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Originally Posted by noodle
Apologies, I think I replied to your post without reading everything about this discussion. I assumed that you were saying to not mix languages until for example they are in school or something because of what you said about speaking only in Japanese to your child. I remember seeing a picture maybe a year ago and he was already in school, so I assumed!
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When it comes to my son, there were several pretty large factors in deciding to go the monolingual route with him. For one, he has a disability and we were uncertain of whether he would be able to speak at all. (And actually ended up taking until 4 to speak his first word.)
Second, my husband does not speak English. Using English as a home language would have been impossible.
And third, me using only English with my son and my husband using only Japanese would still have shut my husband out of a great part of my son`s life because the time spent by my husband with my son is much much less than that I spend with him. Children tend to learn the primary caregiver`s language first, and that would have been English.
And, because of the disability issues, there was a chance my son would only be able to learn a very little bit of language at all. If that had been English there is no doubt it would have cut down on his quality of life.
Anyway, it was a case of sacrifice for us no matter what, so I chose not to make them. It`s a personal family choice, having nothing to do with my views on bilingualism and learning other languages.
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But now, I think it's clearer! Yes, I guess there does need to be a degree of separation! For my niece, I've always spoken to her in Kabyle (one of the berber dialects), whereas her father and mother only speak to her in French. Now, she'll be 3 in a couple of months, so she's already speaking. With me, even though I only taught her vocabulary. Like, when she played with a toy car as a baby, I would say Car in Kabyle. Now, I still do the same thing... Hopefully I haven't confused her, lol.
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If you are the only one speaking to her in that language, I am sure that she has noticed that and is not confused at all.