There was a time when being multi-lingual was the norm for many, especially Jews. That's why there were always some Jews in the ships that explored the great oceans, like in Columbus's crew.
The more languages a person knows, the easier it is to understand and learn newer ones. And the younger a person is when he/she learns, the easier it is.
When a child is exposed to multiple languages from day one, they are part of his/her speech, basic linguistic development, not "extra" languages.
Just like the medical experts who interfered so in infant feeding that few babies since the twentieth century are given mother's milk until old enough to eat regular food, modern educators and speech therapists made all sorts of rules and charts and insisted that it's "too difficult" for a baby or young child to absorb multiple languages, creating a mono-lingual society.
Suddenly, multilingualism became a rarity. The children of multilingual parents who grew up hearing only one language only found learning a second language in school impossibly difficult.
When I was growing up in mid-twentieth century U.S.A., learning a foreign language was considered "only for the brightest." It was rare to be exposed to a foreign language until high school. When that's the case, it is hard to learn a second language.
It's easiest and best to make sure children grow up on more than one language. It's a painless way of learning. The brain develops in a more flexible way, making it easier to learn more and more languages.
Don't listen to the "experts" who claim that it's best to perfect one before learning another. They're wrong. Even children of lower than average intelligence can be bilingual if that's what they're exposed to.
My five kids all had different patterns in their early speech development. My oldest kids heard mostly English and just a bit of Hebrew when we were out. The younger ones heard mostly Hebrew, except from me. At times they "stopped" using English and only spoke Hebrew to me, but by adolescence they were all bilingual.
9 comments:
I agree- start early! I spoke English to my kids from the day they were born (actually, while they were still in utero :-). My husband has always spoken to them in Hebrew. They are all completely fluent in both languages (I'm jealous!)- and speak English without a trace of Israeli accent.
"Even children of below-average intelligence"
I know several children with Down syndrome who are bi-lingual.
Since many European families are bilingual, Downs Ed did a good look at 2 languages, and this is what they came up with. (I suspect it would apply to any child who is not brillient.)
-2 languages is OK
-Better if each person the child talks to sticks to one specific language
- Any child with poor memory skills should CENTER on one language, preferably that he needs for school/everyday life
- Any speech therapy should be done in that language
-second language can be introduced with songs, ditties. See how it goes.
RR, yes, anything from birth is natural and easy.
RM, when you think of it as "expanded vocabulary" and not something to "be introduced," it's more successful.
Of course, if you change countries, you do have to teach the additional language. Songs, especially with hand motions, are a great introduction, and it's best to start before the move, so the sounds are familiar.
My daughter, Maya, is , I could say, almost tri-lingual. She is three years old and speaks Romanian and Hebrew fluently (well, in Romanian her vocabulary is more developed, maybe because I started talking to her in Romanian after she was born). But she is exposed a lot to English, TV, books, games, computer, songs, DVDs so she knows English too. She knows her ABC and also her aleph bet and she never had problems distinguishing between the languages. She knows with whom she needs to speak which language.
AHL, that's really great! By exposing Maya to so many languages, you're giving her an irreplaceable gift.
Great and useful reminder for those who might have worries about multi-linguism.
When in doubt, use more languages, even if they're just songs. It's amazing what kids can learn.
Childhood is only the time or the first step when a child begins his/her steps towards the future. It is truly appreciative to make the child to learn language immersion from the birth onwards because it is said that the child sstarts learning new things since when it is in the mother's embryo. As in mahabharat there is one character named 'Abhimanyu" who learned how to cross the seven khothas in his mother's stomach only. This is a really nice method to develop the childs brain and personality.
Whether we think of ourselves teaching or not, the embryo hears.
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