Bilingual Baby!
26 January 2005 15:12 domestic activity, expatica blog, family matters, germany, that's life!Currently, A. and I have no kids, nor are we planning to in the near future. That, however, doesn’t stop me from thinking now and again about what kind of environment our child might grow up in. For as long as we live in Germany where German is the most common language and since English (or “American” some would say) is not only my native language, but what A. and I speak together, our child would have no choice but to grow up in some sort of bilingual environment. What kind of bilingual environment, however, is up to us.
I think that growing up truly bilingual is a magical gift to bestow upon a child and I grieve for the fact that A.’s Greek father never took it upon himself to speak Greek with his children. I find it terribly sad that if his father would have made a conscious decision to do so he could have helped his children become bilingual, but instead A. only knows a few words of Greek. I would hate to deprive my child of such a chance.
I do wonder though, exactly how to successfully help your child become bilingual. I don’t think that exclusively speaking one language at home while living in a country where another is the norm is enough. I have read of many cases where immigrant children learn the country’s language outside the home, but only speak their “mother tongue” at home. Apparently it “works,” but there have also been direct correlations made between this haphazard way of becoming bilingual and poor grades and/or behavior problems. It seems to me that tossing bilingualism around in this manner would hinder, rather than benefit my child.
I have also found many references to what is referred to as the “one parent, one language” method.” This technique is employed by each parent exclusively speaking his or her native language to the child from birth. This seems to be a fairly painless method for the parents and the easiest to employ since it appears that as the child grows, his or her brain automatically adapts and wires itself not only to understand both languages, but eventually think in them as well. However, this method leaves me wondering what language family discussions are conducted in and whether or not it confuses the child to hear his or her parents speaking one language and not the other together.
In our situation, though German is A.’s native language, he will be one of the first to admit that he is more socially adept in English than in German. In addition to that, he finds speaking German around me uncomfortable and has indicated he isn’t sure he could follow this “one parent, one language” method if he was the one that had to speak German! If we lived closer to his parents, I suppose we could easily transfer the German responsibilities to his mother, and I guess that just having German-speaking grandparents would go a long way in the bilingual development of our child, but I have my doubts as to whether or not our child would develop a natural German fluency based on such limited contact.
A. also believes that by merely living in Germany any child of ours would naturally pick up German and, to an extent, I agree. However, by shirking what I see is a bilingual duty to our child, I am afraid he or she would end up in the situation where German was only spoken because he or she had to do it and that I definitely would not want.
I know that quite a few parents living in a bilingual environment read this blog, and I wonder what your feedback on the subject is. As I said, A. and I have no plans for children in the near future, but that doesn’t stop me from realizing what a potentially difficult environment we might be bringing a child into if we don’t thoroughly think the matter over.
26 January 2005 at 16:09
In the case of an American couple I know in Munich, with two daughters, the children both got so much German outside the home (in German school) that now the whole family speaks German, most of the time. The kids are definitely more proficient in German than English.
26 January 2005 at 19:59
Hi! I could write a whole essay here but I’ll try to keep it short. Feel free to e mail me if you want any more information. Anyway, I’m Anglo-Canadian, my husband is German and I’ve been living in Germany for 15 years. We used the OPOL method with our two boys, now 8 and 11 and it worked *really* well for us. I suppose we both could haven spoken English to the kids, but my husband would have felt uncomfortable with that because his English isn’t that great. For us, OPOL seemed like the most sensible method. Some people choose something called ml@home meaning that the minority language (English, in this case) is spoken by both parents at home, while the ML (majority language) parent speaks ML to the kids outside the home. So how do our family conversations work? Well, my husband and I speak only German together, I speak English only to the kids, my husband German only. Kids speak English only to me and German only to Papa. Kids used to speak English to each other but now usually speak German since they are a bit older and in regular German school. Of course they know that I speak German because I do it all the time with other people, but they know that they have to speak English with me because “thems the rules”. We have had absolutely no problems at all and everyone understands everyone else just fine. No confusion whatsoever. As for the question of whether both parents speaking English would have an effect on the child’s German, I’d say it wouldn’t be an issue. There’s a big difference between immigrant families where actual literacy in any language at all may be a problem and families where both parents are very proficient in both languages.
27 January 2005 at 02:45
I hope that, if you two do have children that you raise them to be at least bilingual, it would only benefit them and may open up job opportunities in the future.
Blue
27 January 2005 at 12:16
From my second language aqc classes, I’ve seen plent of evidence of the success of OPOL and of the home language and the outside one. It’s not necewssarily haphazard, provided you define the situations where each language is used. And the younger the better with the languages.
yes if you are using two languages with the child when they are early speakers they will be a little slower to develope competence and to differentiate the languages, but by the time they hit preschool age the two langauges will have hit “normal” levels (this is really at OPOL, a little different if they’ve had nno exposure to the second language before the age of 5 - outside that “critical period” for language devt.) Plenty of literature out there on it. Best really though to do what you’re comfortable with, because it won’t work if you’re loating your methods!
27 January 2005 at 16:45
Me again. Just wanted to add that my children were definitely *not* slower than monolingual children with their language aquisition in either language, so this isn’t a given at all when you’re raising bilingual children. There can be so many reasons for language delay, but bilingualism doesn’t necessarily have to be one of them.
27 January 2005 at 17:43
Having raised two sons to young adulthood, my German wife and I can tell you that the bilingual part was the least of our parental challenges. Here�s the formula: My wife always spoke German, and I always spoke English�it was that simple.
Children raised in a bilingual household hear and understand, from a surprisingly early age, that there are two words for everything, and children are tremendous at the art of the mimic. They hear mom and dad�s language and dialect and eventually begin to copy it.
Reading to kids in both languages is very important! The fringes of doing so can be rewarding. I was amazed to discover just how well my youngest son could read English when I got tired of reading the first Harry Potter installment one night and handed the book over to him. �Your turn.� I said. He began to read in perfect English.
Granted, kids are different. Although my oldest converses in English with me all the time (with an American accent), my youngest prefers to speak German with me, even though I answer him in English. It�s a weird conversation sometimes. We worried about this for a while until we discovered my youngest son talking on the phone with an American cousin in perfect American English! He�s just lazy, not stupid.
Do yourself a favor and don�t buy a bunch of damn books on this subject. You don�t need too. Just let it come natural. You speak English, he speaks German and it will click. Just don�t try to force it.
30 January 2005 at 01:45
Hey, thanks for your comment. I must have liked it a lot, ’cause I link to you now.
I was just thinking about this topic yesterday. I want to become fluent in German, and I would also like to raise my children bilingually. Actually, if my boyfriend has his way, they’ll be trilingual with Latin. But that probably won’t happen. I tell him “go for it,” but something seems impossible about us turning Latin back into a living language. I once heard a story of a child who learned 5 lanauges: one for school, one for mom, one for dad, one for the nanny, and one for something/someone else. Interesting, but the kid was majorly confused.
When I talked to my German advisor, he mentioned that his children were bilingual, and I had been planning to go back and hask him about it. When I do, I’ll blog about it and let you know what I hear.
30 January 2005 at 04:08
We are immigrants living here in the U.S. My husband and I are orginally from the Philippines. When we started to have kids, we knew we wanted them to learn our native language too - Filipino. At home, we speak to them mostly in Filipino. When my son was about 2, I became worried when he did not speak as much as other kids. I thought that our bilingual situation was to blame. But we continued anyway. Now, as a preschooler, he talks nonstop - is proficient both in Filipino & English. I am still amazed at how quickly he switches from one to the other. Sometimes, when we have guests at home and I ask him to do something in Filipino, he turns to our guests and translates for them. His grammar needs improvement of course but don’t all children at this age? I’d say go for it once you do have kids. I have confidence in my kids’ abilities.
30 January 2005 at 18:47
My wife is American and speaks no German, I speak both. We live in California. I always talked German to our daughter for now 7 years. At first she answered in English, but after visiting Germany, the grandparents aso the started to speak German as well. My wife never got around to learning German, so dinner table conversations can be hard. At he moment our daughter is 7 and I realize that she does not learn to read and write German. R&W are a part of being truly bilingual. I think a German school, maybe a weekend school could be a good idea.
At first speaking in a language to your child that no one around you understands is hard. Imagine being at Safeway and yelling “komm sofort her oder du bekommst kein Eis”. Everyone looks at you hearing only the bad guy out of the movies. But after a couple months you don’t worry any more and virtually all people do think that speaking two languages is great.
Having children is great, but do it when you have grown up and know what you do.
02 February 2005 at 02:41
Hello,
I am the son of a chilean mother, a danish father, and have lived in France, the US, and Chile and speak 5 languages, 4 of them fluently. I would tell you it’s more than worth it to try to get your future children to learn as many languages as possible. The benefits of speaking languages increase with the number of languages. For instance, if you speak french and spanish, understanding portuguese of italian is a breeze. German is easier to learn if you already have danish and english fully under control. And so on…
Languages open a lot of doors, make traveling and working in multicultural enviroments easier, and give a lot of insight into other peoples’ cultures and ways of thinking.
I don’t believe studies who claim multilinguism is a factor in diminished social or academic performance. I think the intricacies of growing up in a multicultural marriage have more to do with that, especially when you’re a teenager.
Still, while not a panacea, the benefits of multilinguism far outweigh any drawbacks.
Cheers,
HS.