The benefits of raising bilingual children
Bilingualism has many advantages for children, a way to improve their cognitive skills that will help them learn other new languages better.
We live in a society in which, every day, it is very important to speak more than one language . The fact of working in several languages helps us to understand other languages and also other cultures and mentalities different from ours. English has become a basic language if we want to keep up to date with many of the news on the Internet, both in movies and series and in news and videos shared by international celebrities.
The fact of speaking more than one language makes it easier for us to travel more freely, but it also broadens our variety when it comes to finding employment, since many companies are aware of the value of speaking more than one language correctly. However, it is not the same to learn a language when you are older than to have done it as a child .
Although it is believed that the fact of growing up with two or more languages at home is something that can confuse the child, it is also proven that the fact of being bilingual, that is, having the ability to speak two languages at the same level of demand, It has many positive aspects for this child and will help him in the future when it comes to learning other languages .
In Spain we have Autonomous Communities in which there are two co-official languages, such as Galicia, the Basque Country, Valencia and Catalonia where, in addition to Spanish, Galician, Basque, Valencian and Catalan are spoken. The children of these Autonomous Communities have the possibility of studying in both languages at the same time, which helps them to develop correctly in both languages and to be able to use them interchangeably.
Find out what are the benefits of raising a bilingual child if you still have doubts about whether or not learning two languages simultaneously can be beneficial for your child’s learning.
Index
BENEFITS OF RAISING A BILINGUAL CHILD
The fact of learning two languages from a young age helps the baby to differentiate between the two codes. Therefore, from a very young age, they will be able to know what language is being spoken and what language they will have to use to respond and be understood. Therefore, the child will know the vocabulary and grammar of both languages , in addition to all those word and cultural games that only those who speak the language from a young age know.
However, mere exposure to both languages will not be enough. For the child to be fully bilingual, he will have to listen and speak both languages almost to the same degree . This happens in the aforementioned Spanish Autonomous Communities, since the stimuli that surround them are in both languages equally: television can be in Catalan or Spanish, in the schoolyard they will speak Galician or Spanish and with different family and friends they may speak Basque or Spanish.
Thus, the brain of a bilingual child will have the ability to switch from one language to another very easily using the necessary linguistic codes and improving the memory of the little ones. Learning a language involves active learning, in which memory is used to remember words and how sentences are created, so the brain of a bilingual child is exercising this function twice as much as that of a monolingual child.
Also, fluent speaking two languages at the same time will help these children when learning a third language , as they will be more used to switching codes and learning new words in another language. Therefore, Spanish children who speak two Roman languages at home will have an easier time learning a third, since there are many aspects that they have in common.
POSSIBLE DRAWBACKS OF BILINGUALISM
Although the belief that children are confused when hearing two languages before speaking is not entirely true, some of the disadvantages of bilingualism in children would be that having to learn two languages at the same time they cannot memorize as many words as they would do it by learning just one. Thus, his vocabulary is a bit more limited in Spanish than that of a monolingual. However, this does not prevent this child from being able to delve deeper into one of these languages as an adult and learn more vocabulary.
Another possible drawback would be the fact that there is greater interference from one language to the other when speaking , that is, it is possible for the child who speaks two languages to say a word in the other language by mistake. For example, a Valencian child could say a word in Spanish when he is speaking in Valencian, because he does not remember it, because it is easier or by mistake. Again, with practice and over time, it is possible to avoid these types of errors, but the interference from one language to another will be almost inevitable, because for a bilingual both languages are mother tongues and they can switch from one to the other with total ease, for which seems to have a lot more benefits than drawbacks in the long run .
Dr. Tabriella Perivolaris, Sara's mother and fan of fashion, beauty, motherhood, among others, about the female universe. Since 2018 she has been working as a copywriter, always bringing to her articles a little of her experience and experience as a mother and woman.