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Jim Nagel - Director, World Languages
School counselors and child psychologists have been known to give multilingual parents the well-intentioned advice that the parents should cease speaking their own language with their child so that the student not be confused and fall behind in their acquisition of the English language, which would negatively affect their success in school.
The ignorance of these advisors has cost many families the richness of maintaining their cultural identity at a deeply intimate level. I understand the reasoning behind their advice, for I, too, marvel when I hear a parent speaking French with their toddler and the young child responds in kind with words way beyond my fledgling level of French. It is the same awe someone must feel when they overhear my wife speaking Spanish with our children, or them speaking German with me. Of course, when a truly valid learning disability is present, such advice may be warranted. But, it should by no means be the standard response to parents who are in the position to give their children the wonderful gift of an additional language or languages!
To our question, "How does one best raise a child bi- (or multi-) lingually?" My simple answer is:
ONE LANGUAGE - ONE PERSON
ONE LANGUAGE - ONE PERSON
Relationships are key to a person's complete and successful life, and, language is the medium in which those relationships live. If a person uses two or three or more languages in their daily living, then there must be people (or at least one person) in that person's life with whom that person does life in that language. It's simple. A small child really has no concept of French or English. They simply know how they relate to mom (in French) and dad (in English). Later, when they are older, they will be able to name the different languages and be able to differentiate them as we are doing now.
This one language - one person concept is best juxtaposed with a different way that I have heard that people attempt to teach or maintain two or more languages in a family. The "time of day" or "event specific" method of raising children is not only very difficult to attempt, but also usually not very successful. I've met people who say that they speak German at certain meals and French during others. I imagine they must also carve up the rest of the hours of the day and try to be consistent so everyone knows which language they should be using. This, of course, assumes that all adults in the home are at a nearly native level of fluency in all languages involved. The children are simply supposed to figure it out and compartmentalize each language with the meal or time of day it is being used. Even describing this, as I imagine reading about it, goes against the grain. I can imagine that it is an attempt to maintain multiple languages in which only one parent is proficient. I have never heard of such an approach that has resulted in children speaking either of those languages.
Because relationships happen in languages, when anyone starts decreeing what others must or must not do with regard to their language/relationships, passionate discussions ensue. The school counselor is not only speaking into a clinical trial of language acquisition, but also the relationship of a child with his or her parents, siblings, grandparents and rest of the extended family here and back home in their native country! Perhaps we Americans are so removed from the loss of our great-grandparents' and grandparents' heritage and language, that we really have no real vantage point to understand the experience of our newest immigrants who have their own unique and very real struggle as they, too, get stirred into the melting pot.
I would like to relate two stories from my own life experience. The first shows how children use languages to communicate, and how their ability to code switch between languages is very agile, but not the metacognitive ability to talk about that switching - to such an extent that children aren't even aware of the two or three languages in which they are proficient! The second story is not an ideal situation, but it shows what was necessary for a family to do in order to not lose a language during an international move.
One:
Mónica, the girl who helped out once a week and did a a massive "Spring cleaning" in our home had the custom of getting everything off the floor and then attacking the never-ending supply of Córdoba dust with buckets of water. During this weekly ritual, rivers would flow out of all the bedrooms, down the hall to a drain in the tile floor in the bathroom. It was difficult for me to be present when this took place, because I always wanted to rescue things that would invariably get wet or broken in the process. When my mother visited us, we had to give Mónica the day off. For, as mom said, "How can you let a complete stranger come and do that to your home?"!
On one of those Saturdays, when I was home, but my mother was not visiting, the deluge of marítima Mónica was in full force. The water was rushing all about us, and Mónica had misplaced her special broom that she used to guide the water to its inevitable resting place. She yelled out to our then 6-year old son, Mati, "Rápido, buscáme la escoba." In his hurried search, he came across me and shouted out, "Papi, where's the broom?" I pointed to where it was propped up behind a half-opened door. He grabbed it, and I heard him, seconds later, handing it to Mónica, "Acá está la escoba."
I know in his mind, there was absolutely no difference between the words "escoba" and "broom." He wasn't translating, he was simply relating to Mónica in the language that he always spoke with her and with me in the way (at that time) that he was accustomed to speak with me.
This "one language - one person" arrangement is the most important rule. If it is broken, it is as if your friend starts speaking with you in a different language. I remember learning that an acquaintance I had made (in Spanish) also spoke English very well. It was indeed strange when we finally did speak in English with each other.
Two:
It was no easy decision to leave Argentina, where we had raised our son since he was one and where our daughter was born. We had the first garage sale that the city had ever seen and sold off everything we had accumulated for 8 plus years, except for 8 suitcases, which were full of clothes and memories and favorite toys protected in tupperware containers of all shapes and sizes. Blitz Spiegel Nagel, our year-old Collie went to some strangers who we heard had a large backyard for him to run in. Our car, sold; refrigerator, washing machine, aquarium, television, guitar, tent and guitar, all sold. Baby clothes, all picked over and sold to mothers, who we knew would get many more years of use from them than we ever could. We said goodbye to friends, and finally on that infamous May 25th, 1999 we cried as we said goodbye to Granny and Opa and aunts and uncles and all the cousins. Many tears were shed that day and they still come when we recall that day on its anniversary now almost 17 years ago.
Up until that time I, dad, had spoken English with the children and my wife had spoken German. There were other family members and friends who also spoke with them in these languages. Spanish, however, was the language in the air and was by far their stronger language. At that time our daughter had just started Kindergarten and our son was in the 3rd grade, already learning how to read and write in Spanish.
Now, here's the kicker. If we had continued on with the languages the same way, our children would have "lost" Spanish as one of their home languages. We looked at all the angles and possibilities, and decided to break the golden rule of raising children bilingually. We decided to SWITCH languages. This was not done with little thought, but rather much trepidation. We knew that we would be adding yet another momentous change to the already overwhelming list of changes that we were expecting our children (and us) to weather.
So, in row 18, seats e, f, g & h on an Aerolineas Argentinas flight leaving Córdoba, Argentina on May 25th, 1999 my children heard me tell them, in German, that I would not be speaking with them in English any more and their mother would now be speaking with them only in Spanish. Linguistically, that was not a problem. They both knew that we both spoke those languages. They had heard us speaking with Opa in German or with all of our Argentine friends in Spanish. Occasionally, we would speak in those different languages with each other, especially if those around us only spoke that language. But, when we were alone, in the intimate closeness of our family, papi's language was English and mami's was German. I changed that in row 18 on that flight.
It took months for the change to settle in. There was a revolt. At the beginning there were times of silence with brooding over the change. Heels were dug in, teeth were clenched tight. Words were not offered in that other language, and it was hard. But, eventually the relationships warmed, and flourished again, new, vital and even exciting in different ways, as a new language tends to bring with it. The most difficult lesson to learn was that along with the change, we also changed our heart language. Things were lost, and others gained.
We all made mistakes switching back into old comfortable patterns, but in the end we made the switch.
Today, both of our children have thanked us for making the switch. Yes, it was hard, but I believe it was clear that they both knew that they were loved above and beyond whatever language we used to tell them that.
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What is the most important thing to keep in mind when raising a child to speak a language which is different than the one spoken by the surrounding community?
Share your story, give your advice. See if others have had a similar experience!
Those who have children who speak more than one language are often passionate about the way they achieved this goal. What are those bits of advice for novices that seasoned polyglots have to offer? We are asking you to share your golden nugget, your non-negotiable as it pertains to raising children in a bilingual, or multilingual home.
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Thank you to those who participated in our survey. Here is the final tally of the responses:
Chinese-3
Japanese-3
Arabic-2
Korean, English, American Sign Language - 1
Obviously, the answer to the question begins with, "Well, it depends..." People have different learning styles, and all languages have different things about them that might make them more or less difficult for any given person to learn.
Amy pointed out that the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center offers language courses of languages from the simpler languages in category I of 26 week courses, to the more difficult languages in category IV, which are 64 week courses. These are the languages listed in their level IV courses: Arabic (Modern Standard, Egyptian, Iraqui, Levantine, Sudanese) Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Korean & Pashto, an Iranian language spoken in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, India and other countries). So, Kudos to those who responded, you were right on!
But, the question still needs an answer, an answer that one person actually mentioned, but did not post on our blog, so we DO have a winner!
Answer: The language that is the most difficult to learn is the language that a particular person DOES NOT WANT to learn.
Perhaps the person has convinced themselves that they can't learn it. Perhaps they are even living in the culture where the language is spoken, but for some reason, they dig in their heels and refuse, actively or passively, to let themselves advance along the language acquisition process.
I welcome your comments about my answer, and realize full well, that there are a myriad of reasons as to why someone would not want to learn a particular language, but I am convinced that we are at our core beings with free wills and we choose to do what we really want. We all have quite a wide range of possible things that we can do during our lives, but it is essential that deep down, we decide to do it and put the process in motion to accomplish that project or dream, that desire. When that choice for something has not been made, a painful, uphill battle awaits you.
The person that gave me this answer is a recent immigrant to the United States, who speaks English as well as 4 or 5 different local languages from where he grew up in Africa. He was listening to a group of us discuss the level of difficulty of various languages, and I noticed him with that "deep in thought" look on his face. When he leaned forward and raised his finger to let us know that he wanted to let us know what he thought on the subject, everyone respectfully turned their attention to him. I offer his comment here in closing and hope you find it as enlightening as we all did.
"You know," he said slowly as his thoughts found just the right words to express what his life experience had taught him, "the language you don't want to learn is probably the most difficult one to learn. And," he continued, "the second most difficult language to learn is your own language, because it is difficult to learn something that you think you already know."
Your comments are welcome...
If you are the first person to respond correctly to our first blog post, you will win a $25 gift card to World Market!
The question is: What is the most difficult language for a native English speaker from the United States to learn?
Post your answer before midnight on June 7th. The winner will be announced on Monday, June 8th, the first day of teachers' summer!
People always suggest either Chinese or Arabic, as they do not use our traditional Roman alphabet. But, no, they are not the most difficult languages to learn. Actually, the question is similar to which subject over all is the most difficult to learn. When put that way, it helps guide one to a more substantive answer.
Suffice it to say that for a native speaker of American English, there definitely are groups of foreign languages that have specific things that make them more or less difficult for us to pick them up. We recognize many words from Spanish because they are showing up on signs and we hear them in more and more songs or movies. German always has a log jam of verbs at the end of the sentence, and French just doesn't pronounce half of the letters in some words! Using the wrong Chinese tones can turn a simple polite response into an inexcusable insult! And those are just some of the languages that we bump up against as we or someone we know learns them in our U.S. school system. What about the myriad of languages that we haven't even heard of. Just imagine the difficulties that each one brings along with it!
So, the MOST difficult one?
Well, I'll get back to you on that, and YES there is an answer. If you have any ideas, please comment. I'm interested in hearing what you have to say. : )
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