Is there proof, based on research, of harm or benefit of introducing foreign language to 1.5 year baby?
Monday, July 26th, 2010 at
6:00 pm
We are considering hiring a native English speaker as our nanny so that our 1.5 year old baby would learn English in addition to his native language.
We are mainly interested if there is any proof (based on reliable research) of benefits or harm of introducing new language at this age? We would appreciate names / links to such research.
Filed under: Baby Clothes
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dont know about proof but four of my cousins and a couple of friends are bilingual and they are all really good at logic skills. (better than most in fact). hope that helps a little
I have heard it is good. The best time to do that is at that age because they are learning the most.
The only thing is that is causes a speech delay, because they are learning 2. But that once they get it they are less likely to forget them
dont know about any research but introducing a second language as early as possible is a good thing in my view.Young children find picking up another language so much easier than when they get older.My cousins are half english and half italian and they were brought up bilingual and never had a problem.I would say go for it.
trust me theres no such thing as to young i was three when i learned english i moved here form portugal untill then i only knew poruguese but at the age of three i started to speak enlglish i am now in 10th grade honors english with high speaking and writing skills my younger brother was born here and grew up speaking both portuguese and english and can speak both languages very well… there is no harm in learning a new language at this age i give u two thumbs up for teaching ur child a new language at this age due to that when he/she gets older it will be much easier to learn new languages as ur child growns up.
there’s no harm that’s for sure, I don’t have a link that I can provide, but I’ve heard that if you teach them 2 languages at the same time before they’re six, they are not going to have an accent in either language.
There’s absolutely no harm. I’ve seen it with my nephews and nieces that speak both english and spanish. They’re perfect in both!!!
About the pros:
I’m 26 and I learned english when I was a teenager, so I have a strong accent, I was born in Mexico and studied all of my life over there, I got a better job than my sister in law (she was born and raised in the US and gratuated from UCSD) and I got a better paying job than her, all because I speak another language.
There’s no harm!!!!!!
I’m sorry I can’t give you a ‘link’ but I can tell you a story from my own experience. I was a tutor to college students. I had two who were ‘bilingual’ from the time they learned to speak. BOTH of them had far worse problems remembering the ‘proper grammar and spelling’ of BOTH languages because of that ‘early immersion’ in two languages at the same time. I had other students who had learned first their native language, and then learned a ‘second language’ after the age of 13. It didn’t matter ‘which’ was the first language learned, they were much better at ‘learning and retaining’ the proper grammar and spelling of BOTH languages. I think that it is ‘ridiculous’ to have any child learn a ‘second language’ starting at 1.5 … especially since you (and pesumably your spouse) obviously know how to use English very well. If you can do it, so can your child, at approximately the ‘same age’ you learned to speak English.