I ran across this picture the other day. It lists common languages that English speakers choose as a second/third language learning options, and gave some facts about the average time/effort required to be proficient. Here is what is shows: Kudos to the language learners who choose to learn Arabic, Japanese, Mandarin, and Korean! Be patient and be diligent, your hard work will pay off (eventually).
0 Comments
The best time to learn a second language is between 0-5 years old. This is from my personal experience as well as research publications that I read in the past few years.
We can go into how an infant's brain cells have all the capacity to make new connections, or the pruning process that reduces the brain cells that were not stimulated. But those information can all be found through search results online. I would like to add one more example to support this theory. When I first read about language acquisition of babies, I was going to have my first child. I decided to use the information that I just learnt to raise my baby bilingual. So I only speak Mandarin in front of my new born; while my husband only speaks English to our child. We stick to this arrangement since day one and it has worked, with some hurdles. One of the hurdles was when my son refused to respond to me in Mandarin at around age 2. I kept telling him to speak Mandarin when asking me for something or doing something for him. I used my actions to show him that when he asked in Mandarin, he gets my response and when he asks in English, there is no response from me. It worked. Do all families that are bilingual have kids who speak both languages equally fluent? The answer is "No". It is important for each parent/caregiver stick to only one language the entire time interactive with the child. We are talking about years, not a few days. This principle is also used by immersion programs where teachers are on a rotation in order to provide the full language immersion and the students won't hear the teachers speaking English when performing other work functions.
The second best time for bilingual education? Kindergarten onward. In another word, the earlier the better. Extra reading. |
AuthorShiyu Nitsos, a person living a bilingual & multi-cultural life. ArchivesCategories |