Why wouldn't you raise your kid bilingual?

ToneControl

Dominic said:

I'm not bilingual but I speak degree standard French and Spanish .......that's still very different from being truly bilingual.
Being bilingual also means being able to revert naturally to the most modern vernacular and not using words or phrases that are uncommon since the 1980s or have changed meaning .
Eg ; Oh, we had such a gay time 
 It also means not having a discernable accent of a foreigner ;
Ah zo ,zis is precisely vot I am conzerned about

I had a mate who could learn languages that well in weeks/months, but struggled with every other aspect of life other than playing instruments, composing and singing 

I assume his brain was wired up in an unusual way

RaymondLin

ToneControl said:

I remember my London-Italian mate told me that he was fluent in Italian until he was about 6, so I assume it's possible to undermine all the good work somehow.

Probably a lot easier now to maintain second languages, given the availability of internet media, and satellite TV shows 

I used to be able to read a whole Chinese newspaper. I’ve forgotten 90% of it.

olafgarten

This guy on YouTube has a couple of videos where he learns a language for 24 hours and then goes and tries to speak to people.

marantz1300

My mum talked to us in English and Gaeilge when we were kids.
I do the same with my children.

ToneControl

RaymondLin said:

ToneControl said:

I remember my London-Italian mate told me that he was fluent in Italian until he was about 6, so I assume it's possible to undermine all the good work somehow.

Probably a lot easier now to maintain second languages, given the availability of internet media, and satellite TV shows 

I used to be able to read a whole Chinese newspaper. I’ve forgotten 90% of it.

what do you think went wrong?
I lost contact with my mate, so can't ask him

I've seen Norwegians revive their English skills over an hour of listening (in the 80s in France, before English was ubiquitous)

I've seen a Spaniard develop good written English into fully fluent over a few months, that was lovely to see, I worked with her and her Spanish fiancé, who had fluent English. He told me that she was a very chatty person, and it was killing her to have things translated and struggle when talking to me and other colleagues. One day it just "popped", and it was a torrent of conversation and high speed. 

From this I assume that it takes quite an effort to make that full switch into fluency, and that it can become dormant, I don't know the more efficient way to revive it.

Funniest thing I saw was a charming drunk Swede I met who had been hanging out with English speakers for a month or two, another Swede turned up and he could understand him, but could not respond in Swedish, his brain had forgotten how to compose sentences in Swedish (plus the beer!), I'm sure he was OK after an hour, but I did not know this was even possible  

RaymondLin

ToneControl said:

RaymondLin said:

ToneControl said:

I remember my London-Italian mate told me that he was fluent in Italian until he was about 6, so I assume it's possible to undermine all the good work somehow.

Probably a lot easier now to maintain second languages, given the availability of internet media, and satellite TV shows 

I used to be able to read a whole Chinese newspaper. I’ve forgotten 90% of it.

what do you think went wrong?
I lost contact with my mate, so can't ask him

I stopped reading and exposed to it when i came here.  I can handle an average conversation fine, I can even watch the news and know what's going on but because Chinese doesn't have spelling, once you forget how to read and write a word, you just lose it.   The whole system relies on memory and association. 

vasselmeyer

Late to the thread, but we made the choice to bring our kids up bilingual. We didn't even think about it. My wife only every speaks to them in her native language and they grew up in England. They're completely fluent and switch instantly, even now they're in their mid-20s.

Also, it's a free A* GCSE and A-level, without even having to study much at all.

Simonh

RaymondLin said:
YouTube Johnny Harris, his thing is maps...anyway he just posted a video last week where he suggested a new way to learn a language. Not your academic grammar correct way but just learn enough to get your point across.  The key is to learn 500 the most commonly used words, just memorised those and start from there.  He has able to learn enough Italian in 3 months to a conversation level by doing this. 

Since he isn’t doing it for a test, his argument is that if he goes to Italy and say “can I get 2  pizza slices for eat?” That is enough to get pizza.  Or if he understand only 8/10 words, he can fill in the blanks and get a idea of what the conversation is about.  He can always ask more question to clarify too.

3 months to learn enough Italian for basic conversation level, I think that’s pretty cool.

I meet a very successful entrepreneur dude at F1 testing a couple of years ago that could speak 8 or 10 languages, his method was essentially this (though he said there were around 700 core words). He said learn two words every day and you can have conversations within 3 months and be fluent enough in a year. His advice for learning was to watch the news in the language you are trying to learn as you should be able to work out what is being said by knowing what is going on in the world.

he did also say once you have 4 down pretty well others become easier as you find similarities etc

CHRISB50

My cousin’s kids all speak English and Spanish. 
My cousin is English but she lived in Spain, married a Spanish guy, and all her kids grew up there, although they all went to uni over here. 

As others have said, I think I’d find it more weird not raising your children as bilingual, if you have the chance to do so.  

My uncle was a strange one. His dad’s family were all Italian. His paternal grandmother could only speak Italian, so always spoke to him in Italian. He couldn’t respond, but understood what she was saying perfectly. He retained that his whole life. He’d go to Italy on holiday and be able to understand what was being said, but could never respond. I don’t really understand how that works. 

RaymondLin

Simonh said:

RaymondLin said:
YouTube Johnny Harris, his thing is maps...anyway he just posted a video last week where he suggested a new way to learn a language. Not your academic grammar correct way but just learn enough to get your point across.  The key is to learn 500 the most commonly used words, just memorised those and start from there.  He has able to learn enough Italian in 3 months to a conversation level by doing this. 

Since he isn’t doing it for a test, his argument is that if he goes to Italy and say “can I get 2  pizza slices for eat?” That is enough to get pizza.  Or if he understand only 8/10 words, he can fill in the blanks and get a idea of what the conversation is about.  He can always ask more question to clarify too.

3 months to learn enough Italian for basic conversation level, I think that’s pretty cool.

I meet a very successful entrepreneur dude at F1 testing a couple of years ago that could speak 8 or 10 languages, his method was essentially this (though he said there were around 700 core words). He said learn two words every day and you can have conversations within 3 months and be fluent enough in a year. His advice for learning was to watch the news in the language you are trying to learn as you should be able to work out what is being said by knowing what is going on in the world.

he did also say once you have 4 down pretty well others become easier as you find similarities etc

He pointed out in the video that ages ago there is a document which states something like you can run a warship or something on 500 words and take over the world with 850.

When you are not constraint to proper structure and grammar, and the idea is purely get your point across in a day to day conversation.  Learning languages becomes a totally different ball game.  You should be able to understand the other person and they with you by the context that you are speaking about and with some hand gestures and the rest with the words that you know.  And the more you do this, the more you pick up and better the grammar.

p90fool

Learning French from scratch when I moved there made me realise how little of our brains we usually use. 

ToneControl

vasselmeyer said:

Late to the thread, but we made the choice to bring our kids up bilingual. We didn't even think about it. My wife only every speaks to them in her native language and they grew up in England. They're completely fluent and switch instantly, even now they're in their mid-20s.

Also, it's a free A* GCSE and A-level, without even having to study much at all.

Good idea but probably worth being a little wary around  this, unless it's done as an extra A level, people might not regard the qualification the same way

Also, in a different scenario: I had a German friend who grew up in England, and decided to do German joint honours with electronics or some other engineering subject, with the idea of making it easier to get a good degree result. The Uni decided that since her and the chap also doing the same thing were from native speaker families, they would require a higher standard of fluency before awarding a degree, so they had to do extra certifications on top of what you'd do if you were not from a German family.

Mudcrutch

A mate of mine many years ago before the internet decided to teach himself Russian .
Ive always thought Russian was a very hard language to learn and he would give up after a few months but he stuck with it and is fluent even married a Russian girl.a few years later.

pigface

yocky said:

It was extra cute hearing her throw random French words into sentences until she fully got to grips with it.

When my son was a small boy, I was perplexed to hear him ask me: "Dad, what are those buggers doing?" It turned out that the word he used was 'Bagger', the German word for 'excavator'.

Dontgiveupyourdayjob

RaymondLin said:

Dontgiveupyourdayjob said:

I really wish I'd stuck with languages at school instead ditching them early doors. I've often thought over the years about trying to learn a new language, but never really had a specific reason or impetus to do so as I've never lived abroad or worked in a job that required other languages.

However, my current girlfriend is French and is fully bilingual. Spurred on by lockdown boredom around this time last year, I've really been making a concerted effort to teach myself French as best I can. Not gonna lie, at 39 years young and with a busy and tiring work life, progress isn't exactly breakneck speed!

I have no kids from my first marriage, and my girlfriend and I have no intention of starting a family. But on the very unlikely off chance of that changing, I'd be 100% raising them bilingual.

YouTube Johnny Harris, his thing is maps...anyway he just posted a video last week where he suggested a new way to learn a language. Not your academic grammar correct way but just learn enough to get your point across.  The key is to learn 500 the most commonly used words, just memorised those and start from there.  He has able to learn enough Italian in 3 months to a conversation level by doing this. 

Since he isn’t doing it for a test, his argument is that if he goes to Italy and say “can I get 2  pizza slices for eat?” That is enough to get pizza.  Or if he understand only 8/10 words, he can fill in the blanks and get a idea of what the conversation is about.  He can always ask more question to clarify too.

3 months to learn enough Italian for basic conversation level, I think that’s pretty cool.

Thanks @RaymondLin I'll take a look.  

To be honest my goals are a little loftier than being able to order food and drinks and general "getting around without seeming a total idiot". 

I've never met my girlfriend's family. Firstly a French traffic controller strike scuppered my first trip in Xmas 2019, and then obviously Covid buggered all international travel for me last year. Her family are very rural people in the Ardèche region and, unlike in the big cosmopolitan cities, the rural French barely speak a word of English. My goal is to be able to understand and converse with them in full French by the time i (hopefully!) go there this summer! 

My current method is using the brilliant Duolingo app on my phone - https://www.duolingo.com/ - VERY highly recommended!

I'm also trying to binge watch whatever French language films and TV series I can find on Netflix. I initially started with English subtitles, but have now progressed to watching them with French sous-titres. I do have to pause every now and then to fire up Google Translate for certain words and phrases, but it's definitely helping!

vasselmeyer

CHRISB50 said:

My uncle was a strange one. His dad’s family were all Italian. His paternal grandmother could only speak Italian, so always spoke to him in Italian. He couldn’t respond, but understood what she was saying perfectly. He retained that his whole life. He’d go to Italy on holiday and be able to understand what was being said, but could never respond. I don’t really understand how that works. 

@CHRISB50 That is the difference between active and passive language. I said earlier that my wife only speaks to our kids (now in their mid-20s) in her native language. I've been hearing that language for 25+ years and can understand it really well, but because I never speak it, the words won't come. You have to use a language regularly to build an active vocabulary.

WiresDreamDisasters

Emp_Fab said:

I'm bilingual.  I can talk bollocks and utter bollocks.

You not that good at it tbh, I can speak both of those fluently and I never understand a word you're saying!

EricTheWeary

vasselmeyer said:

Late to the thread, but we made the choice to bring our kids up bilingual. We didn't even think about it. My wife only every speaks to them in her native language and they grew up in England. They're completely fluent and switch instantly, even now they're in their mid-20s.

Also, it's a free A* GCSE and A-level, without even having to study much at all.

My school friends were bilingual English-German but struggled with qualifications in German language as it was so heavily based in grammar. A bit like thinking we can all pass English grammar examinations because we can hold a conversation in the language. 

My attempts at French always very poor, amazes me to meet people who are bilingual as if it’s no effort at all. In the Netherlands pretty much everyone below about 60 has perfect ( American) English and they do whole school years just in English. 

My Romanian colleague speaks Romanian, Hungarian, German and English. She says English is the easiest because the basic grammar is straightforward. She can speak four languages but says French is a nightmare because the grammar does her head in so that made me feel a bit better. 

PolarityMan

It would be mental not to raise your kids bi-lingual if you could. We have 2 families with kids a similar age to my eldest on our little street and both families are raising their kids bi-lingual. I think it's really fascinating to see the language acquisition and it must give them a great advantage in life.

At uni I dated a girl that was raised tri-lingual (french and polish parent but English school) and she basically did an entire degree using stuff she already knew naturally. 

scrumhalf

I grew up in a house where my parents spoke to my brothers and I 50/50 in English and Yiddish. They spoke to each other in Polish when they didn't want us to understand.

Yiddish is a useful second language as, being based on several languages, it seems to have no coherent grammatical rules if its own. And it's great for swearing.