{"id":88,"date":"2005-10-22T17:38:19","date_gmt":"2005-10-22T08:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2005-10-22\/88"},"modified":"2005-10-22T17:38:19","modified_gmt":"2005-10-22T08:38:19","slug":"how-to-raise-a-bilingual-child","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2005-10-22\/88","title":{"rendered":"How To Raise a Bilingual Child"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
<\/a><\/div>\n\n

\n\nAnthony<\/a> turns three years old\ntomorrow. He's been talking<\/span> up a storm<\/span> for quite some time, but he's behind\nother kids his age. It's not something<\/span> we're concerned about because, if\nhe's got, say, 70% of the language skills as his peers, he's really got\n140% of the skills (70% English + 70% Japanese). I know of<\/span> other kids who\nhave three or four languages — a kid's<\/span> brain is just amazing.\n\n<\/p>

\n\nI've also heard many stories of kids raised in two-language households\nwhere the kid eventually refuses to speak one of the languages (usually the\nfather's). This can create huge issues if said Father can't speak the other\nlanguage, and I know<\/span> of an extreme case where such a dad<\/span> lost completely\nthe ability to converse with his son. This extreme case involved a man<\/span> who\nwas as bad a husband<\/span> as he was a father,<\/span> but highlights how bad things can\nbecome. Like being a good<\/span> spouse and a good<\/span> parent, mutilingualness needs\nconstant attention.\n\n<\/p>

\n\n(Actually, things can become even worse. I know of<\/span> a guy<\/span> who was raised in\nCanada by Japanese parents, and in the end neither his English nor Japanese\nare really native-level fluent. 50 years later, still living in Canada, he\nstill speaks in what would be called “broken English”.)\n\n<\/p>\n

Our situation<\/h3>\n

\n\nI got mail from a friend today asking how we're approaching Anthony's\nbilingual development. It's something<\/span> Fumie and I have<\/span> certainly thought a\nlot<\/span> about, but like everything else with raising a kid,<\/span> well, there's no\nmanual.\n\n<\/p>\n

\n\nHere's our situation: I'm a native English speaker, and my Japanese is\n“okay” for daily life, but I'm by no means self-sufficient in Japanese.\nFumie is a native<\/span> Japanese speaker, and her English is very good. Since her\nEnglish is better than my Japanese, our daily communication tends to be\nmostly in English, although Japanese tends to get mixed in throughout the\nday.\n\n<\/p>

\n\nWe lived in America until Anthony was 1.5 years old, and as such we both\ntended to use Japanese with him, since we knew he'd get English everywhere\nelse. His first<\/span> words and sentences were all Japanese. We'd moved<\/span> to Japan\nby the time that had happened, but I'd forgotten to switch to English. His blossoming<\/span> speech all being Japanese got me to switch to using English with\nhim mostly.\n\n<\/p>

\n\nWe then spent three months of the summer (while he was about 2.5 years old)\nin America, so by the time that was done, he'd lost almost all his Japanese\nand his English was progressing well. Now, several months in Japan later,\nhis Japanese seems to be about on par with his English, which has only\ngotten better.\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our approach<\/h3>\n

\n\nAnthony lives in Japan, spends three days a week<\/span> at (an all-Japanese)\nplaycare, and will go to Japanese schools. We could<\/span> send him to an international school<\/a> (education in\nEnglish, on a U.S. calendar and with a U.S. curriculum), but then he'd\nforever be a foreigner<\/span> in his own country. So, we'll send him to Japanese\nschools, and as such, I have no<\/span> worry that his Japanese will be anything\nother than absolutely native. Therefore, it's his English that we'll need\nto work on if we want him to be bilingual.\n\n<\/p>

\n\nI realize that if I don't keep his English progressing at a native<\/span> level as\nhe gets older, I'll lose the ability to have native-fluent interaction\nwith him. (The other option, of course, is that I raise<\/span> my Japanese to a\nnative<\/span>-level fluency, but with my brain that's never going to happen.)\n\n<\/p>

\n\nOne way to help his English would be for Fumie to use English with him, but\nfrankly, I discourage<\/span> that. It's more important<\/span> for her to have a\nnative<\/span>-level relationship with him than it is for him to be bilingual,\nespecially at this tender age. Still, for some things it seems easier to\nuse English, so she tends to mix languages, as I do<\/span> (but I do<\/span> it to a\nlesser<\/span> extent).\n\n<\/p>

\n\nThese days, the bulk of my conversations with Anthony are in English. If he uses<\/span> Japanese to me, I generally<\/span> repeat it in Japanese and then English and\nthen Japanese again. That seems sufficient for him to learn both. It's just amazing<\/span>. (By the way, he has no clue what “English” and “Japanese” are; we\ntalk in terms of “Daddy words” and “Mommy words”, as alluded to in a previous<\/span> post about his\nlanguage development<\/a>.)\n\n<\/p>

\n\nSurprisingly, he's already pretty good at understanding what language to\nuse in what situation. I'd heard<\/span> not to expect such an understanding for\nmany years, but he seems to instinctively know what language someone will\nunderstand. For example, the other day I was<\/span> speaking to someone in\nJapanese, and then as we left told Anthony in English “Say 'thank\nyou' to the lady<\/b>”, and he did so, but in Japanese:\n“arigatou<\/b>”.\n\n<\/p>

\n\nOver the years here in Japan, his Japanese will grow naturally. I'll\ncontinue to use normal English with him, and along with month-long trips to\nAmerica in the summer, I expect<\/span> his English to be just fine. Time will tell\nif this simple approach is really sufficient.\n\n<\/p>\n\n

My friend's situation<\/h3>\n\n

\n\nThe friend who sent the email asking about all this is a German<\/span> guy who\nlives in Germany, with a Korean<\/span> wife and two girls, 1.5 and 4 years old.\n(Alone in the house with three girls, God bless<\/span> him ) They originally met\nat work in Korea, and communicated in English. Now, Mom can communicate<\/span> in\nGerman.\n\n<\/p>

\n\nDad works outside the house, and so the two kids spend all day with Mom,\nspeaking Korean. The kids' use of Korean is simple enough now that Dad can\nunderstand, and the kids seem to use both languages. But this is<\/span> about the\nlimit of Dad's Korean, and he's afraid that when they surpass him, as they\nsoon will, he'll be missing a lot.<\/span>\n\n<\/p>

\n\nOf course, that will certainly happen to him as far as Korean is concerned.\nUnless Mom and Dad are truly gifted linguistically, at their age and with\nthe pressures of an adult's daily life, there is little chance that they\nwill be able to acheive native-level fluency in the other's language. Thus,\nthe only hope that they can both have native-level relationships with their\nkids is for the kids to have native-level skills in both languages. This is\nsimilar to my situation.\n\n<\/p>

\n\nThe big difference between our situations is that for him, the two\nstrongest language influences (Mom's language, and the language of the\nschool) are different. I think<\/span> this makes his situation much easier.\n\n<\/p>

\n\nSo, here's my gut feeling about it: the kids live in Germany and will\npresumably go through the German school system, so there seems to be little\nworry that they'll eventually be native-level fluent in German. The worry<\/span> I\nwould<\/span> have for the long term would be for their Korean. However, in the\nshort term (until they get into the school system), they're spending most\nof their day in Korean, so I'd worry about their German.\n\n<\/p>

\n\nMy gut-reaction recommendation is to get them into a German<\/span> daycare \/\npreschool for two or three days a week.<\/span> Besides giving Mom a needed<\/span> rest,\nit'll help ensure that they get a lot<\/span> of German during these early years.\nThey'll still spend most of their time with Mom in Korean, so their Korean\nshould not suffer. A kid's<\/span> brain just soaks it up without giving it a\nsecond<\/span> thought (so to speak).\n\n<\/p>

\n\nI'd also recommend that Mom uses mostly Korean and Dad uses mostly German,\nsince those are the languages closest to their heart, and that's how you\nshould communicate with your own kids. I wouldn't<\/span> force things too much,\nbut would generally stick to the appropriate language. As it is<\/span> now with\nAnthony, I generally<\/span> reply in English even if he happens to say something\nto me in Japanese. (He doesn't know everything equally well in both\nlanguages, so he often simply doesn't know how to say something in English\nuntil I teach<\/span> him.)\n\n<\/p>

\n\nOnce the kids start going to school, their Korean will need special\nsupport. Occasional trips back to see the grandparents in Korea would be\nwonderful, especially the longer they can be (it might take two weeks just\nto get settled in, linguistically). And if they<\/span> had Korean-language\nplaydates from time to time, that would be good, too.\n\n<\/p>\n

As I said,<\/span> there's no manual<\/h3>\n\n

\n\nFor all I know, my advice to my friend is as woefully misguided as the path\nFumie and I are<\/span> taking ourselves. If you've got experience with this, I'd love to<\/span> hear about it....\n\n<\/p>\n\n

Continued here...<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anthony turns three years old tomorrow. He's been talking up a storm for quite some time, but he's behind other kids his age. It's not something we're concerned about because, if he's got, say, 70% of the language skills as his peers, he's really got 140% of the skills (70% English + 70% Japanese). I know of other kids who have three or four languages -- a kid's brain is just amazing. <\/p>

I've also heard many stories of kids raised in two-language households where the kid eventually refuses to speak one of the languages (usually the father's). This [...]","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\/88"}],"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=88"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}