(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

They are learning to recognize the phonemes (the sounds) of each language, and will eventually be able to put it together as far as understanding meaning and speaking goes. They are learning 2 separate languages, and they will be able to think in 2 languages. Bilingual/multilingual children have serious advantages:)