Babies are born with the ability to distinguish and make sounds in any language. This ability never goes away, but diminishes with age. That’s the reason why adult immigrants who take up the community language will end up speaking it very well, but won’t be able to shake off their accent.

Older children and adults have to deal with higher expectations and more challenging social situations. With a two year old child, you may repeat a word many times over the course of days/weeks and still squeal in delight when s/he repeats it in the correct context.

Not so with grown children and adults. A first formal language class will list 50-100 new words, which you’ll be expected to unceremoniously learn for the next day’s class.

Another benefit of starting early, is that there are many chances for one on one interaction. It enables the parent to maintain a fun, effective and intense learning experience, without the pressure and distractions of high expectations.

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A quick follow-up note on Adrianne’s recent post in the discussion board, on how to get your child connected, when you’re away from your home community.

How do you find language play groups in your area?  Here are a few ideas.

Type “Playgroup” in the community search box on craigslist.com.  If you get too many hits, try adding your preferred language. Enter your zip code at playgroupsusa.com (please let me know if there are other int’l sites.) Ask the director at a local preschool, your child’s pediatrician, your librarian, etc. Hook up with the local chapter of the Moms Club. Finally, if there’s really nothing in your area, consider forming your own group.  Post a notice in the public library’s community board and set up a date.  Thank you for your note Adrianne!

 

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As with any worthwhile objective, your actions today will determine the outcome tomorrow.

Carey Myles, author of “Raising Bilingual Children”, makes a great point: “Set goals for yourself, dream for your child.” Achieving proficiency in multiple languages for your child is dependent on your actions and goals that you set for yourself.  In other words – set a goal and act to achieve it, without damaging your child.

Take a moment and visualize your child in the future.  Will she be able speak a secondary language, or will she just understand it?  Will he have reading skills, or verbal proficiency only?  Will she have native-like accent and proficiency, or only basic competence?

Is your goal ambitious?  Do you have the right resources at your disposal?  It boils down to time, people and money:

Time: research shows it takes 2 ½ hours or more of exposure to a language per day to gain... Read More »

From Multilingual Mania, a valuable book summary / review of Virginie Raguenaud's Bilingual by Choice.  Enjoy!

Research has unambiguously shown that multi-lingual children have an edge throughout their life. But for parents, it requires much planning, effort and dedication while juggling many other priorities. BLINGuals as an online forum and support network for parents who sometimes find themselves swimming against the tide when communicating with children in multiple languages. What’s new for May on facebook and BLINGuals.com?

A number of recent notes, such as dealing with children who won’t respond in a designated language and six things to keep in mind when getting started. Based on your feedback, a number of new questions in the survey. Feel free to visit it and check out the results. Free Stuff area, with down-loadable activity books and flash cards in English. Bilingual Flash Cards are now available in 14 languages. New for May: Greek, Japanese, Korean and Thai. More coming soon. Feedback, comments? Would be great to hear from you.

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