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> “There is certainly no research to suggest that children need to have languages lined up with speakers or they get confused.” This goes against the mantra th

> “There is certainly no research to suggest that children need to have languages lined up with speakers or they get confused.” This goes against the mantra that each parent should speak to their child in their native language, which I hear all the time but I've always thought was complete bs. As parents we're both fairly proficient in each other's language and speak to our children in both languages depending on context. I find the "rule" that you speak to your child in your native language to actually be very bad because it artificially splits conversations across languages, and also gives the kid the impression that you should speak your native language, whereas the whole point is that they should be comfortable speaking any language.

kalleboo 9y ago
I think the anecdotes I've mostly heard use that tactic as a way of forcing the kid to speak both languages - "with mom you speak this language, with dad you speak this one" - otherwise the kid will be exposed to both languages but will gravitate to only speaking one. This is what happened to me when I grew up, living in the US my parents would speak Swedish at home, but I'd pretty much just speak English all the time and when we moved to Sweden I had a lot of work catching up. It was still all in there somewhere since I had been exposed to it, but I would never have become bilingual if we hadn't moved back to Sweden to force the issue.
- shioyama 9y ago
  Even so, I find "forcing" a kid to speak a language via any sort of artificial "rules" (i.e. one language with one parent, etc) is counter-productive, and can have potentially negative consequences if the kid learns to dislike a language. My rule of thumb is we never force our kids to speak one language or another, we just try to give them opportunities and motivations to do so. Going to a different country happens to be a particularly effective one, although obviously not feasible for everyone. I am also ok with the possibility that they will not speak my native language (English) very well. I think if as a parent you are not okay with that possibility, you will end up putting undue burden on the kids and probably make things worse in the end. Just my two cents.
pbhjpbhj 9y ago
Ah, see that idea makes sense to me - that a context allows the languages to be differentiated. When you speak different languages to your children do you use the exact same accent? Do you just mix the words up within a sentence, use grammar structures from one language in the other, etc? How, in your estimation, do the kids know which language a word belongs to at the point they hear it first, or so they learn that later - do they ever mix speech accidentally (can you tell if they do this if you're doing things syncretically)?
- shioyama 9y ago
  The younger one is only a toddler - but the older one certainly mixes words from each language (Japanese/English). Sometimes he doesn't know at first which language a word is from, and only learns later. I don't really think any of that really matters very much though, honestly. People think of languages as distinct, separate things, but in practice I find that our brains treat them more as collections of words and ideas. If you listen to kids who are bilingual in the same pair of languages, you often see that they freely mix words from both - which is fine since they both understand both. I do this sometimes as well. The most important thing is learning those collections of words an ideas through exposure. For kids, I find the ideal is to speak with other kids. Speaking with parents/adults is good too, but (as I said) it should be natural and not forced.
Oletros 9y ago
Perhaps it's anecdotic but here we I live almost nobody changes language when speaking to a certain person, always we use the first language we talked to that person. I come from Spanish speaking parents, but half of my family spoke Catalan and my wife is Italian. I speak always in Catalan to my son, he speaks always to me in Catalan, my wife talks to my son in Italian and he talks in Italian to her. I spoke in Spanish to her. And the usual thing is change language in the middle of the speak when we change interlocutor. So I can start in Spanish if I look to my wife and end in Catalan when I look at my son. My friends to the same changing from Catalan to Spanish depending who they are looking at.

kalleboo 9y ago

I think the anecdotes I've mostly heard use that tactic as a way of forcing the kid to speak both languages - "with mom you speak this language, with dad you speak this one" - otherwise the kid will be exposed to both languages but will gravitate to only speaking one. This is what happened to me when I grew up, living in the US my parents would speak Swedish at home, but I'd pretty much just speak English all the time and when we moved to Sweden I had a lot of work catching up. It was still all in there somewhere since I had been exposed to it, but I would never have become bilingual if we hadn't moved back to Sweden to force the issue.

shioyama 9y ago
Even so, I find "forcing" a kid to speak a language via any sort of artificial "rules" (i.e. one language with one parent, etc) is counter-productive, and can have potentially negative consequences if the kid learns to dislike a language. My rule of thumb is we never force our kids to speak one language or another, we just try to give them opportunities and motivations to do so. Going to a different country happens to be a particularly effective one, although obviously not feasible for everyone. I am also ok with the possibility that they will not speak my native language (English) very well. I think if as a parent you are not okay with that possibility, you will end up putting undue burden on the kids and probably make things worse in the end. Just my two cents.

pbhjpbhj 9y ago

Ah, see that idea makes sense to me - that a context allows the languages to be differentiated. When you speak different languages to your children do you use the exact same accent? Do you just mix the words up within a sentence, use grammar structures from one language in the other, etc? How, in your estimation, do the kids know which language a word belongs to at the point they hear it first, or so they learn that later - do they ever mix speech accidentally (can you tell if they do this if you're doing things syncretically)?

shioyama 9y ago
The younger one is only a toddler - but the older one certainly mixes words from each language (Japanese/English). Sometimes he doesn't know at first which language a word is from, and only learns later. I don't really think any of that really matters very much though, honestly. People think of languages as distinct, separate things, but in practice I find that our brains treat them more as collections of words and ideas. If you listen to kids who are bilingual in the same pair of languages, you often see that they freely mix words from both - which is fine since they both understand both. I do this sometimes as well. The most important thing is learning those collections of words an ideas through exposure. For kids, I find the ideal is to speak with other kids. Speaking with parents/adults is good too, but (as I said) it should be natural and not forced.

Oletros 9y ago

Perhaps it's anecdotic but here we I live almost nobody changes language when speaking to a certain person, always we use the first language we talked to that person. I come from Spanish speaking parents, but half of my family spoke Catalan and my wife is Italian. I speak always in Catalan to my son, he speaks always to me in Catalan, my wife talks to my son in Italian and he talks in Italian to her. I spoke in Spanish to her. And the usual thing is change language in the middle of the speak when we change interlocutor. So I can start in Spanish if I look to my wife and end in Catalan when I look at my son. My friends to the same changing from Catalan to Spanish depending who they are looking at.