Your friends Kumi and Hugh have a 6-month-old son, Joe. Kumi is a native speaker of Japanese and Hugh is a native speaker of English
They are thinking about raising Joe to be bilingual but they are wondering if there are any benefits or drawbacks to this. What can you tell Kumi and Hugh about the impact of bilingualism on language development?
What will be an ideal response?
A good answer will be similar to the following:
Initially, language development in bilingual children may be slower than that of monolingual children but there are many benefits in the long run. When 1- and 2-year-olds are reared in a bilingual home, their language development often progresses slowly at first because they mix words from both languages. By 3 or 4 years of age, however, children can separate the two languages. During the elementary-school years, most bilingual children have a better understanding of many aspects of language such as understanding fine points of grammar and understanding that words are arbitrary symbols. So, in the long run Joe will not be harmed and should benefit from his bilingual upbringing.
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