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Is learning 3 languages all at the same time too much for my 3 year old?
Thread poster: nicholalane1
Daina Jauntirans
Daina Jauntirans  Identity Verified
Local time: 19:30
German to English
+ ...
Not too much, but not easy, either Nov 8, 2010

I am trilingual in Latvian, German, and English, but only started learning German at the age of 16. My kids are 7 and 11. I have spoken Latvian to them since birth, while my husband speaks English to them. We live in the US, so English is also the dominant language. At the age of 5 they entered a Spanish immersion program at school. English is definitely their strongest language, but their Latvian is pretty good for heritage speakers (I have never lived in Latvia and neither have they). Their te... See more
I am trilingual in Latvian, German, and English, but only started learning German at the age of 16. My kids are 7 and 11. I have spoken Latvian to them since birth, while my husband speaks English to them. We live in the US, so English is also the dominant language. At the age of 5 they entered a Spanish immersion program at school. English is definitely their strongest language, but their Latvian is pretty good for heritage speakers (I have never lived in Latvia and neither have they). Their teachers report that their Spanish is at grade-level for non-native speakers.

So, yes, it can be done. I wouldn't say it's easy though. It's taken heavy involvement in the Latvian community here - attending a cultural school on Saturdays, attending all kinds of playgroups and events, etc. - to keep up their Latvian. As a translator, at first I wanted their language ability to be equal in at least their first two, but I soon found that I had to lower that expectation. They have been resistant to Latvian at times, and since neither my husband nor I speak Spanish, the extra push for that comes mostly from school. All in all, though, we just plug away at it. No one has ever told me they were sorry they learned another language, but people come up to me all the time and express regret that they didn't learn their parents'/grandparents' language(s). We're very happy that they have the opportunity to learn languages at such a young age - something most American kids don't have.

It may be easier for you in that you have two of your languages in the community at large & the other at home. It's definitely a bonus that many very nice materials - DVDs, CDs, TV shows, video games, websites, etc. - are available in English! Good luck!

[Edited at 2010-11-08 16:32 GMT]
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Christine Andersen
Christine Andersen  Identity Verified
Denmark
Local time: 01:30
Member (2003)
Danish to English
+ ...
I would certainly give it a try Nov 8, 2010

I was always sorry that I did not learn an exra language or two at the age of three. Just then, my family moved from a multilingual environment in India back to a very monolingual UK for a year, then to a big city where it was not wise to let four-year-olds out in the traffic alone.

Many of the children I met at school were bilingual or trilingual. Possibly not equally good at both or all their languages, but not bad at any of them, and with a good foundation to build on later. On t
... See more
I was always sorry that I did not learn an exra language or two at the age of three. Just then, my family moved from a multilingual environment in India back to a very monolingual UK for a year, then to a big city where it was not wise to let four-year-olds out in the traffic alone.

Many of the children I met at school were bilingual or trilingual. Possibly not equally good at both or all their languages, but not bad at any of them, and with a good foundation to build on later. On the whole, they did very well at school.

German is not necessarily more difficult than other languages, at least if learnt in the way children do. You could if necesary take your son out of the German group if it was too much, and put it off until later. Young children naturally try new things and give up or postpone them if they do not succeed. They do not see that sort of thing as a defeat unless the grown-ups make a fuss about it! Given the chance, they are far too busy getting on with whatever they do succeed at.

I struggled with German through English, but actually found it much easier when I had learnt Danish as an adult, and went to German classes for Danes. However, that is getting way off topic. But the more languages children can learn HAPPILY as children, the better. Many of them have an enormous capacity for it.
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Daina Jauntirans
Daina Jauntirans  Identity Verified
Local time: 19:30
German to English
+ ...
I agree Nov 9, 2010

Christine Andersen wrote:

Many of the children I met at school were bilingual or trilingual. Possibly not equally good at both or all their languages, but not bad at any of them, and with a good foundation to build on later. On the whole, they did very well at school.



I agree with you. I see that in my kids, too. I just wanted to present a different perspective than what I often read in this forum - that kids very quickly learn multiple languages without any problems at all. It's great for those families for whom that is true! Others have more difficulty (maybe it's harder with minority languages rather than major languages or one of the languages is not a family language, etc.), but it's *still worth the effort* and is an incredible gift for the child!


 
nicholalane1
nicholalane1
TOPIC STARTER
Thank you Nov 10, 2010

Thank you very much to everyone who took the time to post a comment in response to this thread. You have given me some excellent advice and some real points to consider. After reading all of your personal experiences I feel much more confident that I have made the right choice for my children and as long as they remain happy then I can relax and "just go with the flow". We have access to both French and German speaking children's clubs so thank you for that idea. One of the main things that I ha... See more
Thank you very much to everyone who took the time to post a comment in response to this thread. You have given me some excellent advice and some real points to consider. After reading all of your personal experiences I feel much more confident that I have made the right choice for my children and as long as they remain happy then I can relax and "just go with the flow". We have access to both French and German speaking children's clubs so thank you for that idea. One of the main things that I have really picked up on in this discussion is to ensure that my children continue to speak and learn English. I have probably been more concerned and eager for them to be comfortable speaking french that the thought of them one day coming home from school preferring another language over their mother tongue hadn't really occurred to me. It certainly makes perfect sense.Collapse


 
Anna_Sm
Anna_Sm
Poland
It's not a good idea, Nov 15, 2010

It's not a good idea, because your son is really young and his speech organ is being developed, so if he will use those 3 languages he can possibly has a problem with good articulation, and speech impediment is really popular in that age. Maybe in the near future you will have to use a speech therapist help. I'm the one, so I know what I'm saying.
Take care, Anna


 
Katalin Horváth McClure
Katalin Horváth McClure  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 20:30
Member (2002)
English to Hungarian
+ ...
"Speech organ" development??? Nov 15, 2010

Anna_Sm wrote:


It's not a good idea, because your son is really young and his speech organ is being developed, so if he will use those 3 languages he can possibly has a problem with good articulation, and speech impediment is really popular in that age. Maybe in the near future you will have to use a speech therapist help. I'm the one, so I know what I'm saying.
Take care, Anna


Dear Anna,
Do you have any research/ reference backing up this statement? Namely that growing up in a bilingual/trilingual environment is a cause of speech impediment an malformation/incorrect development of "speech organs" [whatever you mean by that]?

From what I read and experienced it is exactly the opposite. My child is bilingual and has no articulation issues, speaks both languages (that are very different in terms of articulation) without any accent and I am sure it is precisely because he was exposed to BOTH languages spoken by native speakers from birth. This observation of mine (and others in this thread) is supported by literature as well, for example in the book "Raising Multilingual Children" by Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa (see pp. 21-23), where she explains the "windows of opportunity" that are naturally present in every infant/child, and emphasizes the importance of early introduction to languages, precisely because the ability to distinguish sounds gradually diminishes with time, posing an obstacle for learning a second/third language fluently.

"speech impediment is really popular in that age" - yes, and that is independent of being bilingual. Some of my son's (monolingual) classmates in nursery school had various speech impediments, some of them were serious, but most of them got better with or without speech therapy.

It seems to be a common misconception among pediatricians, speech therapists and other child development experts that growing up in a multilingual environment is detrimental. It is simply not true.
There may be many reasons why this misconception exists, here are some that I can think of:
1. Bilingual children sometimes start speaking later than their monolingual counterparts. However, in most cases once they start speaking, they often speak at a higher level (more complete sentences) than their counterparts. Also, there are some bilingual children who start speaking at the same time, or earlier than others. I think it is fairly easy to "blame" the bilingual environment when some delay in speech is present, but it can be totally unrelated.
2. Speech impediments are also easy to "blame" on the bilingual environment, but often times the reasons are different. I personally knew a little boy (he was about 4 at the time, but has grown up by now) who had a stuttering problem, and the pediatrician readily blamed the bilingual environment. Both parents were Hungarian, speaking Hungarian at home, but they lived in England, so the language outside home was English. What was interesting though, is that when I babysat the boy on a few occasions when the parents weren't home, he never stuttered. Their clever pediatrician suggested to stop using Hungarian, so the parents forced themselves to speak their non-native English at home - do you think the stuttering stopped? Nop. It only got better when the parents finally decided to end the continuous fighting at home, and got a divorce. Things calmed down, and the stuttering stopped. Duh!

What this second story tells me is that parents are always concerned about their children (which is a good thing), but they are also humans so they tend to accept "expert opinions" especially if that gives them a peace of mind, and prevents them from having to look for other (deeper) reasons.

The fact is that not many pediatricians, psychologists and speech therapists are trained properly in issues of bilingualism/multilingualism, and that, despite their best intentions, leads them to misdiagnose problems and give incorrect advice.

What I am trying to say here is that it is not bilingualism itself that causes problems (if any), but other environmental issues (some of them may be related to the efforts/tensions in the family because of the two languages, two cultures, etc. - mostly problems of the grownups that influence the child). In other words, do what feels natural and enjoyable for everybody involved, and then it should be OK.

Katalin


 
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Is learning 3 languages all at the same time too much for my 3 year old?






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