Hi T-Nationers,
I was wondering if there are any "bilingual parents" on here. Do any of you have any stories, advice, words-of-wisdom, techniques, etc for raising bilingual kids that you'd like to share?
My wife and I are finally starting to "settle in" and seriously consider having kids. Also, some good friends of ours are basically in the same "situation" as we are in (same languages, issues, location) but they have a 3 year old. So I started thinking about this. I want to get some books/websites and send them to our friends. I also want to start "reading up" myself.
For what it's worth, my wife speaks English pretty well and I can speak Japanese pretty well (although she constantly tells me how badly I do at it), but neither of us are "native" in our second language.
Our friends are NOT the same. She speaks English well but he doesn't speak Japanese AT ALL. Are there any differences to these type of "raisings"? Anything that should be considered? They are starting to get concerned because he is three and well behind his classmates in terms of language. He still doesn't use sentences and sometimes "confuses" the languages (Japanese words in an English phrase). He still communicates with motions, cries, and shouts. They are trying to get him into a pre-school so he can spend more time with kids his own age and he is seeing a speech therapist (or something). Other friends of ours told us not to worry because their kids were very quiet until 5 or 6 when they started speaking three languages well. Is that common? Should they be concerned?
Anyway, this is kind of a random thought I put on here. I'm also posting this on a more "specific" website dedicated to expats, but I thought T-Nation might prove a broader set of people and experiences.
Thanks in advance for any ideas/resources.