I would like to add to this. I am a Single mum but I am raising my kid in 3 languages (English, Italian, German). Although I agree that 1 person 1 language. It is completely possible to do 1person 3 languages associating the languages with different environments and or activities.
I am a native Spanish speaker. Became an English teacher and started speaking that language to my daughter since she was in her mom's womb. I didn't have so much time to speak English with her because I had to work outside and then we temporarily separated. Thank God my wife and I continued our relationship, and in the meantime RU-vid did a great job. Also Roblox helped her a lot. And now both of us are learning French with Duolingo. ¡Gracias por este video! Cheers from Medellín!
@@polyglotdreams Awesome! ¡La ciudad de las Flores te da la bienvenida siempre! Por cierto, olvidé decir que mi hija de 7 años tiene el inglés como su idioma de preferencia, su lengua principal, aún cuando estemos aquí en Colombia.
Kids born into multilingual families are super privileged Imagine a child that had a dad that was half German-Italian with a mom that is half Norwegian-Polish and the child grew up in France. Meanwhile….the rest of us, like myself, have to struggle a lot to be self-taught and learn 😢
Yeah they are lucky to have such environment easier than ours so they can learn languages fastly but it's totally ok to speak one language the crucial thing is that we as adults we have cognitive skills much better than children so learn and we are aware of that so we enjoy our journey I'm 17 years old and learning English right now I'm searching for fluency and confidence while speaking 🗣️ So let's just give ourselves a chance and time it's a good investment isn't it?
Inspiring. I live with my wife in the Philippines. The local language on our island is Waray-waray. I was born in the Netherlands, speaking Dutch; me and my wife communicate in English. I am now learning Tagalog, Waray-waray and Spanish. When my son goes to school, he will get taught in Waray-waray for the first three years, later they will switch to Tagalog and English (the quality of which will depend on the teacher). I am learning Spanish, because Waray-waray and Tagalog use a lot of Spanish, so by learning Spanish it is easier to learn Waray-waray (also because it is easy to learn with what I already know). In high-school I learned some French and German. If my son wants to go to the Netherlands for high school, I might teach him Dutch and perhaps some French and German as well (after boosting my skills a bit). In some schools Spanish is taught as an extra subject - so I'm hoping he will learn that as well. My wife is not so enthusiastic about me learning Waray-waray and Tagalog as she wants me to speak English at home. For her the main thing is that our son will learn English. Before I met her, her English was far from fluent (she is native in Waray-waray and is good in Tagalog as well). Your video shows that it can be done.
Thank you so much for noticing. Yes, languages are just one of the various talents and skills we want our kids to learn. The concept is basically the same. Optimize the environment, and the let the kids learn naturally. We are aiming to raise very well-rounded global citizens.
Love your videos! You are a very good example to follow! Sorry’ the experience of your friend cannot be replicated: not many people could be born in Chino-Japanese families and sent to Quebec:) About children: we live in Ukraine and my wife speaks Ukrainian to our son and daughter, but I am responsible for foreign languages so I speak French, German and English to them. On purpose, we’ve never visited France, Germany or any English speaking country. And we don’t have servants to speak Spanish or any tongue to our kids. What I use: languages I speak and cartoons in those languages to create the environment. In front of our kids I speak English to my wife but French to both children and German to the son, 13 years old. When our kids are in school, I don’t influence on their linguistic environment but, more importantly - cultural experiences they get from others, which is more essential than languages, I think. Thanks aplenty for raising this great topic of *foreign languages and children*!
I didn't understand how he managed to get English into the mix if he recommends that every person should speak in only one language to the kids: Japanese with mom, mandarin with dad, French at school and Spanish with the aupair. So where did the English come from?
@@polyglotdreams Interesting theory. Personally, I would be surprised that that could provide sufficient exposure for English to become the primary language between the kids. Would be interesting to hear what Tetsu would answer. On another note, great interview. Glad to have listened to it!
@@opium9213 Tim is right, the biggest source of English is RU-vid. They also have cousins who are Francophones, but love to speak English, so they got used to it. And at various times, they have also had people in the community who are Anglophones. Not all languages are equal in difficulty, and English seems to be one of those that have such a massive presence everywhere that relatively passive exposure was enough.
@@AskTetsu thanks for the explanation Tetsu. Incredible what you and your wife have managed to teach your kids and thank you for sharing your experience with us!
@nendoakuma7451 Hi, I am Tetsu's wife! Thank you for the comments and a question! Before I was introduced these environments, I knew only Japanese and English. Actually, I 'learned' Mandarin at my university but forgot everything because I didn't use it. Surprisingly I understand all of 5 languages now in daily life (At least at home... I don't need an interpreter to understand what is going on. ) Adults can also learn languages! Now I am happy about Tetsu's decision for exploring the kids' opportunity (I didn't say stop! to Tetsu due to my poor language knowledges) ;)
Now I have a great idea for my child in the him future. I learned english on my own after this I've started to study German like, I'm a native Spanish speaker which is fantastic. I need a girlfriend from israel or perhaps suiza*... that's all.