I'm interested in how to manage languages with small babies.
Is trilinguism problematic as opposed to bilinguism? For example, will the baby take longer to speak than he would if he was bilingual?
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1This is way too broad. A whole book can be written on this matter, and still it won't cover everything. What specifically are you doing, and what specific problems are you facing with?– Be Brave Be Like UkraineFeb 17, 2017 at 0:18
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1Welcome to Language Learning Stack Exchange. I'm sorry, but I have to agree with bytebuster: this question, as it stands, is rather broad and possibly somewhat opinion based. If you could narrow the scope of this question and make it specific enough so that the community could provide an objective answer, that would be great. Feel free to split it into multiple related questions as well, if necessary. Thanks so much for being willing to participate in our community!– HatchetFeb 17, 2017 at 0:58
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I have edited your question to focus on a single question, rather than the very broad (and off-topic) "Can anyone recommend any resources?"– FlimzyFeb 21, 2017 at 16:25
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1 Answer
A bit googling on "trilingual baby" and "bilingual baby" gives me some good results, of which one of the sites I share here : http://www.trilingualchildren.com/
Will the baby take longer to speak than he would if he was bilingual?
It depends if you have plan or not.
http://www.brainy-child.com/article/bilingual.shtml suggests parent who want to raise their children to become bilingual to have 'language plan'. I believe this is the same with trilingual.
For example: 1 language when speaking to mother, 1 language when speaking to father, and 1 language when speaking in community or school.
This is some factors to be considered:
- They will have to absorb and associate more vocabulary from three, opposed to two, languages.
- The similarity of the languages. Different roots will make it easier to differentiate, thus prevent confusing words, but similar roots will make it easier to learn them together.
- The degree you expect them to master the languages. Do you expect them to master each language equally? Or only one as primary language? Or only want fluent in speaking?
Something to keep in mind:
- Babies won't confuse the words from other languages, at least after they grow up a bit they will certainly know the languages are different.
- Most experts believe that learning more languages stimulate cognitive development.
