Bilingual Kids from Parents

[TheGreenerItGets]

If I have children, I want them to be multilingual. I think it's a great idea, kids are amazingly intelligent.

[celesticx]

It's interesting how when Americans speak of a language other than their own, they always use and emphasize the adjective "foreign".

Also, words derived from the word "foreign" seem to be more common in American vocabulary than those of other Anglophone countries...

[doona429]

@celesticx well i think that's just because this film IS based in america. so other languages ARE foreign. if you were in another country, english would be considered a foreign language too.

[akumie]

they make dvs and cds that sell millions but cant even make 1 in a ntive american language when it was the whites who made many native languages become extinct...wow

[klzabc]

i heard the pope knows a crapload of languages

[Yulam24]

@klzabc yes the polish pope knew a lot of languages!

[ideldiablo]

Hi everybody, I'm writing a theses about bilingual children, and about beeing bilngual in general, so if somebody would like to help me ( fill put a questionary) please contact me in PM. THANK YOU!!!

[warior4jesus]

i'm bilingual in english romanian, i am romania from both parents and I grew up in romania but I came in contact with the american culture and language as a kid even though I still speak my native language I often think in english and find myself talking it sometimes

[aacv]

Chinese language are too cheap to learn, The pay rate of teaching Chinese is almost the lowest legal rate in many countries. Not worth learning. If you want to benefit from learning a second language in terms of the money in the future, keep in mind, do not learn Chinese, cos anything related to the Chinese, it is just always cheap !!!

[joshlondoner]

Maybe you should take a shot at improving your English before you diss other languages...?

[DifangDuana]

@aacv

That does not make any sense. You do not learn a second language just so that you can get a teaching job. You learn the second language either because you appreciate the culture (which you cannot put a price tag on), or for business purposes (which can be very lucrative).

And people want Native Speakers to teach their children anyways, not some Johnny Comes Lately.

[sususze]

it's really important to master both well. I am one of the bilingual student. But my

chinese and english are not very good. sigh

[beenn15]

@sususze that normally happens to people who immigrate to another country in their early teens... and living in communities that don't speak good English. Most of the time, they can't master either one of the languages they learn.

Even worst... a lot of American born kids can't speak good English because of their neighborhood... case in point: a lot of Cuban Americans in Miami speak English with a heavy accent while their Spanish isn't that much better...

[grekito]

@beenn15 You are Wrong! The Cuban Americans that were born here and grew up here speak perfect English, but of course you will find people with heavy accent because Miami is an Immigrant City

[SecondLifeEnglish]

raising a child to be bilingual/multilingual no doubt has huge benefits...the mind benefits tremendously from exposure to the different linguistic and cultural perspectives...a chair becomes a chaise, a Stuhl, etc. and the mind quickly understands that there exist multiple ways of perceiving and understanding what we call "reality"...have a child who has been raised to speak english and german...we are now slowly introducing french as well...schools and parents need to embrace and foster this...

[warser3401]

my family used to live in france and germany i went to a french school when i was 3 and then we moved to austria where i went to german school and 5 and then we moved to the states when i was 9 and my parents both speak english

[WrexsouI]

My dad speaks Italian and I wish that he had raised me bilingual. I am only fluent in English, but I am working on my Chinese in college.

[naboorusunny]

my parents moved to the US when I was a kid, so now I speak French, English,I've learned Italian and Spanish at school and some russian with a nanny^^ so amazing how big the brain is ahah

[lunarheart14]

Its amazing how kids can be so bilingual. I learned 3 languages as a kid, and all though I got them a bit mixed up as a kid, I got it cleared up eventually and I'm so happy that I learned them!

[micheljr17]

i'm bilingual

English (American) and

Spanish (Latin Spanish)

and learning French and Italian and Portuguese...

seriously if you know one Romance language it's easy to pick up on the others

[mcomoar]

I'm officially bilingual -- I speak both English and French. However, I also speak some Spanish (which, to tell you the truth, comes and goes, so to master it wouldn't be too hard), I understand Macedonian, and I understand quite a bit of Portugese as well as some Italian. But the Portugese and Italian bits are just the side-effects of knowing French and Spanish.

Teach your children to be bilingual. They will thank you when they're older.

[realeducator]

Normal children from 0-6 years of age naturally have a Language Acquisition Device (LAD) in their brains that's why they can easily learn and speak any language they hear. Beyond 6 yrs old somehow that LAD becomes smaller in people's brain & so learning a new language would not be that easy any more. So the best time to teach kids different languages is during the formative years.

[expatleanie]

I am bilingual . I grew up bilingual I cant remember learning how to speak it both I just did and thought as a child other kids were not normal. so go for it parents it eleviates later on university problems! I have seen how my friends suffer the fate of learning a 2nd languge too late

[Clipwizards]

My son could speak 4 languages at age 4.

Started with Portuguese and English, at the same time. By 1 & 1/2 he could already communicate in both. Spanish came easily, after less than 4 months with a full time nanny from Argentina, at the same time that he was attending a Dutch speaking school.

He's 5 and 3/4 now and still multi-lingual!

[TheBreadCrumbs]

Its pretty simple, kids with parents who are bilingual tends to be bilingual when grown.

Lets say if the parents are German/Asian, the kids have a better chance of learning those languages.

[zoemwtaylor]

I think these parents are just burning their money, especially those who speak a language other than English. I'm chinese, my husband is British and our three children are fluent in both chinese and English without going to any extra tuition. Language resources are everywhere. It just depends on how much effort the parents are prepared to make.

[MultiStrawberry09]

My husband is latino and my daughter is half latina. I can speak spanish fluently. My husband speaks no english and my daughter will be raised on only spanish untill she goes to school.

[kankurossexygurl]

yeah theyre so smart.i speak dutch,german,spanish,portugese­,arabic,frenc=)

[untmdsprt]

I'm currently learning Japanese as my second language, and would like to learn Korean and Chinese. I do have one problem though with people learning more languages at once. They never really learn how to be accurate in the language while they're trying to be fluent. What kind of trade off are you people doing to achieve this fluency in more than one language?

[XxXMayellaXxX]

I am 16- and I speak English, and am currently learnign French and Spanish and next year hopefully German or Italian. I have also decided that I will be bringing my kids up (when I have them) bilingually, probably in French and then progressing on to maybe Spanish, I will hopefully send them to a international school so as they can continue this. I always wish my mother had continued to teach me french, after I moved from a french pre school to mainstream, as I forgot a lot of it.

[bastardobuono]

wow also i'm 16 years old but i learn just italian and some english XD

[Arabiangirl91]

I am 16 years and I am very happy too speak english, german and arabic!

For me its very easy too meed some new people!

[SBlossom]

[: I'm happy because I am 16 years old and I speak fluent English, even with a good accent. I don't really know how I can be bilingual, because my parents never set me in a bilingual situation, EVER, (except Chinese some, my mother is Chinese),and I never been abroad before. I think it's because when I was a little I listen so many English songs and movies xD. Ha ha. Thank GOD that happened to me. xDxD

[HIMkitten]

my children will definately be learning italian to feel closer and be able to be more intimate with their culture as adults.

[bcdefghijklmnopqrtuv]

I am only 14 years old, and yet I've already decided that I'm going to bring up my children bilingually, when I have children. I'm also going to bring them up on 'Continuum Concept. I agree with the thing about children learning a language naturally though, rather than with 'strict teaching sets' or teachers.

[peachblush8199]

I wish I had learned Greek and Italian too!

[laco0010]

This is really good, cuz im 15yrs and i speak four languages: espanish, english, french and italian. So its really easy for me to get comunicated with ppl from other countrys.

Hello from dominican republic

[greencurrysauce]

for me it was so hard to learn languages in school and later on, now i can speak four but when i see my little nice of the age of four she speaks already for languages and to of them as mother tongue that is so amazing

[patriasadeyes]

thank god i know english spanish french and portuguese its good to know different cultures

[moe161]

those kids at the first 2 sec ARE SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO­OOOOOOOO CUTE

[jesusxlied]

ok - but even if the kid learns the language when its small and then never speaks it again he or she will forget it. and that profesor toto thing def wont make the kid bilingual.. neither will those lessons. you really either need to move to a foreign country ot have someone in the kids life who speaks the second language all the time to make the child truly bilingual

[hamokiwi]

interesting comment from one of the fathers, saying that the world is becoming bilingual -- um... actually, most people int he world are bilingual and have been for eons.

[poisonwood23]

i wish i grew up bilingual, but neither of my parents speak anything but english. I've been learning french since grade 4, but I'm still nowhere near fluent because it's hard to practice, but I'm learning more french, spanish, and german, and I hope to learn other languages as well, so if I have kids, they'll be multi-lingual.

[wcucat93]

I'm dong what I can to raise my children bilingually - Spanish and English. It's so important to know more than one language these days.

[gyongyi]

It's really so easy to learn a foreign language when you're a kid. Since my birth I have learned Hungarian and Romanian simultaneously, then my parents took me to a German kindergarten and so I also learned German like it was my native language, all the way through high-school and college. In the second grade I started learning English in school as a foreign language, but finally become to be fluent in English also. It is really amazing - I could travel half the world getting by easily. :)

[muriloluvusa]

if I had a kid I would teach my kid both portuguese and english! :D

[ladyxeona]

my kids working on 5. its nice to see so many ppl in support of more than one language. i always get asked why.

[brageritu]

oh and it's not really the case of when you'r getting older that it's more and more difficuld to learn other languages, i'm 25 i know 4 languages and even now i can easlly learn a new language like japanese that have no similarity to the languages that i know so far.

So i thing that if the child learns 2 or 3 languages now it won't change a thing in the future for learning more languages.

[bfarrell5]

For one: I thinks it's really awesome that you know that many languages and that you are learning more languages. But just because you can learn easily doesn't mean that it's not hard for other people.

It's been shown, scientifically, that between the ages of 14 and 16, it becomes more and more difficult for people to learn new things. By that age, the brain has pretty much fully developed. You were lucky enough that you have a knack for learning languages.

[brageritu]

what about trilingual or 4lingual? i speak 4 languages croatian, italian, english and german (and learning japanese), i hope my kids will be trilingual (at least).

[gkdrummerboy]

I wish my mom spoke to me in Mandarin when I was a kid. But I was spoken to in Cantonese which is easier to me....and English is all too easy to learn. 26 letters!!!! My most desired is still French and Japanese...

[de1258]

i'm british, living in france and i talk to my 3 year old in english (since birth) but she only talks in french, she understands english but wont talk ahhh so frustrating!! i'm dieing to converse with her in english.

[tonysheffield]

Hi, I am Italian but I lived in Britain for 8 years. I talk to my 26-month old son in English only and my wife does it in Italian. He doesn't speak to me in English but at times he asks in English "milk, please" or if we're playing together "again" or "more". Only few words but his understanding of the English language is just amazing. At times he understands English more than Italian and we live in Italy. Not easy though because I often prompt him to speak in English. I hope i'll succeed.

[brwneydgirl70]

wish my parents tought me a differnt language when i was little :C

[kr8or]

well i used to hate my parents when i was s kid lol but now i am thankfull for what they did, its true that the younger you start teachin kids other languages the better the chances to be fluent in it, i am fluent in 5 languages now and all thanx to my parents, arabic, french, english , german and italian :) life is so easy lol, i get stoped to trasnlate so many times :) my dad told me that those are the most used languages, but i wish he enrolled me in spanish classes, its more used

[vzla4u2]

That's really good and trust me, Spanish is gonna be a cakewalk since you know French and Italian. I wish I could speak 5 languages. I got the handle of Spanish and English, then kinda French and German. But yeah, the opportunities are a lot more plus you get paid more.

[Zekana0]

it is very helpful to teach your kids different langauges and to stick with it. i used to know spanish but becuase i never used it, i forgot and and now am unable to learn it now.

[canadadivided]

Visit: Democracy Denied in Canada [YouTube]. Pro bilingualism but strongly against government enforced language. Strongly against government assisted segregation. Strongly against government funded language based racism. Visit: canadadivided[dot]com

[piip4]

I'm learning my fifth language at the moment(technically the seventh for some strange reason). I love learning languages, I'll probably die old, still trying to master my 23'rd. ^^

Back in the old days, people would kill for a tool like the internet. I don't take that for granted at all, and nor should anyone. Please think about it, instead of slacking off 30min each day, try picking up a new language in that time. You'd be amazed.

Don't only experience the world, understand it.

[lilethiogurl]

mad respect. i'm presently learning my 3rd language. understanding the world is so much better then just experienceing it.

[dannyboy567]

isn't it possible for children to grow up and get the languages all mixed up. lets say i speak to my child in portuguese and spanish, wouldn't he/she grow up maybe using them incorrectly together and get confused??

[FlorenceKnights]

Hey Everyone!... Google and take a look:

At ("DoortoYourImagination") ... a new children's poetry book!

[rhapsodyswept]

This is great! I think people really underestimate how valuable being bilingual. I'm black and as a kid, a lot of my friends were Mexican, so I have a pretty good understanding of Spanish. I've also studied French for about 8 years, and I'm STILL learning--starting language as a child would have made the learning process SOOO much easier. I'm still on a mission to become conversational in both Spanish and French. My kids will defitely learn one of the two languages, from me and classes.

[wheelingbabe]

This sure beats learning a forigen language as an older kid at school cuz that's not fun :(

[Amaglev]

Yeah, in schools they teach languages all wrong.. There is no way you are going to get good with like 3 lessons a week.. That's why after studying French in school for 9 years myself, I'm still only mediocre :(

[HatingHatefulHater]

Thats not really true in my opinion.

I think my English is good enough, and I only had 3 lessons a week, for five years...

but maybe its because I love English.

I also study Spanish, and my espanol still sucks...

anyway, my kids are going to be bilingual, German and English.

I will keep Japanese(starting next year with it) to myself.

[manonairs]

i totally agree. i "learnt" italian for 13 years (primary school through to secondary school) and I still only have a rudimentary grasp of it. We learnt the lessons in English, and only the basic things such as colours, weather etc. I blame the blase attitude of my schools. We had one lesson a week!!!

[palominolisacoralie]

I talk French and dutch

[walesphx]

WOW I like it :p im studying english ,but when i have a child i'll teach him english :D

De verdad me parece fabuloso

[dreamcollection]

I speak like 5 languages and I hate it XD

Dutch, French, German, English and Italian

[pinkpumpkinn]

Why do you hate it?

[AnotherWorld2come]

As the USA is on decline and countries such India and China and Russia becoming great social and economic countries of the world over the USA, it is important and imperative for children and adults to learn to speak other languages. Good Video, great subject.

[Desilicious27]

awesome

[wittevansichem]

very interesting. Im 14 myself and speak my native dutch accent(flemish), english for my international school, and then french since my stepmother is from wallonia. Since she speaks french, my 5 year old sister and 3 year old brother also speak dutch and french very well. French better than me:-)