Comments on: Even More Reasons to Raise Bilingual Kids: The Latest Studies

By: Roseelva Stevens

Roseelva Stevens — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 03:39:42 +0000

I raised two bilingual children and they succed in school with good grades took additional spanish classes in school and went on attend college. They both have found the they being bilingual has made a difference in their employment. I taught ESL in the 70’s to spanish speaking children and their parents. The children went on to do quite well in their classrooms and keeping their spanish language and heritage.

By: Carrie_in_TN

Carrie_in_TN — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 18:59:49 +0000

Anybody who says learning two languages at once will slow language acquisition needs to meet my Cotorra. Glad new studies are debunking that myth.

By: Roxana

Roxana — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 01:24:44 +0000

Congratulation on raising a bilingual child, John! And thanks for visiting!! You’re totally right, your son is a very lucky boy and yes, it is amazing how quickly they learn!!

Good luck and congrats on becoming fluent in Chinese yourself! That’s no easy task!!

By: Danielle

Danielle — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 06:02:26 +0000

another point – I have taught a student whose heritage language was French. By late primary, she was refusing to speak any french and chose to study indonesian at high school. By the time I met her (Year 10 – approx 15 years old) she was refusing to try in Indonesian, and still refusing to speak French. How do I ensure that my little girl (now 15 months) loves languages rather than hating them? Aduh! Saya bingung!

By: Danielle

Danielle — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 05:58:45 +0000

Thanks for this – very timely for me. Our problem – both my husband and myself have English as our first language, but I can speak Indonesian reasonably well and bits of French. My husband doesn’t speak Indonesian, and has less French than me – I don’t want him to be left out of discussions with our daughter so haven’t been using Indonesian or French with her so far (other than songs and occasional words). To add to the mix – my mother also can speak indonesian. So … Indonesian & English? French & English (would be hard work for both hubby and me) or all 3? or just English?

By: John Biesnecker

John Biesnecker — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 22:02:06 +0000

I like the “because sometimes a word sounds better in a particular language” line — I know exactly how you feel.

This is a great blog. My wife is Mongolian Chinese, and I’m American. Her parents are native Mongolian and Mandarin speakers, but she grew up never learning Mongolian. My parents are monolingual, and over the last seven or so years I’ve pushed my Chinese up to fluency.

We have a 13-month old in the house now, and it’s amazing how quickly he’s learning. He already can understand quite a bit in both languages, and the his first word (‘ba ba’ — ‘daddy’ in Mandarin) has been followed by several in both English and Mandarin. The kid’s so lucky — he’s going to have better English than my wife and better Chinese than me in about two more years