wales@ucla-cs.UUCP (10/06/84)
The following subject is somewhat hypothetical from my point of view
(since I'm currently single, unattached, uncommitted, etc.), but I'd
still be interested in some feedback on it anyway. It seems to overlap
two subjects (child rearing and natural language), which is why I've
posted it both to "net.kids" and "net.nlang".
I've known several couples who have tried to bring up their children to
be bilingual, in the following manner:
(1) The husband is a native speaker of language X, but also speaks lan-
guage Y reasonably well. Similarly, the wife is a native speaker of
language Y, but also speaks language X reasonably well.
An assumption here is that one or the other language (X or Y) is the
native language of the area where the family lives. Hence, I am ex-
cluding situations in which both parents are immigrants and neither
one speaks the local language adequately.
(2) They have a child.
(3) Each parent speaks ONLY his/her respective native language when in-
teracting with the child. That is, the father speaks to the child
only in language X, while the mother speaks to the child only in
language Y. Since both parents understand both languages, each
would also use his/her native language when talking with the other
in the child's presence.
(4) As a result of all the above, the child ends up being bilingual,
speaking both X and Y with equal fluency.
(a) Since the model for each language has been a native speaker, the
child will acquire a native accent and will have "native" con-
trol of vocabulary and grammar appropriate to his/her age.
(b) Since each parent has interacted with the child using one lan-
guage only, the child will be unlikely to confuse or mix the two
languages (as opposed to a situation in which both parents used
both languages indiscriminately).
This idea sounds reasonable in theory, and I'm sure lots of couples have
tried it -- but does it really work? Specifically:
(1) Have any studies been published on the results of trying this? If
so, could someone supply me with references to articles in journals
or texts?
(2) Has anyone "out there" actually done this with their children? What
were the results? Would you do it again?
(3) Is anyone "out there" the product of such a procedure? Did it work?
(4) Is it really necessary for each parent to use one language all the
time, under all conditions whatsoever, in order not to cause the
child to confuse the two languages or present him/her with an un-
desirable (non-native) model for either language?
(a) Is the child likely to confuse the two languages anyway, even
if each parent is careful to use only one language or the other?
(b) Note that children seem to eventually pick up the native lan-
guage of the area where they live from playmates, school, etc.,
even if the parents speak a different regional dialect of the
language, or even if they speak a different language altogether.
(c) In the interests of parental unity (i.e., both parents present
a consistent, united policy when dealing with the child), it is
probably a good idea for the child to realize that both parents
understand both languages -- and, therefore, that he/she cannot
use either language as a means of keeping a secret from one par-
ent or the other (i.e., none of the "if I tell Mommy in language
Y, Daddy won't know what I said" train of thought). This prin-
ciple can probably be adequately taught by having the parents
use their respective native languages when talking to each other
in the child's presence (i.e., Father talks to Mother in X, and
Mother talks to Father in Y).
(d) How old must the child be before the parents can "relax" the
strictness of the above regimen? (Presumably, if they stopped
too soon, the child's previous exposure to the language not
native to the area might be forgotten.)
(5) For the sake of clarity in discussion only, suppose in the following
points that the father's language (X) is the native language of the
area where the child grows up.
(a) Does the fact that playmates and schoolmates speak only language
X interfere with the child's acquisition or retention of lan-
guage Y?
(b) As the child comes to realize that most people around him do not
speak language Y at all, what will be the effect on the child's
relationship with his/her mother (who has been speaking only
language Y to the child)? For example, if classmates were to
ridicule the child for being "different" (as young children are,
sadly, often prone to do), the child might end up subconsciously
resenting his mother for being the "cause" of his misery.
(c) Will the child be confused when, even though his/her mother uses
language Y, other adult females (e.g., teachers) use language X?
The above situations would probably be similar if the speaker of the
local language were the mother instead of the father -- except per-
haps subpoint (c), since the young child's teacher is probably much
more likely to be a woman than a man (I am speaking realistically,
not chauvinistically, so no flames PLEASE!).
An undercurrent flowing through all the above, of course, is the idea
that it is desirable for the child to gain proficiency in the native
languages of both his parents. Some extreme advocates of the American
"melting pot" philosophy might possibly disagree -- but, in any case,
that's a separate issue altogether.
--
Rich Wales
UCLA Computer Science Department
3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, CA 90024 // (213) 825-5683
ARPA: wales@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA
UUCP: ...!{cepu,ihnp4,trwspp,ucbvax}!ucla-cs!walesreza@ihuxb.UUCP (H. Reza Taheri) (10/08/84)
{}
Rich Wales asks how you can raise a child to be bilingual. His article
is 117 lines long, so I won't quote any part of it. Suffice to say
that it is assumed that one parent's native tongue is X and the other's
is Y. Each parent speaks the other's native language reasonably well
and the family lives in a country where the native language is either
X or Y.
Unfortunately, it does not work that way. I have seen many examples
of children with the above situation and they are not completely
bilingual. The best that can happen is you have a kid whose native
tongue is X and also speaks Y reasonably well.
A child learns a language from two sources, her/his family and the
community s/he lives in. I have seen many kids who to came to the
US without knowing a bit of English and after one (yes one) year you
could not tell that they were not born here.
My mother's native tongue was a flavor of Turkish. I can
understand some Turkish through listening to her talking to her
sisters. On the other hand, my cousins can speak perfect Turkish
since both their parents were native speakers of Turkish.
In short, a kid will speak languages X and Y as well as any native
speaker of X "or" Y if
1- s/he is raised partly where the native language is X and partly
where it is Y,
2- or the native language of "both" her/his parents is X and they use X
exclusively to speak in the house, and they live in a country where
the native language is Y.
If one parent speaks in X and the other parent AND the rest of the
child's world speak in Y, which language do you think s/he will adopt as
her/his first? How well do you think s/he will be in X?
Trilingually yours,
H. Reza Taheri
...!ihnp4!ihuxb!reza
(312)-979-1040llfe@hound.UUCP (L.FENG) (10/08/84)
The other thing that happens is that children learn to understand (listen) to language X, but not speak it. (Assuming that Y is the local language.) This is not all that bad. It is much easier to learn a language in school if you have a prior listening knowledge of it. The limitation is that the range of vocabulary is usually restricted to work/play about the home, and doesn't emcompass things like politics, economics, science. -- From the lunch hour of houxz!llf.
ac4@pucc-h (Tom Putnam) (10/09/84)
I had an interesting experience while vacationing in France
a few years ago. A mother, father, and daughter sat behind
me in a stadium, and I listened to their conversations.
The mother spoke English, the father listened and replied
in French (I speak a little myself), and the daughter listened
to either one and spoke in English. This was the normal
mode of conversation for most of the evening. Occassionally
any one of the three would throw in a phrase or two from their
"other" language.
This supports a point of view which I think many of us may have
experienced when learning a new language: it is much easier
to learn to understand the language than it is to construct
your own phrases (i.e. speak) in a language. (This even applies
to computer languages). You never really learn to speak in a
language unless you actually use it.
--
Tom Putnam
{decvax|harpo|ihnp4|inuxc|seismo|ucbvax}!pur-ee!pucc-h:ac4alan@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Alan Algustyniak) (10/09/84)
Now is probably a good time to dust off the joke which went around the net about a year ago. What does one call a person who speaks three languages? A trilingual What does one call a person who speaks two languages? A bilingual What does one call a person who speaks one language? An American
robison@eosp1.UUCP (Tobias D. Robison) (10/10/84)
A friend of ours was born in Israel and is now a fine teacher of Hebrew in the US. Her children have always been fluent in both English and Hebrew, but she was able to tell, from her older child's use of idioms, that when her daughter was about six years old, she stopped thinking in Hebrew, and instead thought in English while speaking in Hebrew. - Toby Robison (not Robinson!) allegra!eosp1!robison or: decvax!ittvax!eosp1!robison or (emergency): princeton!eosp1!robison
gary@rochester.UUCP (Gary Cottrell) (10/10/84)
> The other thing that happens is that children learn to > understand (listen) to language X, but not speak it. > (Assuming that Y is the local language.) This is not > all that bad. It is much easier to learn a language > in school if you have a prior listening knowledge of it. > > The limitation is that the range of vocabulary is usually > restricted to work/play about the home, and doesn't > emcompass things like politics, economics, science. > -- > From the lunch hour of houxz!llf. I had a friend whose parents only spoke Lithuanian to her (though she lived in an English speaking country). She couldn't understand the other kids on the block, and didn't learn English until she went to school (at about age 6, I guess). She now speaks both fluently and without accent. gary cottrell (allegra or seismo)!rochester!gary (UUCP) gary@rochester (ARPA)
figmo@tymix.UUCP (Lynn Gold) (10/11/84)
My maternal grandmother's mother was an American-born Slovak; her father and most of her older relatives were from Austria-Hungary (now Czechoslovakia). She was sent to a slovak school (where both English and Slovak were spoken and taught), and her parents spoke Slovak to each other. Her mother died when my grandmother was 11, and my great-grandfather decided to only speak English to the children. As a result, my grandmother was competent, but not fluent in Slovak. She told me that her cousins were much more fluent, since they were around Slovak-speaking people all the time, whereas HER father always spoke English around the house. In other words, when one parents speaks X, the other Y, and the country's native language is X, the likelihood of the child picking up Y is mostly a factor of whether or not Y is spoken around them enough. --Lynn Gold ...hplabs!oliveb!tymix!figmo
steiny@scc.UUCP (Don Steiny) (10/12/84)
*** I read a newspaper interview with Berlitz, who is famous for the language courses for businesspeople. He is polylingual. He said when he grew up his mother, father, and grandmother all spoke different languages to him and to their friends. He thought they were all speaking one language and that he had to speak with different accents to get each of them to understand. He says that it was his own personal experience that makes him such a big proponent of total immersion for language teaching. -- scc!steiny Don Steiny - Personetics @ (408) 425-0382 109 Torrey Pine Terr. Santa Cruz, Calif. 95060 ihnp4!pesnta -\ fortune!idsvax -> scc!steiny ucbvax!twg -/
simon@psuvax1.UUCP (Janos Simon) (10/15/84)
[] I have friends in Brazil who speak English at home. Their daughter is fully bilingual. They speak almost exclusively English at home. I also have friends in the US with almost trilingual children: they speak Portuguese and Hungarian, besides English. They were fully trilingual until about age three: now their Portuguese is adequate, but not equal to that of a native speaker, and their Hungarian is marginal. This seems to be directly related to the amount of exposure to each language. There seem to be three periods: a)up to age ~3 (or until substantial contact with peers develops) they will pick up languages with great ease, if they are required in a situation. b)up to about age 10-11: language skills will be mantained only if exercised (although relearning later is easier), and exercised a lot. When one language skill falls behind the other, a strong pressure is needed to make the child - who feels inadequate when using it - to speak it or even to listen. c)older children, who have language skills. maintain them like adults (but also have more difficulty learning new languages). js
wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (10/17/84)
I have often heard that children learn multiple languages easily up to some age, and then the ability usually dwindles (to the level we have [probably] all encountered in studying foreign languages in school). Is this true? If so, what is this magic age? Is there any limit to the number of different languages a child can learn in this early age? (I mean pronunciation and syntax more than vocabulary here -- there's only so much time available to be exposed to different words, anyway.) With regard to the child changing over from thinking in Hebrew to thinking in English, yet speaking Hebrew: Can a person think in more than one language, or will one always take over and become the "base" or dominant thought language? Will Martin USENET: seismo!brl-bmd!wmartin or ARPA/MILNET: wmartin@almsa-1.ARPA
saquigley@watmath.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) (10/23/84)
My parents unsuccessfully tried to raise me as bilingual. My mother is
french, my father english and I grew up in a french environment. Their
main mistake was not to try to get me to speak english from the start.
They decided I should be bilingual when I was 4 at which time my father
decided to speak only english to me (he had been speaking french before)
and i resisted all his attempts to teach me by refusing to speak english
(I don't know why, but I remember understanding what he told me). He
eventually gave up.
Anyway, that was a complete failure. I guess you are all wondering why
I am posting this in english if it was such a failure. Well, we did
move to Canada eventually and I learned english in school as well as on
the streets. I still speak to my father in french, except for his
birthday when he gets a special treat.
All this to say that one thing that MUST be done is to start as soon
as the child is learning otherwise s/he will probably not be interested.
Sophie Quigley
...!{clyde,ihnp4,decvax}!watmath!saquigleysaquigley@watmath.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) (10/23/84)
>Now is probably a good time to dust off the joke which went around the net >about a year ago. > >What does one call a person who speaks three languages? > > A trilingual > >What does one call a person who speaks two languages? > > A bilingual > >What does one call a person who speaks one language? > > An American > > I think the punchline should be: A Canadian (and proud to be one damnit, we won't let those f...ing frogs/anglos tell us how to lead OUR lives!) Sophie Quigley ...!{clyde,ihnp4,decvax}!watmath!saquigley
saquigley@watmath.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) (10/23/84)
>I had an interesting experience while vacationing in France >a few years ago. A mother, father, and daughter sat behind >me in a stadium, and I listened to their conversations. >The mother spoke English, the father listened and replied >in French (I speak a little myself), and the daughter listened >to either one and spoke in English. This was the normal >mode of conversation for most of the evening. Occassionally >any one of the three would throw in a phrase or two from their >"other" language. Arguments in my family are conducted in a similar fashion: both my mother and I do it in french, and my father does it in english (so that he can use some of his favorite swearwords who have no equivalent in french (like "bloody") or other good english colloquiallisms). I also had an english friend who went to french school with me and is living with a french man. She speaks much more french now even though she is english, and I speak much more english now that I live in english canada even though I am french, so we often have discussions, her in french and me in english. Another interesting tidbit I noticed: somehow, somewhere the brain differentiates between the main language and other languages. I noticed this when my parents and I went to spain a few years ago. Both my parents learned spanish in school, but are not very fluent. When it came time to speak spanish, my mother garbled it up with english (her second language), and my father garbled it up with french (his second language). Sophie Quigley ...!{clyde,ihnp4,decvax}!watmath!saquigley
vasudev@decvax.UUCP (Vasudev Bhandarkar) (10/24/84)
While we're on the subject of bilingual children... I must tell you something about kids in Indian cities....like myself. Well, my father was from the Karnataka state, where the language (yes language, not dialect) was Kannada, my mother was from Maharashtra, where the language was Marathi, and they sent me to an English-medium school where the medium of instruction was English (it was generally believed in the big Indian cities that if you dont know English, you're not educated!). That was not all. The Indian government has declared Hindi to be the national language, which means that regardless of what school you go to, the second language taught in the school is Hindi. Now, if you think that's complicated, wait till you hear this: My mother-tongue, the language both my parents speak (otherwise they couldn't get married!!) is Konkani!!!!! So by the time I was six, I could fluently speak four languages, (In India they don't discuss politics, economics, law, etc when they're six years old...gimme a break (-: ) Kids in the big Indian cities (Delhi, Calcutta, Bombay, Madras) routinely learn at least three languages by the time they're in grade school, particularly if they study in English-medium schools. States in India were formed on a linguistic basis, every state has its own language (all languages Sanskrit-bsd) own script, own literature, own culture!! There are twenty states, and twenty "officially recognised" languages. When I graduated from high-school, I had had six years of education in French at the Alliance Franciase de Bombay. From the multi-lingual fingers of, decvax!vasudev Where did I learn to speak English without an accent, you ask? Hollywood, of course! Seen lotsa movies, yeah!
hrs@houxb.UUCP (H.SILBIGER) (10/25/84)
The order in which languages are learned make a definite difference. I learned them in this order: Dutch, French, English, German, Spanish. However, when I learned Spanish, my everyday language was English, although I was and still am equally fluent in Dutch. Now, when I have to translate from French into English, I often have to go through Dutch, while I van translate from Spanish into English without intermediate steps. Herman Silbiger
brennan@iuvax.UUCP (10/26/84)
Re: What age does one lose the ability to learn language easily? Around puberty (12 [probably give or take n years ;-)]). Re: Will two parents speaking two languages create a bilingual child? Probably not. The best way to raise a child bilingually seems to be for the parents to both speak the non-native language (of the child) and let the child learn the naive tongue outside the home. This seems to be the case from my own experience with bilingual friends and from the previous 14 responses I just read. Flame on> So why does the American Education system wait until high school to offer foreign language courses??? I'm all in favor of foreign language teaching in grammar school! From the sadly monolingual fingers of JD Brennan ...!ihnp4!inuxc!iuvax!brennan (USENET) Brennan@Indiana (CSNET) Brennan.Indiana@CSnet-Relay (ARPA)
herbie@watdcsu.UUCP (Herb Chong, Computing Services) (10/28/84)
Some schools in Canada offer the option of learning in either official
language. In Calgary, where my little brother goes to school, he had the
choice of going to a school that was French-only. My parents decided
against it (though I can't imagine why). I know that I only spoke
Cantonese until I started Grade 1, but I picked up English quickly.
A third language is easier in high school than a second, so I had no real
problem picking up enough French to get by. It's been years since I've had
to use it, so I can ony read enough to get by, but I think with a few
months in Quebec, I could be fluent. Is it my imagination, or is in only
in English speaking countries where they don't bother to teach any other
language throughout the education system? My impression of Europe is that
at least 80% of the people there can make themselves understood in English,
whereas most who call English their mother-tongue couldn't do the same in
any other language if their life depended upon it.
Herb...
I'm user-friendly -- I don't byte, I nybble....
UUCP: {decvax|utzoo|ihnp4|allegra|clyde}!watmath!watdcsu!herbie
CSNET: herbie%watdcsu@waterloo.csnet
ARPA: herbie%watdcsu%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa
BITNET: herbie at watdcs,herbie at watdcsuberry@zinfandel.UUCP (Berry Kercheval) (10/31/84)
In article <7100006@iuvax.UUCP> brennan@iuvax.UUCP writes: > >Flame on> So why does the American Education system wait until > high school to offer foreign language courses??? > I'm all in favor of foreign language teaching in grammar > school! > Well, MY first lessons in French were in second grade, in Oklahoma of all places. -- Berry Kercheval Zehntel Inc. (ihnp4!zehntel!zinfandel!berry) (415)932-6900