(ELI5) when babies are raised with bilingual families, are they learning it as just one jumbled language, or as two separate languages?

Question

Also would it become difficult to discern and seperate them when they join school for example, and interact with people that only speak one

In: 37

Answer 1

When i was growing up in hongkong i spoke 4 languages, i didnt realize they were different languages. I just spoke to my Aiee in one way (Tagalog) my parents in another way (English) my teachers in one way (Mandrin) and strangers in one way (Cantonese)

In my head it was more about the person i was talking too, rather than the words themselves, like saying “cat” casually, “kitty” to little kids, or “feline” academically. The words are different, but the meaning is the same, you just use the different word depending on who youre talking to.