Also would it become difficult to discern and seperate them when they join school for example, and interact with people that only speak one
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When babies are extremely young and learning the two langauges, it’s a bit of a jumble. But babies will eventually figure out that certain words are grouped with other words. And more important and telling, they’ll figure out that certain grammar is associated with certain words, and not other words.
One of the very common misconceptions about language is that there’s a 1:1 correspondence of words between languages. That is to say, they think that they can hear a word in another language, look it up in a dictionary, and get an equivalent word out, then translate a language that way. And it’s just not true. Grammars can be extremely different.
So, if you get a kid who’s learning say, English and Latin then the kid is going to learn, hey wait. I mark subjects and objects in a totally different way for these words than those words. So… these words follow this set of rules where I need word order to mark subject and object. But then, with these other words, I need to decline the noun, and the sentence word order is much more flexible.
By doing this, kids get an intuitive understanding that there are two languages going on.
I was raised bilingual (my first words were in Spanish).
They are two different languages. I understood this at 3. I spoke English with some people and Spanish with others.
Now, do they get mixed up en mi cabeza? Of course! I forget words in both languages. There are days when I bumble in English and am fluent in Spanish and vice-versa.
This was one of the most valuable gifts I was ever given. And so I have given the same gift to my son.
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My 2 cousins (3 and 6) have a French mum and English dad. They are able to speak to their mum in French, and then turn to me and say ‘oh my mum said xyz’ and translate it for me. Pretty crazy
Grew up with two languages. Primary language until I was in kindergarten was Hungarian, once in school I started speaking english. I had dreams and thoughts in Hungarian up until high school.
I still have oddities in my English language however no accent or other indications that I’m bi(tri if you consider my Spanish) lingual.
Is this a psychological or philosophical distinction?
Two languages, Almost every one in Indian cities is raise bilingual/trilingual, Hind/English/local-state-language.
So from my personal experience: when raising a child billingual it’s important to seperate the languages. My mother only talked Hungarian with me, my dad only German. I am pretty sure that I could seperate the languages pretty early so I would guess they realize pretty fast that these are two different languages.
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:)
I became quad-lingual.. Gujarati, Hindi, Swahili and English but it’s now a “jack of all languages and master of none” type of situation.. born to Gujarati parents in Tanzania, sent to school in India till 4th grade where I learnt to read and write in Gujarati and Hindi along with English. Then moved back to Tanzania to pick up Swahili. Now I can only read Gujarati and Hindi but can’t write after not writing it for years and my English speaking lacks fluency
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