Multilingual Children

Trilingual kids who will never be tongue-tied

News like this helps to motitvate me as an Expat Woman in my  ongoing effort to make sure that my children (who are multilingual) speak all three languages fluently  without thinking that they are getting confused.

 

It’s not just bilingualism that has been in the news lately – here is an article from the Irish Times of April 10, about children with three, or even more, languages:

“You’d think speaking three languages would be confusing for kids, but don’t underestimate their ability to absorb…

…For English speakers in particular, it’s easy to be lazy when it comes to learning other languages, and, as any mature student knows, it is hard work, so if your children have the opportunity to imbibe other languages when they are young my advice is take advantage of their good fortune. After all: Tús maith leath na hoibre. It will broaden their minds, expand their horizons and provide a lifetime of pleasure.”

The article gives first-person, anecdotal and research evidence that children with multiple languages not only experience no difficulty but even thrive in their complex linguistic environment.

Here is the story of  IVA POCOCK

You’d think speaking three languages would be confusing for kids, but don’t underestimate their ability to absorb

MY FIRST experience of trilingual children was living in Sri Lanka in 2005, where many of the kids I met spoke Tamil, Sinhala and English. I was astounded when I realised that they could also read and write in these languages, a feat requiring knowledge of three completely different scripts – the Roman alphabet, Tamil script with more than 200 letters, and Sinhalese which has more than 50 characters.

 Read the entire article here.