Bilingualism is it good? Or is it bad?

[Jakebert]

Oooh! Cute little story about bilingualism.

A friend graduated from university with a degree in Travel Services. A few weeks after she graduated, 9/11 happened. Not too many jobs for travel agents at that point. BUT she spoke fluent French and English, so she got a job working at Bell Canada as a MANAGER. Now she's the head of Bell Quebec.

If you speak English and French well it's almost impossible to not find a job in Canada.

[ai_ra]

I speak three languages in total. My first is English, and it isn't even my native tongue. And I'm more fluent in Arabic than I am in Bahasa Indonesia, which is my native tongue. And if you all are wondering, I am absolutely a full-blooded Indonesian (and proud ) not including the little part in my dad that's Japanese, and in my mum that's Korean.

I do agree that with being fluent in other languages does weaken your native tongue - as you aren't as good at it as other natives. However, the mix of culture is great, as you get to see all three perspectives of aspects and you actually begin to understand. I'm learning French at abinitio as well as France's culture, and I think it's pretty great. I used to be semi-fluent in Japanese but I lost it all two years ago. I still remember part of the culture though, so I do understand when someone is talking about Japan and stuff.

I think being Bilingual (or Multilingual) is great just plain effin awesome.

[Chesire_Cat]

Well, I am fully italian, but I speak English, Spanish and Italian. I find that it is an advantage sometimes, but I hate translating from one language to the other because I feel like I have 3 separate dictionaries in my head ( I don't know if it's just me). I think it's great to be multi lingual, because of the work opportunities, but sometimes it can be frustrating to feel like you're slowly forgetting a language, and I happen to make up words a lot when I am speaking english, which is never good during an IOP...

[sweetnsimple786]

Haha yeah. My Spanish teacher once asked us if we've ever experienced automatically thinking in Spanish. It's a bit bizarre! I've got to agree with a lot that people have said--being multilingual helps in life, with the world getting smaller and all.

I recently read somewhere that small children who learn two languages at home can easily mix up the languages if their parents speak in lets say Hindi for the majority of a sentence and then just add an English word or two. The children grow up thinking that the English word is really Hindi, and all sorts of issues arise.

When do you guys think students should start learning a second or third (or 4th or 5th ) language? I really wish my school had offered it when I was in grade 7 (at the age of 12). Learning a new language in three years has been so difficult. I don't know how some people can really master their Language B in as little time as two years.

[Tilia]

On Thursdays afternoons I have Swedish, German, Physics and then German again. Afterwards the languages are just spinning in my head and I can't think...

I've occasionally started to speak English during German lessons and sometimes I've spoken German to my English friends without thinking. Once, when I was preparing an oral, I wrote a sentence in Swedish and then changed languages and finished the sentence in English. Also, I'm starting to adapt the German alfabetical order, which is different from the Swedish one...

[sweetnsimple786]

Wow! That sounds fun! (not)

How many characters are in each language? And this is going to sound weird, but when you write in Swedish and German, are you writing in a different language? i.e. when I write something in Spanish, I'm still using English characters.

[__inthemaking]

I think knowing many languages is great.

The only con I can think of is that now I'm much more proficient at English (my fifth language) than my first 4 . The first four dialects I learned were: Cantonese, Mandarin, Hakka and Shanghainese, in that order when I lived in Hong Kong. But after moving to Canada, I stopped speaking Hakka and Shanghainese (I only spoke them to my grandparents) and also Mandarin (I speak Canto to my parents).

[Tilia]

I think knowing many languages is great.

The only con I can think of is that now I'm much more proficient at English (my fifth language) than my first 4 . The first four dialects I learned were: Cantonese, Mandarin, Hakka and Shanghainese, in that order when I lived in Hong Kong. But after moving to Canada, I stopped speaking Hakka and Shanghainese (I only spoke them to my grandparents) and also Mandarin (I speak Canto to my parents).

Be glad that you have so many languages! What's Cantonese and Hakka? Chinese dialekts?

[Xerox]

I speak Dutch, Swedish and English, all of them fluent and so far i have only been able to see benifits about speaking several langauges that well.

I admit that i am not equally good with them all, but when i use oe of them for some time i become completly used to them.

The most intresting part is that me and my siblings mix languages a bit random. Mostly when we are talking about school we talk in English, and other occasions we just mix freely. Now the wierd thing starts when i speak dutch and my sister answers in Englis and we do this for like 20 minutes without notticing.

Also sometimes we start a sentence in one language just to finish it in another. But weonly do that wth each other, with friends we only talk 1 language.

[olga]

I have been learning English for 6 years now and i totally love it - that's one of the reasons that i've chosen IB programme. I hope that becoming a bilingual person will provide me with better work prospects in Poland or let me go elsewhere to have better life standard.

the whole idea od being multilingual sounds great for me. just think - it makes you open, you can contact much morre poeple, get to know much more cultures. wonderful.

[Tilia]

Wow! That sounds fun! (not)

How many characters are in each language? And this is going to sound weird, but when you write in Swedish and German, are you writing in a different language? i.e. when I write something in Spanish, I'm still using English characters.

Well, Swedish has 2 or 3 more letters than English, it depends on if W is counted as a version of V or not. German has the same amount of letters as English, but ä, ö and ü are counted as a,o and u. I don't really see what you mean when you say "writing in different languages" and using "English characters". Are the characters different?

[Flippy]

Apparently there are biological advantages to being bilingual as well...one of the Modern Languages teachers at my school told us that speaking in a second language is supposed to be good for your brain...less likely to develop some kind of brain disease (I think it might have been Alzheimer's.)

I'm bilingual (or close to...I get by with my Chinese but it could be better). I think it's wonderful how it offers you more opportunities and gets you to think in a different way.

[adrianmclo]

I speak English and Chinese (at pretty much the same level) and also some French.

Because I live in Hong Kong, which is bilingual in itself (or was, because we were once a British colony), it is very common to be bilingual because from a very young age we do classes in English and Chinese together.

Some friends of mine who speak only English argue that speaking one language will give them a wider range of vocabulary in that language, arguing that the fluency is somewhat less when you are bilingual and so on. I strongly disagree with that point. Language are supposed to be assisting our personal expression, and in different cultures, different vocabularies exist in relevance to the culture. So say in Chinese there might be more words about love than in English, so when a bilingual person thinks about the concept of love, there is in fact a greater list of words to choose from to express themselves.

[godofib]

In canada, in some government jobs, you can only get so far if you are not bilingual. However, on the other hand, if you are bilingual, in certain government jobs promotions come by easier/faster as compared to a non - bilingual person.

[biochem]

I dont consider any time in my life, where it was bad.

well except this one thing. I dont know how to spell restaurant. I had to use google to look that up btw

For whatever reason, words that cross into Serbian + spanish + English simply do not stick in my head. Its a jumbled mess. so I misspell them all the time. Though the serbian one is easiest, cause its spelled how you pronounce it so anything can be correctly spelled.

I think its absolutely wonderful to have another language on you. Knowing spanish opens up sooo many opportunities, but Chinese even greater!

The ageless and possibly false notion that I still agree with despite some limitations: knowing Chinese opens a door to 1,000,000 billion people. More and more kids are taking Mandarin so they can gain advantages in competitive fields. I was thinking of Majoring in Chinese along with pre-med track for admissions to Yale Medical School. Its a very unique and strong combo to come at them with.

Friends who are into business will take Mandarin in Chinese for advantageous reasons, in such a competitive field.

[Tilia]

So say in Chinese there might be more words about love than in English, so when a bilingual person thinks about the concept of love, there is in fact a greater list of words to choose from to express themselves.

What annoys me are all those useful words which simply don't exist in English! There are too few words for snow, for example (or it might be that I've never learned them), but also Swedish words such as "orka", "lagom" and "fika" are just indispensable.

[Feist]

As mentioned above, bilingualism is very much a debate about multiculturalism. But sometimes we fail to remember that cultures differ by so much more than just language, language is only one of the factors.

In response to your question I ask, are mixed children good or bad?

If you think about it, my question is really asking the same thing as yours:

Would there be more peace if we didn't try to unite different cultures into one world? Is it a better idea to just stay in our own matters?

I personally think that the answer is no. Language is a means of communication. If we couldn't communicate with each other, how would we ever expect to have cultural responsibility as a world?

Bilingualism is a wonderful thing. I don't see the problem as barriers in communication can occur amongst english speaking people. Different genders struggle to understand signs from each other and what someone may really mean even if their speech completely contradicts it. Without communication, there cannot be understanding.

[catsmartie]

bilingual? thats the awesomest thing, ur blessed to be multilingual.

multilingualism is really important in the recent world - im completely fluent in english and almost in french, now working on spanish and italian

[LotteVG]

I have felt the same before. Some times I was telling myself I'm undergoing an identity crisis cuz I've got a triple nationality, Swedish, French and English and I sometimes saw this as an uggly trait because I wanted to be of just one nationality.

In my opinion it's great to be bilangual because you have two or more cultures and some times are more open to new cultural aspects. And as you said, if your away from your initial home country there is the chance it might go slightly dow hill if you don't practice it, but you could always go back there and live for a few years.

BTW who else has got a triple-nationality or kinda?

I've lived in England the majority of my life, so I speak fluent English, and am dutch by heritage, so therefore feel Dutch, and now live in Switzerland where I am very much immersed in the community and speak semi-fluent German and swiss-German so I feel as if I've got a triple nationality but don't know which one to choose when people ask.

[MIBO]

Haha same happens to me...Im mexican, dutch and spanish, but when people ask i say im dutch, cause thats what I feel most identified with.

I think being multilingual is absolutely fantastic, it opens soo many doors, not only for our future but also helps us see life in different perspectives, it makes us want to be more international and get to know the world.

I speak fluent Spanish, Dutch, English, French, German and Valenciano (local language) ..not planning on learning new languages for now..just improve the once I know.