Many would argue that bringing a child up in a multilingual environment is one of the kindest things a parent can do: language learning is effortless in the early stages of life, bestowing the child with a lifelong, marketable gift. How can you make the most of your child’s rich linguistic heritage?
The first thing to realise is that while it is true that children can pick up several languages very easily, raising multilingual children is not always as straightforward as it sounds.
It’s important to be aware, for example, that babies who are regularly exposed to more than one language will generally take a little longer to learn to talk. But parents should not be put off by this delay: on the contrary, it’s often a sign that the child simply has more information to process, so you may need to be patient.
Another phenomenon that some people can mistake for a problem is ‘mixing’ of words, when the child slips a word from one language into another. This can alarm parents who fear their child will never know to use the right word in the right language – but it is a known phase that children outgrow. Think about the mistakes that monolingual children make when learning to talk: they eventually grow out of them. This is no less true of multilingual children.
Children’s ability to learn language is remarkable, and for those not lucky enough to be born to parents speaking different languages, it seems a shame to miss this special stage of learning. If you’re bringing up children in a single language environment but would like to help your child learn another language, there are plenty of tools to help them learn foreign languages from an early age.
Once your child is old enough to speak and understand his or her native language, there are lots of ways to introduce foreign words into their life. Holidays abroad are a great way to do this, as you can introduce the child to that country’s language beforehand using picture books, video and other tools. Remember, any language skills learned in the first five years will be enormously useful to the child later on in life.
Image: MrGuilt
