Raising a Bilingual Child – The Initial Decision
You speak Japanese. You have a child. Wouldn’t it be great if your child spoke Japanese too? With all the amazing life benefits that come to a bilingual child, it’s less of a “should I” and more of a “how do I?” And you don’t need to be a native, or married to a native in order to do it. You just need to find the right approach, stick with it, and shower language love towards your little one.
Hold on Adam… what are you doing writing about a topic you have no experience with?
I don’t talk about my personal life much on Jalup, but since this is a topic that I’m so heavily invested in right now, I thought it might be useful to some people to share my research and new experience. Especially since this is a major “Japanese learning” topic that I’ve never touched upon. In other words, I have a late announcement: I am the proud parent of an 8-month old baby who showers me with cuteness in exchange for 24 hour/day service.
One of the biggest initial discussions between my wife (Yuki) and I was how to make this little samurai a Japanese & English bilingual warrior. Way before the baby was born, introducing Japanese to him was always going to be a given. Yuki is native Japanese. I’m a Japanese/English bilingual. But “how” is a more complicated question then you’d think and we had to choose from one of the major methods out there.
Option #1: One Parent, One Language (OPOL)
This has been the gold standard for bilingual children for the longest time, and appears as the apparent, obvious choice to many people. It’s a simple formula:
- Native Japanese parent speaks only Japanese to the child
- Native English parent speaks only English to the child
- Baby bilingual win!
While this is the more popular choice, and families have been quite successful with it, we have chosen against it. For us, there were a few considerations that led us down a different path.
- One parent may have more contact with the baby. This is definitely not always the situation, and the split might be 55/45, 60/40, 70/30, etc. But there is going to be imbalance based on the family situation, and it likely won’t be a perfectly even split.
- When both parents are bilinguals in each other’s language, it feels weird to only use half of your language ability. Both languages become a part of you. Your personality and the way you interact with the world is different depending on the language. Shutting that part of you off from your child (and your spouse when in front of your child) can feel strange.
While the above was relevant, the biggest factor in our decision was:
- Your child is going to become a native speaker of country they live in, regardless of what you do. The real effort is going to be making your child fluent in the other, minority language.
This brought us to option 2.
Option #2: Minority Language at Home (MLAH)
This option has probably been around even longer than option 1, but has gained well-deserved popularity in recent years. This was originally the default choice when both partners are immigrants (from the same country) but has now vastly expanded to bilingual couples. It’s a simple formula:
- Both parents speak the minority language (the non-native language of the country) while at home.
- Both parents speak the majority language (the native language of the country) outside the home and in the community.
- Baby bilingual win!
Since Yuki, the baby and I live in the U.S., this means creating a Japanese speaking home, and English outside world. This creates maximum Japanese exposure from both of us in the early years, and it avoids the problems we had with OPOL. However, it comes with a big negative and incorrect public misconception about it that still persists to this day, despite plenty of research and evidence to the contrary.
The baby won’t speak English well and will have major developmental delays!
Relatives, teachers, people unfamiliar with how baby bilinguals form
This fear isn’t to be taken lightly. No parent wants their child to feel like a foreigner isolated in their own home country. There might be a lot to back up why MLAH works… but what if it doesn’t? That’s a substantial risk to place on your baby, and enough to scare away people from trying. Yuki and I were concerned as well, and we’ve heard plenty of worried feedback. But we did our reading, talked with other families who loved MLAH, and we were convinced that it was for us.
Your child will speak the majority language no matter what you do, because the second you drop your kid off for the first day of daycare or preschool, they will get a barrage of English from that day, and every day going forward. The major part of every day becomes English only. Once they start making friends who only speak English (which they will), it’s an English speaking frenzy.
The worry stems from the initial transition and can unnerve even the strongest of parents. The child has heard and spoken only Japanese 95% of the time for the first few years of life. They can’t understand or produce a single word of English. Dropping your child at daycare or preschool for the first time is like dropping them off in a foreign country. Except they have an extreme advantage that no adult could ever have.
- It is an absolute necessity for them in every moment.
- They are fully immersed, in every sense of the word.
- The rewards are instant – they get to enjoy their world.
- They are toddlers and quick learners.
- They are toddlers, and their English probably wouldn’t have been that great at this point anyway.
- Different toddlers develop language abilities at different rates, completely unrelated to being bilingual or not.
While the adjustment period varies based on the child and environment, most toddlers go from knowing nothing in the majority language, to a full equal with their peers within 6 to 12 months.
For those still doubtful, you don’t even have to be a toddler to achieve this effect. There are children who immigrate from their home country to a foreign country when they are slightly older (5, 6, 7, 8 years old) and still benefit from the exact same effects, becoming native in the majority language.
The real fear isn’t the baby not speaking English, it’s them not speaking Japanese, despite all that early double exposure to the language for the first several years. Just because MLAH is used with an initial exposure edge over OPOL, doesn’t mean that child is a pure bilingual for life. The bilingual parent struggle starts once the child goes to school and the following thought process develops in the child.
- All my friends speak English.
- Only my boring and uncool parents speak Japanese.
- I want to speak English
Every adult Japanese learner at one point faces the frustrating dilemma of “I speak to them in Japanese and they respond in English!” Now imagine that is your child refusing to respond in Japanese. The best advice I’ve heard is that the minority language must be more than just something their parents speak. It needs to mean something to the child, whether through culture they love, anime they want to watch, or people besides mom and dad they want to speak to.
Other lingering concerns:
- What if we move to Japan? While Yuki and I have been living in the U.S. together now for the past 7 years, there is always the chance we might move to Japan in the future. If this happens, we’d have to change things up significantly depending on the age of the baby.
- Yuki’s English suffers. We used to speak a lot more English at home, but now only speak English to each other outside, or when the baby is not around or asleep.
- Strange language/accent: I’m not personally concerned with this, as my Japanese ability/accent are pretty solid, but it is a worry from bilingual couples where one partner is only at an intermediate+ level. What I’ve heard from people in this experience is that it really isn’t an issue, because a lot of the exposure to Japanese will eventually come from TV, movies, and other native Japanese speakers.
Option #3+: Place, Time, School, Other
While this article focuses mainly on the two most popular methods, their are plenty of other methods to try. Some of them I’ve seen are:
- Location based: a complex extension of MLAH. You choose specific places where the child will speak the minority language. This could be as broad as “grandmother’s house” or as narrow as “the living room.”
- Time based: Different days, different languages.
- School based: Send them to a language school for people who use the minority language.
No right choice – only the choice that works for you
While our family situation called for MLAH, this is what we decided will work for us. This post is obviously bias towards this method and talks about it the most. I’m sure OPOL (or other) families can give a lot more convincing arguments for their choice. For example, in the early years before baby meets the community, OPOL allows for more access to relatives and prevents non-bilingual grandparents from feeling left out.
What’s your experience?
I know that there are a ton of bilingual raised people on this site, as well as new (and old) parents who have/are raising their children to be bilingual. What method did you choose or was chosen on you as a child. How did it work out?
Founder of Jalup. iOS Software Engineer. Former attorney, translator, and interpreter. Still watching 月曜から夜ふかし weekly since 2013.
This post is awesome, thanks for sharing. I am just a few years ahead of you Adam with a three and five year old. Both my wife and I have talked many times on how we wish we could do something like this but while she knows some Spanish and I know some Japanese neither of us are good enough to tackle any of these plans.
That has started to change though for me in the last year or two. My Japanese is slowly progressing and making me wonder if I could try some half baked attempt at this.
Firstly I don’t think I will be successful. My production practice is nearly zero. I can read pretty well now and listening is making great improvement. Production though is seriously lagging. But part of me wonders maybe I can use this as a chance to practice my production with my kids. The downside is I will have horrible pitch and make a ton of mistakes especially in grammar. I don’t really see this as making them bilingual but maybe keeping a spark of interest and exposure for them so they can continue learning later in life.
I already have exposed them with a Japanese language learning app for kids. They do enjoy watching Anpanman in Japanese. But when I try to speak to them now they usually think it’s annoying or silly so I’m not sure if will work.
That said maybe I’ll give it a try. If not now maybe in a year or two. To do it successfully I really need to practice my production. I think I’ll make that a major goal next year. Semi off topic but if anyone has advice on production let me know. I don’t live in Japan, I really don’t want to go the tutor or hello talk route but I’m realizing maybe the tutor route is the fastest way to practice a lot of production. Anyone have any outside the box ideas on production practice?
You can definitely use it to spark interest and get them interested in the culture.
One really good way to get exposure if you can’t give a lot of it yourself is to use a Japanese babysitter or nanny. I’ve heard this works well.
Just dropping by to say congratulations on becoming a father, Adam. That’s huge! I’m sure you and Yuki will do an awesome job of helping your kid get bilingual \o/
Thanks! We’re trying our best :)
“Your child is going to become a native speaker of country they live in, regardless of what you do.”
Believe it or not, this isn’t always true. I know a couple who are American missionaries living in Japan. From what I’ve gathered they are quite functional with the langauge, but probably not at the level of fluency described on this site. Between them they have 13 children. Yes really. And they are all homeschooled. No idea how that works.
I’m not quite aware of the age range, but it’s at least 7-18. Only a few of the older ones have enough confidence to do much speaking. It’s hard to judge, but I’d say most of them are at an intermediate level, if that. See even while they go to plenty of different Christian events they mostly stick to themselves and the few Japanese and foriegners that can speak English with them. I guess with so many siblings they are able to create their own English bubble.
Obviously it’s nothing for you to worry about, but it is possible.
Interesting. I guess I should have added “Outside of exceptional circumstances…”
Congratulation! Best of luck with your new baby.
I may have some insight for you since I have two kids ages 6 and 8 years old. My wife is Japanese and has spoken Japanese to them since birth. Not 100% but the majority of the time. I’ve only spoken English to them.
They currently are in an elementary school where half the day is in English and half is in Japanese. Prior to going to this school they went to a 100% Japanese immersion preschool and had a Japanese speaking au pair for two years. She lived with us and her English was poor so she only spoke to them in Japanese.
Before starting elementary school their preferred language was Japanese and they would talk to each other in Japanese when playing. Their Japanese was so dominant that I was concerned they would be behind in English. Now despite still being in a half Japanese school they’ve switched to English dominance. When we were in Japan this summer for two weeks they didn’t want to speak Japanese at all.
I’d advise that you speak your child in whatever language you feel most comfortable using since my kids had a super strong Japanese base with me still speaking only English. If you prefer Japanese that’s fine but just speaking in English to them won’t harm their Japanese development as long as your wife primarily speaks to them in Japanese.
I would assume that if your city is like ours she’ll have some Japanese speaking moms for playdates for the next few years. I’d also suggest that when you introduce TV (that shouldn’t be until after 2 years old) it be exclusively Japanese media for as long as possible)
I’ve also talked to parents with older kids in the immersion program (usually with one partner native Japanese) and my impression it that it’s common that the kids don’t want to answer back in Japanese once they get into late elementary school and beyond.
I feel that you’ll give your child a good base in Japanese but ultimately it will be their decision in middle school and older whether they’ll truly stick with the language. It doesn’t mean that they’ll have the same interest in Japanese as you do and so might not get to native level, particularly in reading, unless they develop their own intrinsic motivation.
This is assuming that you’re staying in the US for their childhood. I think it’s hard to make them true bilingual Japanese / English in the U.S. There’s no equivalent language islands here like Miami is for Spanish where they come across hundreds of people who only speak Japanese only.
Hope this is helpful, and feel free to ask me any questions.
Thanks for the insight Greg. It’s always useful and interesting to hear stories and experience from people who have done/are currently doing it with their children.
Just stopping by to say congratulations! MLAH seems a very logical choice given your circumstances, and I wish the best to you and everyone else on this site who is trying to raise their children to be bilingual.
Thank you very much :)
Does anyone have any advice on introducing your young children to Japanese media? I have a 3-year-old girl. Although I can’t control her interests, it would be nice to share my love of Japan with her and see what she does with it.
My three year old loves Anpanman. I also have introduced an Android learning game called Gus on the Go that he loves too. Also on youtube there are a ton of super simple songs (a channel) in Japanese.
I’m by no means am expert though, just a few ideas to try!
First of all, congrats Adam!
At my current job we actually have a billingual 1st grader who comes to our daycare after school for some extra work. He’s American, born to a Japanese/English billingual (2nd gen immigrant) and an English-only parent.
Now they do one parent one language so he speaks Japanese with his mom and English with his dad. However, what’s really helped is spending time in both countries. He spends summers in Japan, and this year his parents decided to have him go through all of first grade here. His Japanese has improved a lot (not mixing up the language and being able to express himself completely) and he learns tons of words related to school subjects he might not pick up otherwise if he went to school in the States.
Now this is supported by his dad, who has a job where he can work remotely 2 weeks per month, so he flies to and from Japan from Hawaii monthly. So not feasible for all families.
I’ll say something else too: all of my closest friends are 1st generation immigrants from China, moving to America between the ages of 4 and 6. And I know a few others like this as well. They only heard their native tongue at home. They still use their native language with their parents. But there are only 2 that are fluent now.
One, she decided to pick up the language more seriously as she went into Asian studies in college
The other fell in love with her native culture and enjoys to this day native media.
My other friends burned out in middle school. They went to extracurricular language school to learn reading and writing but dropped out. In retrospect, I think they felt there was no need to learn hanzi becaus they never used their native tongues beyond talking to their parents.
Even the kid at my work has Japanese shows he loves. He’s obsessed with Kamen Rider Ex-aid and of course watches many other Saturday/Sunday morning Japanese kids shows. Now to be fair these do air in Hawaii but still, he has something he WANTS to do with Japanese beyond talk to Mom.
So while the technique of how to expose your child to 2 (or more!) languages is incredibly important, don’t forget to shower your kids with things to watch, read and learn about. And if at all possible, being them to the country where the language is spoken for a few weeks. Get them hooked. Soon enough they’ll be learning on their own too just by picking up words in books and shows just like any kid would :)
Thanks for this post, not close to having kids yet (considering being married isn’t even on the horizon right now) but I do think about this topic a lot. Great write-up.
I have a 5 yr old and a 1 yr old son. My wife is Japanese and we live in Japan. I’ve always spoken English to my sons and my wife speaks Japanese. My 5 yr old can speak pretty well. He makes mistakes but he understands most of what I say and can respond well. I am also teaching him how to read. He can read simple little readers now, with a little help on the harder words. When my sons watch tv or youtube, it’s always in English.
As mentioned in this article, and others, it’s apparently more difficult once the child goes to school. Maybe he will reject speaking English to me? Guess what, he if stops speaking English, he stops communicating with his daddy because I’m not going to show I understand his Japanese and won’t reply! I doubt that attitude would last long.