He is just 3 years and 9 months now. At home we speak our own language. He goes to baby care every day and learn Japanese. His sister is going school and learned Japanese well. Both they always speak in Japanese at home and wherever they are. We also try to teach him english as a third language.
Are these too much load on him?
2006-07-19 14:15:14 · 25 answers · asked by silkyocean 2 in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
No, you are doing the right thing.
As a child you have a narrow window of opportunity (from 0-6) to learn a language the same way you learn your mother tongue. After six, the part of your brain that learns languages that way shuts down and you have to use another part of your brain altogether.
This explains why it is so difficult to learn languages when you are older, yet children do it so easily. This is particularly true of tonal languages such as Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai etc, where if you don't learn it as a child, you will never speak it like a native.
You are giving your child a wonderful gift. I encourage you to research this topic for your own peace of mind.
Regards, B
2006-07-19 15:04:36 · answer #1 · answered by Bethany 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I hope you're getting the idea from the rest of the answers that, not only will it not harm your child at all, but it will help him out a lot! As someone who is a native speaker of English and learned Spanish in high school and college, I wish MY parents had had the language skills to teach me a second language when I was that young!! If that had been the case, I'd be fluent in that second language by now. I speak Spanish fairly well (or at least, I like to think so), but I'm nowhere near fluent. Nor could I ever really attain the same level of fluency that your children will have if you teach them the languages you know when they're at this age. When I have children, I intend to raise them bilingually (at least bilingually, but maybe by then I'll have another language under my belt and I can raise them trilingually).
So, please--PLEASE--teach your children every language you know!! Good luck! :)
2006-07-19 18:44:21 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
It is such a blessing for a young child to be truly bilingual, or multilingual. I was then. And when I got older I really enjoyed it; but I got lazy and lost it.
The hard part is making them keep it up when they become (ugh) teen-agers and know all the answers already.
You can even add German or Spanish phrases in the common English usage, like Gesundheit, or Que Pasa? etc.
If you deny one language or insist on one language that might create a resentment later.
Oh boy, wait until they get to school and meet other ethnics - Fun
2006-07-19 14:24:02 · answer #3 · answered by whoknew 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No it is not too much. Because they are still young their brains are still forming so they can absorb multiple languages. Also, if you ever wonder are they going to speak a mixture (example is starting a sentence in one language and ending it in another) then the answer is no. Children have the amazing ability to sort languages out in their brain based on the sounds of the words.
2006-07-19 14:23:43 · answer #4 · answered by Kate 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Absolutely, no. It's definitely going to be beneficial for him to hear two different languages. It will broaden his mind immensely. He'll be more perceptive to cultural differences. He'll develop an intelligence a child his age wouldn't have if he were monolingual. And if you want to teach him English, too, that's absolutely okay. This is when. Children are fabulous language learners. Do not worry.
I hope you have noticed I don't know how to get more emphatic about it. Definitely go for it. And take your daughter as an example that it's a good thing to do...
2006-07-19 18:10:42 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
It is important that you teach them now while their brains are still in the critical stage for learning language. After a while it will be too late. Even if it causes some temporary confusion, in the end it will be very important that they learned these languages and they WILL thank you for it. Seriously.
2006-07-19 14:24:56 · answer #6 · answered by Stephanie S 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No, actually, I have a story to share about it.
My father has a friend who has a daughter, she grew up with different languages because her dad spoke to her in Spanish, her mom in French, her Grandma in Catalan and she lived in the US, so English was everywhere.
Time passed, and so did the age in which children are suppoused to start speaking. Their parents started to worry and decided to go to the doctor. In there, he explained them that if the girl wasn't speaking, it was because her brain wasn't still able to separate the languages, though she understood all of them perfectly. He (the doctor) asked them to wait and watch and assured them that as long as they continued speaking to her as they used to (The mother in French, the father in Spanish...) there would be no problem.
Now she's about 5 years old and she speaks and understands perfectly the 4 languages.
So, keep it up, I wish I could have been taught languages that way
2006-07-19 19:30:19 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Absolutely okay. The brain forms whatever neural pathways necessary to learn until age seven - then the child must use what they have. Better to create new neural pathways even if they are not going to use the language later in life. They can use the connections for other things too.
2006-07-19 14:20:15 · answer #8 · answered by awakening1us 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A child will just absorb any information fed to his mind. Thus, speaking in two different languages is just okey. The child will be able to learn two languages and it will work to his advantage when already a grown-up.
2006-07-19 14:18:18 · answer #9 · answered by FRAGINAL, JTM 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Exposing him to the languages is enough at this point. He's likely beyond the age where he'll take well to new sound systems, though. It would be great if he were getting the different languages in different contexts, or from different people.
2006-07-19 15:05:15 · answer #10 · answered by Teacher 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋