Customer Reviews

The Bilingual Family: A Handbook for Parents

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm a native English speaker, married to a Russian, and we want to bring our daughter up bilingually. I found this book very useful - it is easy to read, easy to understand, and a good survey of the main issues, while raising some of the deeper issues of language acquisition. I would recommend it to anyone in my position. Like all the best books on child raising, it acknowledges that each child is unique, and so restricts itself to general guidelines on how to approach each situation. One minor quibble is that it does not deal with the problems of teaching two alphabets, but this is not a common problem, and we will just deal with this when it arises. The thing that I really like about this book is that both authors are bringing up their children bilingually, and use their children as case studies. They have many other case studies, which makes it clear how many different situations can arise, and what has worked in each case. They are also smart enough to include the case of parents with different native languages who choose to bring up their child with a single language.

They emphasise the importance of establishing consistency in the approach to language - whatever you decide is the best way, you should stick to it, and let the child work with this situation. This could be the standard one parent/one language approach, modified as appropriate when there are non bilinguals present, or it could be one language for the home, the other language outside. The book has other approaches that have worked in other situations, including trilingual situations.

The other thing that I learned from this book is that it is crucial to expose your child to situations where they use the language. If they need to speak a language, then they will. There were many stories of children who refused to speak one language, until they were confronted with a grandparent/cousin/friend who could only speak that language, and then the fluency came fast.

Another interesting point was that you should not be worried if your child mixes the languages - they will sort things out in time. It may not be a misunderstanding about meaning, it may just be that different words have different associations, and these get distinguished eventually. The authors also caution against correcting your child's language too much, which seems like good advice to me. Language is more a tool, than a skill; you are using it to communicate, rather than score points for correct usage.
I read this book in a day - it's readable, with lots of real-life examples. It also has some side-tracks into the deeper issues of linguistic theory, which raises some interesting issues, and there is a list of books suggested for further reading.

This is a fantastic book for parents who want to or need to raise their children in a multilingual environment. The approach is scientific, though the prose is not at all technical (it uses clinical studies, but you do not need a PhD in linguistics to understand the very real comforting and practical advice. We are a bilingual couple (English/Spanish) living in Japan. It was wonderful to read about the experiences of others in similar situations. The only (very mild) criticism I have is too much space spent debunking old ideas about bilingualism which seem out-of-date today. However, I understand that these ideas were entrenched in certain segments of society and need addressing for many people (meaning we, as parents, need the information to be able to handle skeptics as we encounter them). Case studies cover just about every contingency, and although the book is obviously based on European languages, the results can easily be seen to apply regardless of which languages are in question. It may take a little longer for certain language skills to develop between Japanese and English than between English and French, but the main point made is precisely that language aquisition is all relative. And kids will eventually sort it out. If you're worried or wondering about raising your kids with more than one language, buy this book. I'm glad I did.

This is a useful book for middle-class families that are trying to raise their children bilingual. It's subjects are mostly (but not all) educated middle class families that are bi- and mulitilingual "by choice" (i.e. living in a foreign country because of the parents' job, parents with different native languages, etc.) and speak European languages. It provides basic conceptual framework for bilinguality and goes through all possible cases of bilingual families. These examples are very helpful - not only one of them is likely to fit your particular situation, but you get a feel for how different language arrangements can work out. The book is very optimistic and encouraging in tone. It is very useful introductory reading on the subject. It is probably not going to be very useful for families in forced emigration, families with foreign adopted children, or monolingual families that wish their child to learn a foreing language. It does not have any detailed instructions, as its main purpose is to show that bilinguality is doable and comes in many different flavors. I was very reassured by this book in my desire to raise my children bilingual and bicultural.

This is a very comprehensive book about the general subject of raising bilingual children, based on a number of case studies. I am sure that therefore it would be of great use to anyone studying a linguistic subject in this realm.

However as a handbook for parents who want to raise a bilingual child it hardly offers any advise. I have a different native tongue than my wife, who's native language is English. Living in an English speaking country I would like my daughter to learn my (foreign) native language too. What I was looking for is a book with tips and ideas, such as word games, books, etc. to bring a second language playfully and naturally into a toddler's life.

If you are looking for such a book too, this is not the one. Although the book may be good for a linguistics student I have to give it a low rating because of its misleading title.

This book is definitely useful for multi-cultural families seeking to raise their children to be bilingual. It reviews various studies, but maintains an anecdotal format which is encouraging and accessible. Clearly it is based upon sound research but avoids being stuffy or non-conclusive. Excellent resource - I have recommended it to numerous friends and colleagues in expatriate communities and multi-cultural families.

I found this book a great asset. I am now in the 7th month of my pregnancy and will be dealing with multilingual upbringing of my child soon. I am Slovak, my boyfriend is Dutch, we speak English together and are living now in Argentina. This book gave me a lot of encouragement for the future. It is written in a very optimistic tone and gives you a lot of tips how to deal with different linguistic situations along the way. I highly recommend it to everybody who want to bring up their children in a bi- or multilingual home. Great useful reading.

We'd like to recommend this book to all parents of children who will learn more than one language growing up. We read the book and tried to use it to form our own ideas about the "hows" - which the book didn't emphasize nor mandate (=good). Rather, we found lots of information, tips and ideas that could be used to devise our own strategy. It was very helpful to understand the language learning process after having read the book. Oh yes, the numerous anecdotes makes the book well worth reading.

This is a good book and the authors have a lot of relevant and helpful advice to offer. Unfortunately, their expression and writing style can often leave something to be desired, as a result of which the book (particularly in the earlier sections) at times tends to read a bit like a university lecture. I think many new parents or parents-to-be might prefer a book that makes its point without letting the treatment bloat to much with the extra baggage of diversions and discussions about the discussions.

Not to detract from the merit of the book, it still is a good read, particularly the chapter on case studies, which describes 16 different multilingual families under various circumstances and how they raised their children multilingually and to what extent, and in which respects, they were successful in doing so. If the one indulges the somewhat tedious writing style, every so often one comes on a piece of text that indeed makes one stop and nod, thinking "now that's an interesting point of view". Furthermore, the fact that there are only a handful of books written on this topic (aimed at the parents in question at least), makes it even more worthwhile.

I enjoyed this book very much. The authors were raised in multilingual situations, so they write from experience more than from theory (this is good, as the theory is not well developed). If you're worried about your child's acquisition of more than one language at one time, this is the book to read first. This book has more do's than don'ts, and contains some funny anecdotes. But it's mostly about multilingualism within European languages; I didn't see anything about Japanese/English there.

This is a useful book for middle-class families that are trying to raise their children bilingual. It's subjects are mostly (but not all) educated middle class families that are bi- and mulitilingual "by choice" (i.e. living in a foreign country because of the parents' job, parents with different native languages, etc.) and speak European languages. It provides basic conceptual framework for bilinguality and goes through all possible cases of bilingual families. These examples are very helpful - not only one of them is likely to fit your particular situation, but you get a feel for how different language arrangements can work out. The book is very optimistic and encouraging in tone. It is very useful introductory reading on the subject. It is probably not going to be very useful for families in forced emigration, families with foreign adopted children, or monolingual families that wish their child to learn a foreign language. It does not have any detailed instructions, as its main purpose is to show that bilinguality is doable and comes in many different flavors. I was very reassured by this book in my desire to raise my children bilingual and bicultural.