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When kids have to juggle with more than one language, their initial learning is slower than kids who learn only one. Eventually that difference disappears, but
by dorfsmay 9y ago
When kids have to juggle with more than one language, their initial learning is slower than kids who learn only one. Eventually that difference disappears, but that could explain the fear of the parents when they initially see their kids developing in the local language slower than their age-peers.
- spikej 9y agoFor me it's a different angle: it's so I can understand what my toddler wants! We've been teaching ASL (and thus English) since she was 6 months old. This is not our native tongue. But even at 2 now, it's very difficult to understand a lot of what she's saying. Having her sign along makes it somewhat easier, but it's still a guessing game. At this age, her speech and signs aren't always very clear. Having an even larger vocabulary in another language would make it even harder to guess what she wants! We'll start teaching her our native tongue as she gets a little bit older.