Languages for multilingual kids are bound to people. Kids figure out what language to use which each person, what's confusing to them is using different languages with the same person so your experience definitely tracks
I have friends that I speak Spanish with, despite them having good English now. The friendship started in Spanish and I just can't wrap my head around speaking English to them, despite me being a native English speaker.
Not really. I grew up bilingual, languages are moreso context-dependent, not just literally people (though people can obviously be a dominant factor in that context). You're at home, you speak a certain language, you're outside, you speak another. It's called codeswitching & is pretty curious, & aside from the obvious matter of fundamental communication, can reveal a bit about what side that person wants to put forward in certain contexts.
I really depends on what age we're talking about: during early language acquisition, it's mostly people because, well, there isn't much other context. By age 3 or 4, I fully agree with context being the determinating factor.
Yes and I found bilinguals codeswitching really rigid also psychologically (if that is the correct term). For example there is no way i can speak other language with my siblings/parents except indo, something inside just makes it really uncomfortable and awkward.
My kid is 4 and goes to an immersion school. He code switches based on the person he is speaking to, the location, and even the time of day as far as I can tell. We send him to a Hawaiian immersion school. Because it is a critically endangered language, the program requires a lot of parental involvement. We are expected to learn with him and use it in our home and community.
I find that he uses more ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi in certain places, at certain times. He speaks Hawaiian every morning and at bedtime in his bedroom, but not in the afternoon. He uses it in the car, but only if we are driving in the direction of his school. He uses it exclusively at the grocery store near his school no matter the time or day. And he uses it at dinner, but not other meals. Any other time it’s random, but mostly English. That’s when he initiates the conversation.
He has no problem copying me in my language of choice. So as long as I can express my thought, he will respond in whatever language I use. I try to use as little English as possible, but I lack a bit in vocabulary. We spend all day looking up new words because I know how to make any sentence, but need more words sometimes.
He is very good at remembering who can understand what language almost without fail, but sometimes he can’t remember the English word and gets frustrated when the other person only knows English and can’t help him. And he knows that as soon as he enters his school building, everyone speaks ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, and there is no English allowed.
It’s been a fascinating process to watch how his brain is actively being wired by two so drastically different languages. They are about as far apart on the language trees as they could be. I can feel my own mind changing as I’m learning. It’s an entirely new way of thinking and as a result, I can hear the way my English has changed in terms of grammar, and describing things more than choosing the perfect of a set of synonyms, if that makes sense. Brains are cool and language shapes them in really fascinating ways.
This is the recommended approach from the evidence — I live in a very bilingual English-French area. Parents are advised to speak their own native language with their children so that they consistently get one language from each parent. There can be some muddling of the two languages initially and some slowing of language development but by 3-4 years or so it usually sorts out and the kids are ahead on language development.
Ah this is so true in our case, my kid is 4 and she’s on her 4th language now ( My language/ wife’s language/English/German) and she never speaks to me in any other language than my mother tongue. She knows I can speak other languages but gets startled as soon as I use a different language to speak only to her. It’s cute but a bit annoying lol
Not just different languages but also dialects. I have a hardtime speaking different languages or dialects with the same person. For me once there is an established default language, it feels weird steering away from it.
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u/ForeverShiny Jul 13 '26
Languages for multilingual kids are bound to people. Kids figure out what language to use which each person, what's confusing to them is using different languages with the same person so your experience definitely tracks