To be bilingual, or not to be

That is not the question

This is Olivia, and she will be bilingual! At 15 months, the few words that Olivia says are in Mandarin Chinese, but she prefers her books to be in English. She is being raised in a Mandarin-speaking home, but her daycare is primarily in English. Her parents speak Chinese to her, but when I visit, I speak English, and she no longer cries.

Olivia is just one of the millions of children who are growing up in immigrant families across Canada and the U.S. She isn’t at all unusual in her language experience — the dual language exposure, the use of different languages in different settings by different people, the preference for one language over the other, the fear of strangers that not only look different but sound different too. Olivia and all of these other children don’t have a choice as to whether to be bilingual or not. They are growing up bilingual mainly by necessity. If there is a choice, it is only on their parents’ part.

Bilingual by choice

In my earlier post on this topic, I talked about people, both children and adults, who choose to be bilingual and some of the reasons why they make that choice. Obviously, when an adolescent or an adult immigrates to a new country, they are old enough to understand the reasons for that move. As a result, they are ready to accept the inevitable reality of having to learn a new language too. 

They already have a well-developed first language. Subsequently, they are not worried that learning a new language would jeopardize their abilities in their native language. They are not confused by hearing and speaking two languages. Usually, their only concern, as far as language goes, is whether they could get proficient enough in their new language. They have to get by at work, in the pub, at the doctor’s office, or when discussing the newest art gallery exhibit and whether Kafka had any influence on the artist. That is not a small concern, and I will discuss the topic in greater depth in a later post.

Bilingual by necessity

Here I will focus on the children who don’t have much choice in the matter. Younger children are often plopped (to use the vocabulary that Olivia is mastering with her book) like red apples into the new reality on the ground, among the green grass. Then they are expected to adjust to it whether they like it or not, whether they are capable of it or not. Apples are not oranges, but they are even further away from blades of grass!

If you do a search on the topic of bilingualism, you are bound to find that many of the articles are framed around “busting myths.” In my experience, however, these are not myths at all, but very real challenges for many families . Adding a new language to the daily grind could be confusing and inevitably leads to many questions. So, what are some of these challenges and how to go about overcoming them?

Parent question 1: Will speaking two languages confuse my baby? – No.

Let’s face it. We know that learning a new language is hard! And we know it, because we have lived through it, remember it, and some of us might be still struggling with it. 

Case in point, humour. Jokes are heavily dependent not only on knowing the language but on knowing the culture as well. When I first arrived in Canada, Seinfeld was the most popular comedy show on TV. I could not understand what all the fuss was about. It was the most boring and pointless thing I had ever seen, puffy sleeves and European men-purses included. As for the purses, it didn’t help me any that I actually remember a time when men in Bulgaria carried a small bag. I also thought that it was weird but only because my father did not have one. A couple decades and a few trips to New York City later, I now think that Seinfeld is quite funny, albeit dated.

But I digressed; back to bilingualism. It’s only natural to assume that exposing young children to a new language might confuse them. But rest assured that is not the case, and there is a large body of research evidence to back me up. We know for sure that from an early age, usually sometime in the first year of life, children exposed to two languages are able to handle them well and are not confused by them. For example, research has shown that bilingual children go through the same language milestones and, generally, at the same rate as monolingual children do. They tend to experience the same developmental hiccoughs that are typical of monolingual children too, such as:

• They seems to revert slightly in language abilities for a short period of time. For example, an 18-month-old has begun to put two words together as in “more milk” when she asks for milk, or “kick ball” when she wants you to kick the ball. But then the child gets back to saying only single words to convey the same meanings, those of making a request or giving a direction.
• The child goes through a silent period when he stops talking or talks a lot less than he used to. This event allows him to sort through the language(s) before he can move on.
• The child uses the same word to describe new objects, also known as overgeneralization. For example, if the family dog’s name is Pesho, the child might then refer to other dogs in the neighbourhood as “Pesho.” Eventually, she will realize that “dog” is the more general word that describes the species, and Pesho is the proper name only of her dog.

Because these phenomena are common for both monolingual and bilingual children, they confirm that bilingualism does not “harm” children’s language development. And it does not confuse them either. Quite the opposite! (I discuss the advantages of bilingualism in a later post.)

Parent question 2: But my children mix the two languages when they speak. Is that a bad thing? – No.

When I am on the bus on my way to work, I often hear university students talk in a language that is not English. How do I know that they are students? Although I don’t understand the language they speak, every once in a while I hear the person say “Cognition”, “Hydraulic Engineering”, or “Meet me at the Nest”. Well, let’s just say that I know that the Nest refers to the student union building on campus. It comes with an egg to boot! 

When we speak with another person who we know speaks the same languages, we often switch between the languages. This phenomenon is called code-switching in the field of bilingualism. We usually do it for two main reasons: 

1. Because we can’t remember or don’t know a word or a phrase in the language we currently speak, and we resort to using the word or phrase from the other language. In other words, code-switching is our coping strategy.
2. We are too lazy to translate a word or phrase that is otherwise commonly used in the other language, as in the example I gave with ‘the Nest.’ Or there is simply no equivalent word that we can use instead, as in the example of ‘cognition.’ There is no single word for cognition in Bulgarian. Therefore, it is easier and more efficient to use the English word when speaking Bulgarian, rather than having to explain it. Code-switching is our pragmatic strategy, which allows us to communicate more efficiently.

If you are a bilingual parent who is worried about your children mixing the two languages, focus on your own language use. Notice how often you mix the languages too. It is perfectly normal and quite common. And researchers on bilingualism have spent significant amount of time studying the phenomenon. They have shown convincingly that it is not revealing any weaknesses, but quite the opposite. Code-switching shows how much children have already learned in each language.

If you were unsure before, I hope that by now you are convinced that children can learn two languages at roughly the same time. But for that to occur, certain conditions have to be met. Continue reading to find out what the two most important conditions are.

Parent question 3: I want to raise a bilingual child. Which language should we speak at home and how often? – As often as you can.

This is probably the most common question that parents ask me. And the answer, I’m afraid, is quite simple in principle but hard to put in practice. The simple answer is that the more the child hears a language, the more likely he is to learn it. In other words, the amount of time the child is exposed to a language (quantity of language exposure) determines, in part, how well he will learn the language. So, speak more, and the child will learn more. Simple, right?

Now to the practical difficulties. Most parents are busy with managing the family or with their jobs. It is not possible for them to keep track of their language use too. We don’t have the equivalents of Geiger counters to measure how much exposure our child has had in each language. It is only natural that parents try to find easy strategies. And the one parent-one language strategy is one I still get asked about.

However, that is an outdated approach. It is not particularly useful if both parents are stronger in one language and weaker in the other. After all, this is the most likely combination for immigrant parents . It doesn’t make sense for one parent to speak the weaker language just so that the child is exposed to it.

In most cases, it will be better for both parents to speak their stronger language at home. Then they only need to provide opportunities for the child to learn English (assuming that is the language of society) outside of the home. Remember, the more time the child spends in one language, the more likely it is for the child to learn it.

Parent question 4: I want my child to be fluent in English, and I don’t care about the home language. Should we stop speaking the home language? – As you wish, but it’s not necessary.

While the amount of exposure to a language is an important condition for successful language learning, the quality of exposure is just as important. I would argue even more so. Therefore, as parents you need to assure that your children are exposed to the best quality of language in all areas, such as:

• language that is fluent — leads to good pronunciation and general speaking abilities, 
• uses a wide variety of words — leads to rich vocabulary knowledge, 
• uses complex grammar — helps with expressing sophisticated thoughts later on, and 
• that is reflective of the culture that speaks it — we want our kids to appreciate humour in all of the languages they speak too!

As a parent, the choice is yours whether you want to raise your child as a monolingual, bilingual, or multilingual. If you are a fluent speaker of English, speaking only English to her would be fine. But I did that with my kids, and as I said earlier, I came to regret it. Therefore, I would encourage you to think twice before making the decision.

If English is not the strong or dominant language for you and your partner, it will affect the quality of the English that your child will receive from you. It might also make it more awkward for you and your partner to speak English to your child. And the less you are comfortable with speaking a language, the less you will be speaking it to your child, which will further diminish the quantity of exposure too.

Speak the language in which you feel most comfortable and confident. Your children will learn it too. If you live in an English-speaking society, your children will learn English — it is inevitable. You can relax and speak your first language if that is most natural to you. It will guarantee that your children will thrive in more than one language.

There are many more questions that I have heard parents ask. For example, my child no longer wants to speak the home language, what can I do; or should we read in English or in Spanish to our children? I will have a separate post devoted to preparing bilingual children for school. There I will answer these and other questions.

I am not a fortune teller, but I can make a few predictions about Olivia’s future:

• She will be at least bilingual in Mandarin Chinese and English
• She will learn to read and write in both languages
• There will be a period of time when she will refuse to speak either language
• She will not be confused by the languages she speaks
• She will feel comfortable in the society of both Chinese and Canadian friends
• Mix languages she will, and she might even think that it is cool
• And one day, she might be able to cite Zhu Ziqing AND Margaret Atwood in original!

(Summary on Instagram)