4 ms·

How Bilingual Babies Sort Out Language

26 points by Jun8 15y ago

Jun8 15y ago
My four year-old son is bilingual and he is also learning Mandarin songs and some words in his daycare. Although I have read about the incredible ability of young children to learn up to 5 languages at a time in many linguistics courses, I'm still totally amazed. From my cursory observations, it seems like learning the words is te easy part, the grammar is harder to acquire. Up to perhaps three years old, when he was talking Turkish to us you could easily understand that the underlying grammar was English, he was just filling the slots with different words. Now, he has both grammars fairly down (he's making the cute verb past tense over-generalization mistake, though, i.e. all past tenses are regular with -ed). His language skills seem to be superior to his friends in both languages. This is one data point, of course), but I think learning 2-3 languages at once is beneficial in language development.
bartonfink 15y ago
It's really fascinating. At 2 months old, my daughter reacted differently when people spoke German around her instead of the English my wife and I primarily speak at home. It's the same reaction when my wife and I speak German to her as well, so she's almost certainly not reacting to "new" people. Now, we're trying to speak bilingually as often as possible (which is hard as hell because neither of us is fluent in German - merely conversational). Hopefully it will stick and our daughter will still get some benefit.
- maaku 15y ago
  It'll stick better if each of you are consistent with the language you use when speaking to her. Even if it's not your native language, one of you make the leap and talk to her only in German (My wife and I are raising our daughter English/Mandarin bilingual.)
ArbitraryLimits 15y ago
A few years ago when I started having kids, my wife and I were friends with a couple whose parents were each second generation American Chinese. The mother's parents' native language was Cantonese, the father's was Mandarin. They wanted their kids to learn their familes' languages, so the mother would speak Cantonese to the children, the father would speak Mandarin, and they figured the kids would pick up English from everyone else. Once their oldest son came up to me and asked for something in (I think) Mandarin. I told him in English, "I can't understand you, what do you want?" and I could almost see the wheels turning inside his head: oh, this guy doesn't know Mandarin, better try Cantonese. So he said something in Cantonese and I said the same thing in English and I think I blew his mind. His eyes got really big and he kind of backed away from me, the way kids do when something's scary and fascinating at the same time, and ran to get his mom. He speaks perfect English now, so I guess it all worked out.

26 points by Jun8 15y ago

Jun8 15y ago

My four year-old son is bilingual and he is also learning Mandarin songs and some words in his daycare. Although I have read about the incredible ability of young children to learn up to 5 languages at a time in many linguistics courses, I'm still totally amazed. From my cursory observations, it seems like learning the words is te easy part, the grammar is harder to acquire. Up to perhaps three years old, when he was talking Turkish to us you could easily understand that the underlying grammar was English, he was just filling the slots with different words. Now, he has both grammars fairly down (he's making the cute verb past tense over-generalization mistake, though, i.e. all past tenses are regular with -ed). His language skills seem to be superior to his friends in both languages. This is one data point, of course), but I think learning 2-3 languages at once is beneficial in language development.

bartonfink 15y ago

It's really fascinating. At 2 months old, my daughter reacted differently when people spoke German around her instead of the English my wife and I primarily speak at home. It's the same reaction when my wife and I speak German to her as well, so she's almost certainly not reacting to "new" people. Now, we're trying to speak bilingually as often as possible (which is hard as hell because neither of us is fluent in German - merely conversational). Hopefully it will stick and our daughter will still get some benefit.

maaku 15y ago
It'll stick better if each of you are consistent with the language you use when speaking to her. Even if it's not your native language, one of you make the leap and talk to her only in German (My wife and I are raising our daughter English/Mandarin bilingual.)

ArbitraryLimits 15y ago

A few years ago when I started having kids, my wife and I were friends with a couple whose parents were each second generation American Chinese. The mother's parents' native language was Cantonese, the father's was Mandarin. They wanted their kids to learn their familes' languages, so the mother would speak Cantonese to the children, the father would speak Mandarin, and they figured the kids would pick up English from everyone else. Once their oldest son came up to me and asked for something in (I think) Mandarin. I told him in English, "I can't understand you, what do you want?" and I could almost see the wheels turning inside his head: oh, this guy doesn't know Mandarin, better try Cantonese. So he said something in Cantonese and I said the same thing in English and I think I blew his mind. His eyes got really big and he kind of backed away from me, the way kids do when something's scary and fascinating at the same time, and ran to get his mom. He speaks perfect English now, so I guess it all worked out.