Re: Teaching a child three languages


Andrew Dalby wrote:
Seán O'Leathlóbhair wrote:
Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward wrote:
Is it possible for parents from two different countries living in a
third to teach their child all three (very different) languages, given
that the parents communicate with each other in the language of the
third country?

Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.


Here I know many families in which one of the parents is Filipino or
Thai and the other is British. Few of the children are learning
Tagalog or Thai.

I would suggest that's because the parents assume, perhaps without ever
thinking it through, that English is important and Tagalog and Thai are
a waste of time. To elucidate this, consider the question: does the
English-speaking parent make any effort to be competent in Tagalog /
Thai? If not, the children may see no need to do so either. Children
aren't silly.

That is quite possible. Most of the English-speaking parents make no
effort to learn their partners' language. A few do and a very few
actually become quite competent. Nonetheless, in many cases, the
children have considerable exposure to Tagalog (*) or Thai due to the
large level of socialisation with other similar families. My point was
that children do not necessarily learn a language simply by exposure.

In some of the families, neither partner is a native English speaker
yet still the children are usually English monoglots.

The Filipinos are especially bad at de-emphasising the value of their
native languages. Even when the children visit the Philippines, the
local children are encouraged to practise their English with the
visitors rather than the visiting children practising Tagalog or
whatever.

(*) Not always Tagalog, there are many languages in the Philippines, I
mentioned only Tagalog for simplicity. Another example is Visayan.

--
Seán O'Leathlóbhair

.

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