speaks German, you might consider four\nlanguages for him (after adding Spanish from the nanny).\n\n<\/p>

    \n\nA child's ability to absorb multiple languages far exceeds his parent's\nability to properly support all those languages, so limiting him to three\nor four languages is probably a smart<\/span> idea, not for him, but for your own\nsanity.\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Over a year ago, I posted an entry on how to raise a bilingual child, describing the approach that Fumie and I are taking with Anthony.<\/p>

    These days, Anthony is quite fluent in both languages, at least as much as one would expect of a four year old. I make a point to quietly correct his grammar when I hear the same mistake over and over, such as the \"I is\" that he says a lot these days. I'm careful never to ram it down his throat, and he seems to pick up the changes, eventually, so I think we're [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}