One of the moms from kids' school asked me where we were going to send our daughter to after the pre-school, which seems like a very common subject among the other moms of the daughter's age. I said my husband thought sending her to an international school if possible, and I would be OK anywhere she wanted to go. Then she commented that our kids were pretty fluent in both Japanese and English, and she wanted her daughter to be perfectly fluent in both language. I agree our kids are quite bilinguals of what their age, although I haven't really compared them with the other bilingual kids. Then it got me thinking what's "perfect bilingual".
She raised examples that she used to go to a graduate school where she was fluent in English of what she was studying, and also medical terms she learned while she used to live in US, but she didn't know any of the language of the other area of her studies. Therefore she wants her daughter to be fully bilingual in both language of every stage, not fluent in one language only and so so in the another.
Well, I guess I'm fluent in Japanese but off course I'm not fluent in medical terms even in Japanese. What level of her daughter's language capability does she expect....? It's very possible that she would never be satisfied with her daughter's language capability...
Although I'm not a professional, as I studied linguistics, I know the basics and probably knows slightly more than those moms who have or want to make their kids bilingual what mastering language takes. What I think is that it's basically the matter of the amount of data of language usages stored in your brain. If you're in an environment of speaking one particular language, you naturally be able to encounter and collect more examples of the language use therefore you become fluent in that language. Becoming perfectly bilingual will take lots of effort.
I've met quite number of bilingual people so it must be possible, although the degree of "perfect" varies. Some are fluent in language but have no cultural background, some are missing 3rd grade to 6 grade vocabularies, some can mumble perfectly, etc.
Language reflects the cultural background so we sometimes notice minor errors although grammatically correct. Dialects also effects the usage. We can assess the accuracy of use but need to make a baseline, which must be hard to set.
Worrying about kid's education, especially about bilingual education is too luxurious. We don't want to become distracted and ignore the other matters arise while bringing up the children....
She raised examples that she used to go to a graduate school where she was fluent in English of what she was studying, and also medical terms she learned while she used to live in US, but she didn't know any of the language of the other area of her studies. Therefore she wants her daughter to be fully bilingual in both language of every stage, not fluent in one language only and so so in the another.
Well, I guess I'm fluent in Japanese but off course I'm not fluent in medical terms even in Japanese. What level of her daughter's language capability does she expect....? It's very possible that she would never be satisfied with her daughter's language capability...
Although I'm not a professional, as I studied linguistics, I know the basics and probably knows slightly more than those moms who have or want to make their kids bilingual what mastering language takes. What I think is that it's basically the matter of the amount of data of language usages stored in your brain. If you're in an environment of speaking one particular language, you naturally be able to encounter and collect more examples of the language use therefore you become fluent in that language. Becoming perfectly bilingual will take lots of effort.
I've met quite number of bilingual people so it must be possible, although the degree of "perfect" varies. Some are fluent in language but have no cultural background, some are missing 3rd grade to 6 grade vocabularies, some can mumble perfectly, etc.
Language reflects the cultural background so we sometimes notice minor errors although grammatically correct. Dialects also effects the usage. We can assess the accuracy of use but need to make a baseline, which must be hard to set.
Worrying about kid's education, especially about bilingual education is too luxurious. We don't want to become distracted and ignore the other matters arise while bringing up the children....
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