Comments on: Bilingual education

By: Mark Biernat

Mark Biernat — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 09:06:46 +0000

Not at all. I study languages teach languages and am a father of a bilingual daughter myself. It is not too early to start another languages.

The international children I know speak three or more languages without a problem and only adds to their confidence and makes them unique in a positive way. They are less obsessed with silly things teenage girls get caught up into and more using their brain. I know a girl who speaks Polish, Arabic and English another that speaks Polish, Hungarian and English. I know others that speak many more languages. It does not matter as long as it is fun and not a burden for your daughter. These girls survived adolescence better than their peers in my opinion.

Studies show that learning languages young makes your brain more flexible when you are older and you maintain your cognitive function. At age six she still has a chance of being a accent-less native speaker.

There might be a time of struggle but her brain will reorganizes at a higher level and adapt eventually and she will have a unique advantage in life. Better than sent your daughter to Harvard is to have her speaking several languages. Languages are fun and builds confidence similar to playing chess. Watching videos and movies and listening to music in foreign languages opens you up as an adult or a child to another world.

By: cd

cd — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 13:08:04 +0000

I am a greek-american raised in Greece. I attended an american elementary and a greek-american high school. my first degree is from a greek university and my masters from the U.S I am bilingual and I know a bit of french and very little bit of german and italian.

my daughter is almost 6 and she is totally bilingual. I speak english to her, i find american girls to come babysit her and she watches tv mostly in english. she goes to a greek school but they have english every day for bilingual kids. (there is only one more bilingual kid in her class but the rest have also been much exposed to the language) my daughter does not yet know how to read or write yet in either language.

I want her to start learning spanish for a girl who is a native speaker. if she likes it i will also take spanish lessons.

My question is whether it’s too soon for her to start a third language?

By: Mark Biernat

Mark Biernat — Wed, 18 May 2011 06:00:23 +0000

I think it is great you are teaching your son German. But be more of a teacher than a native speaker. That means expose him to as much German native speaker tools and material like YouTube and TV and Children’s books. You can read to him. If you do this it will be fine. I do this with my daughter and Polish. If he hears it for 3 hours and uses it now and then with you no problem. But I think bad grammar is better than no grammar. The more exposure the better do not be afraid to teach him this language.

By: Hannibal

Hannibal — Sat, 14 May 2011 05:37:21 +0000

I speak German fluently, but with like tons of grammatical mistakes, and I am teaching my 2 year old son german, I have 2 questions:
Do you think that it is a good idea for me to teach him? I am afraid that he will inherit my mistakes.
Is it normal that he only knows about 50% of what he knows in Spanish our native language (keep in mind i only see him after work and only when I’ve had a good day) For example he construct sentences using Spanish, or Spanish sentence structure with German words.

By: Mark Biernat

Mark Biernat — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 07:25:27 +0000

This is very good advice. I am impressed. I have meet many Americans in Europe that speak the local language at home and their kids grow up speaking English with an accent and with a weak vocubulary. You need to speak English at home if you are living abroad.
Also watch TV in English as well as Youtube etc.

By: Emilie

Emilie — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 22:47:02 +0000

Hi,
I moved to France at the age of 4 with my family (English being my mother tongue), and went to a French school right from the start. I don’t really remember learning to speak French, it just happened suddenly after appx 3 months. One minute I wasn’t speaking at all, and a few months later I was getting the best marks in the class for French dictation.

At home we always spoke English, and French was practically forbidden. We had English TV, and my dad, an English language teacher, made me follow the English curriculum in the UK. I hated it at the time! Who likes writing essays at the weekend, and reading out loud every night? But it was all worth it – I got an A in English when I sat GCSEs as an external candidate, and am pleased to say that now at the age of 25 nobody can tell whether I am English or French, either when I speak or write, and this landed me a pretty good job

And it doens’t end there: I studied German up until the age of 18, and Spanish at uni. I even spent a year in Spain so my Spanish is pretty fluent. It might sound like I’m boasting, but I don’t give myself any credit for speaking 4 languages. That’s just what happens when you move abroad at the age of 4!

So for anyone out there who might have concerns about their children’s bilinguism, this is what needs to be done:
- move your kids abroad before the age of 5
- send them to a local school
- speak to them in English at home, never in the local language
- only watch TV in English and read books in English
- get your kids to follow the English language curriculum from back home
- and bingo, you have a bilingual kid

By: Mark Biernat

Mark Biernat — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 09:04:34 +0000

Age three is not too late and I am very impressed with your trilingualism. It is never too late to learn a language. I think the optimal time is under the age of 3 but from 3 to 8 there is a lot of opportunity to be perfectly fluent bilingual.
I still think native speaker sounds are formed under the age of 3.

By: da bilingualist

da bilingualist — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 13:35:32 +0000

I am a 22 year old bilingual, I can speak English french and Portuguese. I always spoke Portuguese at home was only majorly exposed to English when I joined school at the age of 3. At the moment I cannot differentiate which of my languages I am better at as I believe i have mastered both of them. The only language I see as second is “French” because I learnt it at a much later age of 12 which I am now close to getting my masters in it. So through personal experience can say that starting a language at the age of 3 is not too late at all. It depends on the intelligence of the child and fundamentally how good of a learner he becomes.

By: Mark Biernat

Mark Biernat — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 05:26:56 +0000

I live in Europe and I meet kids that know 3 or 4 languages no problem. The brain flexible when it is young, if you miss this window of language opportunity, it will take many years to make up for it.
I am a linguist and I think your linguist if wrong. The child might at first be confused a little but begins to create order our of chaos and their brain moves to a much higher level, basically they will be smarter.

By: lisa

lisa — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 03:09:50 +0000

From my eldest daughter who is 12, she was raised with 2 languages at the same time, her father Thai and myself English, but it was recommended by a linguist to not use the 3rd language, Chinese, due to it might confuse the child, so I used mainly tapes and songs. her 3rd language isn’t as developed, difficult to converse, though her accent is much better than mine!

However, with my younger daughter and son, I’m now using all languages, wrong or right pronounciation (not a native Thai or Chinese speaker), and found that the little ones substitute some chinese words into their sentences! and have no trouble with their thai accent, as they are getting that from school and other family members.

little kids brains are like a house, fill it as much as you can when they are young!

Thanks for the post!