Before elementary school age, children usually can learn a second, third or even fourth language without much formal instruction, says Xiao-lei Wang, acting dean at the School of Education, at Pace University, in New York City, and author of a book, “Growing Up With Three Languages.” In many trilingual households, the ...
Kids (including toddlers) can learn to speak multiple languages at the same time. 2, 3, 4….or more languages at once.
My own daughters were very different in their language development: one very early, the other a later talker, but both grew up to fluently speak the family languages. To sum it up, three languages are not too much for your little girl – and there are millions of trilingual children in the world to prove the case.
However, oftentimes, asking children to juggle many languages can result in lower language fluency levels. This is the trade-off that you might want to avoid. If you want your child to become completely fluent in multiple languages, it is safe to stay at a maximum of three languages at a time.
First things first: Children do not get confused by being exposed to several languages. There is also no limit on how many languages children can “handle”. There are several places in the world where people speak four or more languages as a standard and children in those communities have no problem in learning them.
But it pays dividends – in addition to other benefits, being bilingual can enhance a child's literacy skills in both languages. Babies are sponges when it comes to language, and any young child who's exposed to two or more languages from an early age can become fluent.
Multilingual kids, on average, do tend to start speaking slightly later than monolingual kids—but any difference is gone by the time they begin school. So there is a small slowing effect, but it's not much.
Every family situation is different. If the parent who spends more time with the children does not speak the majority language (the one spoken at school), the child will most likely be delayed in the beginning with reading, writing and even focusing. The whole maturation process may take a bit longer.
It concluded that starting to learn a new language before age 10 will give a learner the best chance of achieving proficiency similar to that of a native speaker.
What Is Means to Be Trilingual. Being trilingual means that you speak three languages with general fluency. Some estimates put the total of the world's trilingual speakers at just over 1 billion people. That's 13% of everyone on Earth!
Some people may mistakenly believe that raising a child in a bilingual household (meaning they speak more than one language) puts them at risk for language delays or a “silent period” when they might not speak at all. Language delays can still occur in bilingual children, but bilingualism itself is not the cause.
When you say a person is trilingual, it means that he or she is fluent in three languages. Thirteen percent of the global population is trilingual. A person who can speak four or more languages is multilingual.
It is, of course, possible to learn that many languages, but you need a very clear plan and I would recommend stretching it out over the first 7-12 years of your child's life.
Yes, it is possible to learn many languages at once!
I've been doing it for many years, and this year, I'm tackling 12 languages. There are many methods you can use to learn more than one language at once.
Begin using your languages with your child as early as possible; the more input the better. Most multilingual children use their first words by the time they are 1 year old. By age 2, most multilingual children use two-word phrases. Phrases like “my ball” or “more juice” can be expressed in one or more languages.
For years, there was a belief that bilingual children lagged behind academically and intellectually. More recent studies, however, comprehensively show this is untrue: switching between two or more languages gives the brain a dexterousness and improves our attention, planning, memory and problem-solving skills.
Some children with expressive language delay "catch up" during the preschool years ("late bloomers"), whereas others have persistent delay (see 'Natural history' below).
Late bilingualism – refers to bilingualism when the second language is learned after the age of 6 or 7; especially when it is learned in adolescence or adulthood. Late bilingualism is a consecutive bilingualism which occurs after the acquisition of the first language (after the childhood language development period).
During the third year, a bilingual child is expected to use three-word phrases and have a vocabulary of approximately 1,000 words (between all languages). The bilingual child should also be understood approximately 75-100% of the time.
Bilingualism causes language delay. FALSE. While a bilingual child's vocabulary in each individual language may be smaller than average, his total vocabulary (from both languages) will be at least the same size as a monolingual child (10, 15).
Gifted children tend to begin talking early. While most children say their first word at around 1 year of age, gifted children may begin speaking when they are 9 months old. 2 Some parents report that their children said their first word even earlier than that, as early as 6 months of age.
There are 2 main models for raising bilingual and multilingual children – one person-one language, and heritage language as home language. The best way to help children learn broad vocabularies in languages other than English is to always use those languages with them.
According to research, children who learn two languages simultaneously go through the same processes and progress at the same rate as children who learn only one language. They begin to start talking and say their first words or first sentences within the same time frame.
The Disadvantages:
Children raised bilingually run the risk of not mastering either language, and subsequently having difficulties in successful completion of a formal education.