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i grew up with some people who spoke 2 languages pretty poorly (english and chinese). they essentially had bad grammar and accents in both languages. i know f

i grew up with some people who spoke 2 languages pretty poorly (english and chinese). they essentially had bad grammar and accents in both languages. i know for a fact their parents made them speak chinese at home. unfortunately, by the end of college (i.e. entering the real world where linguistic skills really count), they hadn't improved much if at all. it's almost as if they had a 'total lingistuic aptitude cap' and it was spread out among two languages. i bet if they chose to stick to one language, they'd speak it better.

thedavinci2000 11y ago
Sounds like something a monolingual would say/snark Anecdotes are just that. I know plenty of people that can dominate two languages fluently. Recently read a study where a stroke patient can recover faster if multilingual or that dementia can be kept at bay longer.
- cryptotype 11y ago
  Regarding fluency, bilinguals and monolinguals often have often have similar total vocabulary sizes, but bilinguals tend to have a significantly smaller vocabulary in each language.[1, 2] In other words, vocabulary size(L1, monolingual) ~= size(L1 + L2, bilingual), and size(L1, monolingual) < size(L1, bilingual). 1. Portocarrero et al. (2007). http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0887617707000224 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0887617707... 2. Gatt et al. (2015). http://ijb.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/03/13/1367006915572399.abstract http://ijb.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/03/13/136700691557...
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- beachstartup 11y ago
  > Sounds like something a monolingual would say/snark how do you think i knew they had poor grammar in both languages? most people can't even speak or write a single language well, of course a huge number of people of average intelligence/aptitude who are forced to speak two languages are going to be terrible at both. how many people can 'dominate' their native tongue? not many.
limaoscarjuliet 11y ago
I am fully bilingual and know quite a bit of a third language. Given I have learned my second language fairly late in life - around 16 - I do have some accent. But I do not mess up grammar in a way that would make your ears or eyes bleed. Or so I think ;-) I have two kids that we raised with two languages since birth. And now the interesting part: - daughter is fully bilingual, native speakers of both languages cannot tell she is not native, - son has some handicap in one of the languages. I really think it goes the other way - having some cognitive advantage will allow you to be bilingual 100% and not the other way around. This is why my daughter can pull this stunt and my son not so much.
- BatFastard 11y ago
  It may go back to women have strong executive functions them men generally do. Both my kids are learning Chinese, but my daughter is much better at pronunciation then is my son. For that I credit her ability to sing.
sbilstein 11y ago
What even is speaking better? I grew up bilingual, mostly speaking Spanish at home and English at school. I think growing up with a different language can be a disadvantage if the children don't spend lots of time reading and learning English but fortunately my parents encouraged that heavily. One thing being a bilingual speaker taught me and having older family members with differing grasps of the English language was not to ascribe too much value to 'correct' grammar or pronunciation. People who are well spoken English speakers have a way of seeming intelligent regardless of actual aptitude and it's easy to dismiss someone with syntax that is unusual or cobbled together from different languages. I rarely if ever work with Latino engineers, but working with lots of Chinese nationals, it has been easy for me to ignore their grammar mistakes and diction choices and focus on the underlying message of what they are saying. For that I'm grateful. Grammar snarkiness is one of the most useless traits of English speakers I've encountered in my adult life. It's funny when Americans claim that British people just 'sound smarter' when British people are just that: British. Same with bad grammar sounding less intelligent, it's not actually any less intelligent as long as it still communicates the message.
- vinay427 11y ago
  There's certainly a stigma in the US that affects non-native speakers of English. It reminds me of this post that was upvoted a week or so ago: http://antirez.com/news/61 http://antirez.com/news/61 I'm not sure I agree that grammar proficiency is not an indicator for intelligence, however. In my mind it's an aspect of intelligence, but one that is irrelevant when talking about science, math, or a variety of other fields.
  - cryptotype 11y ago
    Grammar is absolutely relevant in science, math and various other fields. Noone wants to have to parse ungrammatical documentation or scientific papers. It's certainly possible to get by in STEM with poor grammar, but it is harder to excel that way. Grammar below a certain threshold impedes natural language communication, which is important even in technical fields.

thedavinci2000 11y ago

Sounds like something a monolingual would say/snark Anecdotes are just that. I know plenty of people that can dominate two languages fluently. Recently read a study where a stroke patient can recover faster if multilingual or that dementia can be kept at bay longer.

cryptotype 11y ago
Regarding fluency, bilinguals and monolinguals often have often have similar total vocabulary sizes, but bilinguals tend to have a significantly smaller vocabulary in each language.[1, 2] In other words, vocabulary size(L1, monolingual) ~= size(L1 + L2, bilingual), and size(L1, monolingual) < size(L1, bilingual). 1. Portocarrero et al. (2007). http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0887617707000224 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0887617707... 2. Gatt et al. (2015). http://ijb.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/03/13/1367006915572399.abstract http://ijb.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/03/13/136700691557...
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beachstartup 11y ago
> Sounds like something a monolingual would say/snark how do you think i knew they had poor grammar in both languages? most people can't even speak or write a single language well, of course a huge number of people of average intelligence/aptitude who are forced to speak two languages are going to be terrible at both. how many people can 'dominate' their native tongue? not many.

limaoscarjuliet 11y ago

I am fully bilingual and know quite a bit of a third language. Given I have learned my second language fairly late in life - around 16 - I do have some accent. But I do not mess up grammar in a way that would make your ears or eyes bleed. Or so I think ;-) I have two kids that we raised with two languages since birth. And now the interesting part: - daughter is fully bilingual, native speakers of both languages cannot tell she is not native, - son has some handicap in one of the languages. I really think it goes the other way - having some cognitive advantage will allow you to be bilingual 100% and not the other way around. This is why my daughter can pull this stunt and my son not so much.

BatFastard 11y ago
It may go back to women have strong executive functions them men generally do. Both my kids are learning Chinese, but my daughter is much better at pronunciation then is my son. For that I credit her ability to sing.

sbilstein 11y ago

What even is speaking better? I grew up bilingual, mostly speaking Spanish at home and English at school. I think growing up with a different language can be a disadvantage if the children don't spend lots of time reading and learning English but fortunately my parents encouraged that heavily. One thing being a bilingual speaker taught me and having older family members with differing grasps of the English language was not to ascribe too much value to 'correct' grammar or pronunciation. People who are well spoken English speakers have a way of seeming intelligent regardless of actual aptitude and it's easy to dismiss someone with syntax that is unusual or cobbled together from different languages. I rarely if ever work with Latino engineers, but working with lots of Chinese nationals, it has been easy for me to ignore their grammar mistakes and diction choices and focus on the underlying message of what they are saying. For that I'm grateful. Grammar snarkiness is one of the most useless traits of English speakers I've encountered in my adult life. It's funny when Americans claim that British people just 'sound smarter' when British people are just that: British. Same with bad grammar sounding less intelligent, it's not actually any less intelligent as long as it still communicates the message.

vinay427 11y ago
There's certainly a stigma in the US that affects non-native speakers of English. It reminds me of this post that was upvoted a week or so ago: http://antirez.com/news/61 http://antirez.com/news/61 I'm not sure I agree that grammar proficiency is not an indicator for intelligence, however. In my mind it's an aspect of intelligence, but one that is irrelevant when talking about science, math, or a variety of other fields.
- cryptotype 11y ago
  Grammar is absolutely relevant in science, math and various other fields. Noone wants to have to parse ungrammatical documentation or scientific papers. It's certainly possible to get by in STEM with poor grammar, but it is harder to excel that way. Grammar below a certain threshold impedes natural language communication, which is important even in technical fields.