Quote:
Originally Posted by Nyororin
The reason for separation is that without any firm rules there is no way for a child to know which language is which and to use them separately. Using them in a mixed jumble will leave the child with one language - a mix of the two that isn`t a real language and that would be of little use outside of the family environment.
As for using the language of the location you are in... That is the opposite of reason in this situation. If you are using the same language inside and outside of the home... How is the child going to learn the other language? They`ll be monolingual - no different than children with monolingual parents.
In general, the main successful patterns seem to be one person, one language - and one location, one language.
One has individuals always speaking a single language to the child, giving the child the chance to associate one language with one person and keep the two separate. The other has one location always having the same language environment - this one tends to work best when both parents fluently speak the language that is different from that of the "outside world". For example, using 100% English in the home while living in Japan.
As long as there is a firm rule that is not broken, a child will be able to learn both languages distinctly.
In my case, neither traditional pattern would work for my family, and there were things I was completely unwilling to sacrifice for the sake of that second language - so my son is monolingual Japanese.
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i see your point, but i would be worried more from psychological side-effects of having 2 parents speaking 2 different languages. last thing i would be wishing for is when my child come to school and on a first essay about family would write something like "my father is ok, but he doesn't want to speak with me japanese, he is a bit different (understand psycho)".
you need one language on which you build up a healthy connection between child and both parents, equally
kids are very smart and you can learn even more than 2 languages in the early age. simply by taking hours of language, you know, sit together with your kid and say "come on we are going to learn a bit of english" and then talk english, but after that return back to your family language, but always talk together (you all 3) same language. for non-mixed language families it is recommended that kids come to contact with foreign language at around 4 years old (depends individually).
but i wouldn't take that route that one parent learning one language and other parent learning other language only. if both parents talk both languages kid gets a teachings from 2 sources about the same thing and that is much valuable.