I'm writing in English, which is strange in itself since I really love my own language, Finnish, and since I detest the power position that the English language has in global communucation... but I'd get way too many complaints from American friends if I didn't write in a language comprehensible to them.

Feb 8, 2011

Bilinguality

... that can't be a real word, can it?

Been working on it. My boy doesn't talk yet but of course language development starts immediately when a baby is born if not earlier. I'm happy that I have two sisters with bilingual kids (Finnish-Swedish) so I know some things that work and others that don't work. I've also seen some Finnish mothers trying to teach their children Finnish in America. Comparing these is helpful. Here are some tips I've received or figured out myself:

If you want to raise a child bilingual you have to stick to it. It might offend friends or grandparents (hopefully not I:s grandparents) that they don't understand you when you speak to your child, but if you start making exceptions they will get more and more frequent until...

It's very difficult to raise a bilingual child in America. English is practically the only language they ever hear here, unless you watch Spanish TV (most don't), so they don't get exposed to many languages. Things are easier in Finland since they might hear TV in four-five languages.

If a child doesn't have a community of said language speakers (and the mother is the only one speaking it) he will grow up understanding it but will have an accent while speaking. (This creeps me out - how can you have an accent on your mothertongue, different from your mother's accent?)

The parents must always put extra effort to language-related things. You must speak good language because nobody else will... and also, you really have to speak all the time.

Books and films and things like that help a lot. I want to get a great Finnish library.

So, after all this trouble, why bother? Is it important in any way to be bilingual? Well, apart from the fact that knowing two languages actually helps you to learn more (the different structures of languages isn't so much a mystery, or the differences in pronounciation) or that it might be that bilinguality also boosts your language abilities in general (only if they're really strong languages both), there isn't much reason. Except that language and culture go together and I love my language and culture. I couldn't imagine that my children wouldn't be Finnish in both language and culture.

4 comments:

  1. Interesting thoughts! My cousins were raised bilingual (english/spanish) and I've always been jealous. I do remember lots of comments about it at family gatherings-not so much that anyone thought it was bad- in fact most of us thought it was fantastic- must mostly about how it felt like sometimes that family was speaking in code so we wouldn't understand them.
    I'm sure it isn't easy, but I agree its worth it.

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  2. Plus research has found out that if your child is ever going to get alzheimers disease, being bilingual will postpone the onset at least with 5 years. Didn't choose to do it for that reason, but it's a nice benefit too.

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  3. thumbs up for you tuittu! I think this is great. propably takes some effort, but I wouldn't have it any other way either, if I was you. I don't get that accent thing either. I've noticed that too. why does it happen?

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