3 ms·

I was really taken aback by the first line. For context, I'm trilingual (used to be bilingual). I grew up near Boston. A quarter of the kids in my class were

I was really taken aback by the first line. For context, I'm trilingual (used to be bilingual). I grew up near Boston. A quarter of the kids in my class were bilingual. I don't know how many had native proficiency in their non-English language, but I'm guessing most. So I thought maybe "true" bilingualism was some hard to attain thing that none of us had. Nope, it just means "native proficiency". AIUI that's a relatively common thing, even in the US, at least in urban areas. And definitely in other countries. There probably was some local skew in this sample set, but from what I can tell this is definitely not abnormal in cities. The article seems to be mostly written in the context of unilingual parents who want a bilingual child.

GuiA 9y ago
> The article seems to be mostly written in the context of unilingual parents who want a bilingual child. Yes. The core target audience of the article is likely unilingual families who will put their kid in French/Chinese/whatever classes to give them a leg up for Harvard admissions, 15 years later (or, in the NYTime's subtle language: "parents who want to give their kids a bilingual boost"). Obviously if the kid only speaks the language in the context of a classroom, true fluency will never be reached. In a realistic context, true multilingualism is very achievable, and not particularly exceptional throughout most of the world as many other commenters have pointed out.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  >In a realistic context, true multilingualism is very achievable, and not particularly exceptional throughout most of the world as many other commenters have pointed out. // Implicitly you appear to suggest multilingualism is easy to achieve in [almost] all contexts? Where parents are monolingual, and the pervading culture is monolingual then there's little opportunity for immersion and few people from whom to learn.
macNchz 9y ago
I think what the article meant by 'truly' bilingual was someone not only fluent in speech but with equivalent vocabulary, grammar etc in two languages. I'd guess that the kids you knew growing up were speaking english in school and another language at home, so they likely don't develop the vocabulary and grammar in their 'home' language that they might have if they were studying it every day in school. From the article regarding kids from bilingual homes who speak english in school: "... they didn’t go to school in Spanish, they don’t read books in Spanish, and when you actually measure the size of their vocabularies, or the grammar they understand, or the coherence of the narrative they produce, they are not as proficient as they are in English".
- Manishearth 9y ago
  Well, yeah, but the rest of the article doesn't seem to use that definition of "true" bilingual? Because it just talks about immersion with native speakers. Either the article didn't deliver as advertised -- had a hook about "true" bilingualism (whatever that is), and then went on to explain how to raise a "regular" bilingual child. Or the article really just meant "regular" bilingualism and wrong in stating that it is rare. (Or perhaps I just have a very skewed sample set and even "regular" bilingualism is rare) Idk. Overall this article didn't sit well with me, for more reason than one (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14830685 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14830685).

GuiA 9y ago

> The article seems to be mostly written in the context of unilingual parents who want a bilingual child. Yes. The core target audience of the article is likely unilingual families who will put their kid in French/Chinese/whatever classes to give them a leg up for Harvard admissions, 15 years later (or, in the NYTime's subtle language: "parents who want to give their kids a bilingual boost"). Obviously if the kid only speaks the language in the context of a classroom, true fluency will never be reached. In a realistic context, true multilingualism is very achievable, and not particularly exceptional throughout most of the world as many other commenters have pointed out.

pbhjpbhj 9y ago
>In a realistic context, true multilingualism is very achievable, and not particularly exceptional throughout most of the world as many other commenters have pointed out. // Implicitly you appear to suggest multilingualism is easy to achieve in [almost] all contexts? Where parents are monolingual, and the pervading culture is monolingual then there's little opportunity for immersion and few people from whom to learn.

macNchz 9y ago

I think what the article meant by 'truly' bilingual was someone not only fluent in speech but with equivalent vocabulary, grammar etc in two languages. I'd guess that the kids you knew growing up were speaking english in school and another language at home, so they likely don't develop the vocabulary and grammar in their 'home' language that they might have if they were studying it every day in school. From the article regarding kids from bilingual homes who speak english in school: "... they didn’t go to school in Spanish, they don’t read books in Spanish, and when you actually measure the size of their vocabularies, or the grammar they understand, or the coherence of the narrative they produce, they are not as proficient as they are in English".

Manishearth 9y ago
Well, yeah, but the rest of the article doesn't seem to use that definition of "true" bilingual? Because it just talks about immersion with native speakers. Either the article didn't deliver as advertised -- had a hook about "true" bilingualism (whatever that is), and then went on to explain how to raise a "regular" bilingual child. Or the article really just meant "regular" bilingualism and wrong in stating that it is rare. (Or perhaps I just have a very skewed sample set and even "regular" bilingualism is rare) Idk. Overall this article didn't sit well with me, for more reason than one (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14830685 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14830685).