bilingualism vs speaking two languages

[rrbrigi]

Hi,

I would like to hear your opinion. I have lived in England for 7 years now, I moved here when I started to work. I am not bilingual I speak two languages, but it does not mean I am bilingual. I cannot think, reasoning or even dream in English. I have never ever received any education in English. I can use the language in my workplace, and I would say it is a lot easier as the time pass, but I never ever will become bilingual.

I have a son who is 3 and a half and I would say he is bilingual in English and my mother tounge, however he speaks another two languages. He is able to think, reason and also dream in English as well as my mother tounge. He just switch his brain when we go to the nursery and switch back when he comes home. His reading, maths, sicence, etc.. developes in the same speed in both languages. With the other two languages is completely different, he can speak that languages, making conversation, but he needs to make a lot of effort to be able to think or reason on these two languages (he is learning these two languages from our au-pair). Either he speaks four languages very well, I would not say he is multilingual. I think you can become bilingual if you receive the education (maths, reading, science, geography, biology, history, arts etc.) on those languages, becuase the education helps you to feel that language and culture closer to yourself. My son receive the English education in the English nurseries and schools, and I teach him at home to our culture and our education.

I think there is a big difference between able to speak two languages or become bilingual.

There is a big difference partly down to facility and cognitive abilities but also culture/exptession. One way to acquire that is education but it can come through experience and not formal schooling.

Bilingual people store the languages in a different bit of their brain though.

Your DS sounds like he's doing really well!

Are you asking a question or just making an observation?

My opinion is that most people, when they say "bilingual", mean that both languages are to a "good" standard, both come automatically, and both are more or less from birth.

However, this is not actually a very useful definition for all sorts of reasons. For example, most bilingual children will only attend school in one language. This means that they cannot discuss school, linguistically or culturally, with the same fluency in the other language. Does this mean that they are not bilingual or just that their exposure is uneven? When they get older, what about work? National service? Sex? Love? If they only experience some of these things in one language, does that make the other one deficient?

So a much more reliable treatment is to say that "lingualism" is on a spectrum and to just say that bilingualism is about USE - can you describe most things in both (or all) languages without struggling? Are you "bicultural" too (and does that matter?) Do other native-standard speakers have to make allowances for you? Can you function in the language under unusual circumstances - when stressed, depressed, excited, lost, tired, drunk?

My daughter is bilingual according to both ways of looking at it - yet I would call myself bilingual, even though I learnt my French at school and then from living and working in France, because I meet the second definition. And, because I am the French speaker in our family, my daughter is in the odd situation of speaking French from birth but not having either parent as native speaker, yet still speaks better and more fluent French than many of her bilingual peers who do have a native parent, purely because of how we operate bilingualism in the home.

Interesting area, but no easy answers.

I speak three languages, but I would say I'm bilingual.

I certainly meet MIFLAW's second definition. Though I used to meet that definition in my third as well, but it's slipped quite seriously.

I can think, reason and dream in French. I don't need to translate from French to English, it doesn't need any thought or effort.

I do think I'm lucky though that I have been exposed to French from a very young age (a bit younger than 2) which I believe will have helped. Even though it wasn't a household language. But as MIFLAW says, plenty of people become bilingual later.

I do think exposure is important. When I met my husband (French) I only knew one swear word and one semi-swear word in French. I'd just never heard them used before, I think because during my teenage years I had very little exposure to French teenagers, I spoke with adults who almost never swore. I was also a little lacking in vocabulary when it came to sex. I still find that one difficult, just because it doesn't come naturally. Love and national service I have no problem with though :)

I also know (from teaching) a surprisingly large number of bilingual from birth teenagers and adults, where their parents spoke only French but they live in England, whose French is significantly limited. A lot of them can't write at all, and when they try they have no grasp of French spelling rules, and several of them can't read very well in French. They also had a limited range of vocab as all some of them talked about with their parents was home stuff and sometimes school.

I've also conducted German oral exams for teenagers in the same situation and they also struggled with wider vocabulary.

Both groups would seem bilingual to a native speaker, right up until they tried to talk about politics or the environment or even asked for a description of their home town (oral topic). But they are all classed as bilingual.

I think it's a very, very difficult concept to define.

Have you read the book The Bilingual Family? I was recommended it when I was pregnant, since I want to bring up my DD as bilingual. It has a very good description of the different type of bilingualism, and is in fact much more complicated than 'being able to speak fluently without an accent'. Like MIFLAW says you can aquire bilingualism later in life.

First, a bilingual person does not speak both language equally. Because it's very likely he uses the languages in different contexts. The classic example is a kid attending school and speaking with his peers in English, but speak a foreign language at home. He'll naturally lack the vocabulary of youths from his parents native land.

I belong to a different group of bilinguals. The book explains how after puberty, most bilinguals don't pick up the accent of the community anymore. This has always made my situation very hard to explain to people not used to bilignualism. I can think in both my parents language, and in English. However I normally think in English. I can read both languages, but if you present me with a document in both languages, I'll read the English. (I tend to gloss over my native language because I find it hard to read). I cannot really write anything in my native language at all. However, I speak with a slight accent. I make grammatical mistakes in English. (For example I still think sheeps is the natural plural, not sheep). I am now trying very hard to speak to my DD in my parents language, but I struggle to do it naturally. However, when I'm back into my home country, I switch back to speaking and thinking in my native tongue in no time. My DH complained I constantly forgot to speak to him in English back home!

Oh, and I've only ever had my education in English. Even when I was a littleling back in my home country.

Just wanted to say bilignualism is very hard to define.

lilham - have I met you on another thread?

As far as I can remember I have always spoken and read English and Chinese. My primary school education is in Chinese, secondary school education in Malay, and A-levels/university education in English. I read books in both Chinese and English, write mostly in English, think and dream in both languages. I do not sound English when I speak English and I do not sound (mainland) Chinese when I speak Chinese. I work in English and tell the kids off in Chinese. I can buy insurance in English but not in Chinese, I can read recipes in both languages and order food in both (those are important things ), and I can insult people and their ancestors in both languages.

Bilingual? Who knows.

Hi I wish I can insult people in Cantonese! I always feel confused about my language identity because I'm obviously not a native English speaker. On the other hand I'm so poor in my native tongue that I can't write. But I do speak without an accent in Cantonese.

I've only recently started feeling uncomfortable describing myself as bilingual as I don't know how to differentiate what I consider myself to be in relation to my daughter. I learnt French at school, studied in French and moved there when I was 21. Over the next twelve years, I did all the "big" things I've done in my life in France, in French: got a proper job, got a flat, fell in love, had a baby and got PACS'ed. I don't even know how to say pregnancy things in English. We're now living in my country, I try to speak English to my DH to help him improve his language skills, but it's hard because we met in France, in French. I often find myself struggling to find my words in English, or translating from French. Cringe.

And yet, my daughter is what I'd really call "bilingual"; we're bringing her up with two languages and with as much exposure to our two cultures as we can manage (it's not a cheap option is it?). She knows that a table is la table not because she had to learn it from a list of feminine words in a book, but "just because it is".

Bilingualism is a fascinating, multi-levelled subject....it's great to be able to read so many different viewpoints and situations...

I don't know if thinking or dreaming in the language is a criterion for bilingualism: I started doing both really early in English and I don't think anyone who heard me would have classed me as bilingual in those days. (I bet if I spent more than a week in France, I would be dreaming in French and my French is still at the A-level stage, if that)

Now, having lived and worked in England for nearly 20 years, only ever made love to a man in English, only given birth in English, having published a book in English and another one on the way - I'm not sure if I'm allowed to count myself as bilingual or not. Is it a category with very clearly demarcated lines? Am I more or less bilingual than a toddler who knows 6 words in either language? Does the question even make sense?

If the definition involves exposure from birth, what about international adoptees who if adopted as toddlers typically lose their first language within the first few years but are as competent as their peers in their new language by the time they start school?

My brother is one of this category; you couldn't know from speaking to him that he was not born in the country and he doesn't remember a word of his mother tongue. It would be odd to call him semilingual, when he clearly has very full command of his adopted language.

I think definitions may matter to academics working in the the area, but for "practitioners" like us it seems to matter less.

I consider someone fluent in a language if they can eavesdrop - no context, no body language (and no manners, obviously )- and understand.

My, limited and possibly simplistic, understanding of the definition comes from brain development.

When babies are little their brains develop a language centre. If they are exposed to 2 lanugages then they develop 2 separate language centres. (My understanding is that up to 3 are possible).

The ability of the brain to develop changes at about age 8, and by the time puberty comes along the brain can no longer develop new centres. Any language aquisition after about 11 or 12 therefore takes place in one part of the brain with all new languages sharing the same bit.

So a 2 year old taken to a new country will develop a new language centre, but as long as the maternal language is maintained the brain keeps the old centre as well. If however the maternal language is no longer used then the brain decides to use that bit for something else.

So for me the difference between a true bilingual, and someone who speaks 2 languages fluently is whether or not they have 2 language centres in their brain. ie my children are and I'm not. I don't think that knowing the vocabulary for different subjects is relevant as none of us know all the words in the dictionary.

Of course none of this is of any use unless we can slice peoples heads open and see the parts clearly labelled. :)

I think you're right french fancy - you're talking about the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) as defined by Chomsky.

What's interesting is that in order for children to use their LAD(s) effectively, what they are trying to learn must be at the appropriate level (in Vygotsky's terms it must be in the Zone of Proximal Development - ZPD). Parents put language into the ZPD for their children naturally, modifying their speech in an unconscious way to make sure it's neither too hard nor too east for their children. This system also explains why very young children generally won't just 'pick up' language from radio or television, as most of the time it is just too advanced.

I am wondering what I am then. My mother tongue is German, I moved to the UK five years ago and did my A-Levels here, I will also do my degree in the UK. Although I wasn't raised bilingual, I dream and think in English, it's my main language and I hardly speak my mother tongue (apart from at my new job).

Does that make me bilingual? I am not sure.

Hi rrbrigi

Has anyone helped you write this post? Did you first had to write it in your mother tongue and then translate it?
How long does it take you to answer a question/converse with an English speaking person?

In my opinion even you can be classed as bilingual even though you don't dream in English. Ok maybe you think your use of English is not as sophisticated as that of your mother tongue but unless you spent a week translating that post you put here then it seems to me that you are fluent so therefore are bilingual. Which is not a bad thing at all.

www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/feb/18/bilingual-alzheimers-brain-power-multitasking

I speak my mother tongue and English and a 3d language (not even as fluently as you do English) and I consider myself trilingual.

I would think bilingual is even you can read, write, speak two languages with sufficient proficiency.
I can rws two and often switch and mix both in my speech with ab audience who understands both. I dream in both. However I do speak and understand 4 other languages, but can't read or write in them, what does that make me then.

Your child is doing very well. I have a 20mo DS who understands both languages and speaks English so far, but very little. I hope his slow talking is due to hearing 3 languages at home (DH speaks yet another language which I understand but can't speak in)

Looking at this post....I am starting to feel sorry for DS...

So I read some of the other posts as working tonight and it's a quiet night therefore I have a lot of time in my hands.

Very interesting opinions/ contributions from all. To name but a few:

internationalbeeboo I, too, am struggling with my mother tongue cos I did my degree here, I had my baby here, my husband is English and sadly doesn't speak my mother tongue (just a tiny bit). So when I try to talk to my family/friends I am finding that I lack the vocabulary because I acquired all this knowledge in English and not my mother tongue. I didn't translate to my MT every single time I learnt something. I jokingly said I'd need private tuition to relearn it if we ever get to move there.

borntoshop I think you are bilingual and to agree with lilham's last
sentence indeed bilingualism is hard to define!

Really pleased I found the language&bilingualism topic on mumsnet :)

I feel the same about bilingualism being hard to define.

According to the exposure from birth/mother tongue definition I am not bilingual: I was given formal instruction in English from the age of 6 by my mother who was not a native speaker, but only started interacting with native speakers in my teens.

However, I have lived in England for nearly 20 years now, and spent a lot of time there before then, some of the most defining moments of my life have been in English (first love, giving birth), most of my professional life has been in English, I dream and think in English and occasionally write poetry, I can't imagine a situation where my English would disappear- it would be like half my mind going.

No idea what you would find if you sliced my mind open, but suspect it would be something similar to that of a bilingual person.

I speak English fluently, to almost native standard, but there's always little grammatical quirks which give my non-native speakerdom away. However after having been living in the UK for 7 years, my English is getting stronger, and German, my mothertongue is getting weaker. I'm codeswitching a lot, depending on context, and so end up talking English a lot also to other German native speakers.

E.g., my dentist happens to be German, but both our dentistry vocabulary is stronger in English, so we speak English.

I hardly can explain my job in German, because of vocabulary, and at the same time I have the strong urge to talk German to all small children, because it's the language I use with my own children.

Sometimes I don't notice which language I'm speaking. I remember once marvelling at how much the German narrator of Planet Earth sounded like Attenborough, until my husband pointed out to me that I had the English soundtrack turned on.

So I guess in a way I'm bilingual, but different to the bilingualism of my children. But then I only started learning English when I was 12.