Every so often, I meet a parent who would like to pass on more than one language to their children. Sometimes they are a single parent, dealing with a home and societal language, sometimes they are a bilingual themselves and want their children to speak both of their languages. So, the question comes up, is it possible for one person to be “in charge” of passing on more than one language?
There is no absolute answer, but I lean strongly towards “not a good idea”. While I understand the reasoning behind the desire, the elements for successful bilingualism are hard to achieve with one person and two languages.
Firstly, in the early years, consistency is important in helping your children’s brains anaylse input and create a fully competent language system. If one parent is attempting to use two languages, it would be very hard to structure the input to be always consistent in language usage. For example, you could try and do one language each day, and alternate, but may find that sometimes you slip into the other language without noticing. While this may not be a problem once in a while, trying to maintain artificial language use patterns may ultimately feel too hard.
Secondly, the amount of input needed to truly acquire a language is substantial, and one person trying to provide input in two languages may have a hard time finding enough waking hours in which to do so. A general benchmark is 20% input is the minimum for successful language acquisition, although I personally find that children need closer to 30% to begin using the language. So, if a child is awake 10 hours a day (when they are young), you would aim for about 3 hours minimum in each language. Of course input doesn’t need to be this rigid, sometimes it comes in chunks on the weekend and is limited during the week (for a working parent), so I encourage parents to look at the pattern of weeks. But realistically, it’s very hard for one person to have enough interaction time to successfully transmit two languages.
Now, that being said, some people do choose to pass on two languages, and work very hard to ensure success. The vast majority of the time though, they need to bring in outside support for one or both, in order to ensure adequate input and consistency.
If you have a story of someone doing this successfully, I’d love to hear it.
Can one parent pass on two languages?
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Maybe a good idea would be not to start the two languages at the same time, but instead to wait a while? My parents are both bilingual (Polish/French and Polish/English), but they raised me with German as my second language (in Germany with the ml@h aproach, in Polandthey spoke German with me every Sunday). Later on, when I was almost an adult, I started learning English and this is when my mother came in- I would speak English with her, and my parents had lots of English books. So, yes, my mother would pass on German first (together with my father, and on top of Polish), and then English (as she is perfectly bilingual). However, I ended up having German at school (and later studied it at University), and I attended many good-quality English language classes, so my parents weren’t the only ones to take care of my language skills. So, while my parents passed on their many languages, I guess my situation isn’t exactly what you meant with this post.
I agree that it can be challenging for one person to pass on two (minority) languages all on their own, at least to the point of the children becoming active bilinguals (or in this case trilinguals if the community language is a third one). However, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. One of the languages can be the main language of communication between the parent and the child, and the other language can be used at times for playing, reading stories, and singing. This sets clear boundaries around the use of that language (less arbitrary and unnatural than having a different language on different days, for example). I would also enlist help from other speakers of this play-language, through expat groups etc.
Reblogged this on languagesupportuk and commented:
what an interesting article
I would tend to agree with you. But I also think that everybody should do what the feel comfortable doing and be consistent.
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Came across your site – it’s a great one. We are a bilingual household, my husband is French and I’m American. Our kids are young, 10 months and 2 1/2, and I’m concerned that because they are primarily with me, they aren’t getting enough French. My daughter attends a French preschool, which has helped a lot, but we may not have that opportunity next year. We’ve started to use French more as our “common” language – when we are all together, and that seems to be helping some. Such a struggle to figure out what to do, as it is important to us both that they get English and French!
Welcome! You didn’t say where you are living, but I presume the US? If that is the case, using French at home as the “Family Language” is a very good way to increase the French input your children get, and to have a better balance with English. It’s also a good way to maintain the status of French for and in your family, against the juggernaut of English in the US… Good luck, and if you have any specific questions, feel free to ask.