Comments on: Carring to the Whee with my Granddaughter http://www.alphadictionary.com/blog/?p=45 A Blog about Words and Language(s) from alphaDictionary.com Tue, 16 Apr 2013 09:00:36 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.6 By: rbeard http://www.alphadictionary.com/blog/?p=45&cpage=1#comment-196 rbeard Fri, 22 Sep 2006 11:25:00 +0000 http://www.alphadictionary.com/blog/?p=45#comment-196 Your children are very lucky if they are equally exposed to several languages since children can learn 2, 3, even 4 languages as quickly and easily as they can learn one. No one quite understands how this is possible but I have spoken with one trilingual child in two languages with friend who spoke the third. The child must have roughly equal exposore to all languages they learn and, another thing, they usually don't realize that they are speaking different languages since they don't know what a "language" is! I am surprised your daughter realizes that German is different from English. They simply speak to mom this way and dad that way and are unaware that they are speaking more than one language. Your children are very lucky if they are equally exposed to several languages since children can learn 2, 3, even 4 languages as quickly and easily as they can learn one. No one quite understands how this is possible but I have spoken with one trilingual child in two languages with friend who spoke the third.

The child must have roughly equal exposore to all languages they learn and, another thing, they usually don’t realize that they are speaking different languages since they don’t know what a “language” is! I am surprised your daughter realizes that German is different from English. They simply speak to mom this way and dad that way and are unaware that they are speaking more than one language.

]]> By: Language Lover http://www.alphadictionary.com/blog/?p=45&cpage=1#comment-191 Language Lover Thu, 21 Sep 2006 20:57:02 +0000 http://www.alphadictionary.com/blog/?p=45#comment-191 As a fellow language blogger, I agree that it's fascinating to see how young children develop their language abilities, and I'm lucky to have a 3-year-old and 18-month-old at home as "specimens". With my younger daughter, I definitely observe a similar phenomenon of word definition, e.g. a cat is "meow"; also, "I want some too!" is just "Too! Too!" Of particular interest to me is the fact that my older daughter, who is exposed to three languages daily (four, when her grandparents are in town) has no problem distinguishing them. Even if she can't understand what I'm saying, she'll holler, "Mom, don't speak German to me!" (as opposed to Spanish or Taiwanese). She's also good at speaking fake German or fake Spanish, generating sounds that really do fit into the respective languages. There's definitely a level of understanding there that I can't describe but easily observe. As a fellow language blogger, I agree that it’s fascinating to see how young children develop their language abilities, and I’m lucky to have a 3-year-old and 18-month-old at home as “specimens”. With my younger daughter, I definitely observe a similar phenomenon of word definition, e.g. a cat is “meow”; also, “I want some too!” is just “Too! Too!”

Of particular interest to me is the fact that my older daughter, who is exposed to three languages daily (four, when her grandparents are in town) has no problem distinguishing them. Even if she can’t understand what I’m saying, she’ll holler, “Mom, don’t speak German to me!” (as opposed to Spanish or Taiwanese). She’s also good at speaking fake German or fake Spanish, generating sounds that really do fit into the respective languages. There’s definitely a level of understanding there that I can’t describe but easily observe.

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