It may not be easy, but it’s well worth doing it! Still unsure? Here are 9 reasons to raise your child bilingual!
As someone who has been raised bilingually, and as someone who’s raised their own child bilingually, I believe that I’m uniquely qualified to answer this!
Most of these are the reasons I decided, like my parents before me to raise our child bilingual!
What is bilingual anyway?
Before we can proceed, we need to know what being bilingual is anyway!
Bilingual is someone who speaks two languages to an equal level of fluency.
Bilingual forms: native and non-native. Native is where you are a native speaker of both languages, and thus are bilingual. Non-native is where you are a speaker of one natively and have learned the other to an almost-native level.
This latter group have the highest chance of going on to become hyperpolyglots!
9. It makes languages at school easy
Do you remember when you were at school? Do you remember when you had to learn a foreign language? Perhaps it was French, perhaps it was Spanish, perhaps it was German.
Do you remember how hard it was? What if you could get an extra advantage over the other students? Would that be amazing!
No, I’m not talking about speaking the language beforehand. Most schools require parents to disclose their children’s first languages to the school in order to avoid this kind of situation.
But it’s also a well known fact- once you speak one foreign language, it is so much easier to learn another! This alone is one of the best reasons to raise your child bilingual!
If you, now, can make your child’s life easier ten years down the line, surely that’s worth it!
8. Makes school easier
It’s not just foreign language studies that bilingual children will find easier, it’s other core subjects too!
By raising your child bilingual, you open them up so much that the information our education system gives them is a piece of cake! Especially written-related subjects, like English, are easier for bilingual kids!
But even subjects like Mathematics are easier for bilingual children. Why? Because math is a very logical subject, you do one thing in order to get an answer. This is very similar to how languages work!
This alone should be one of the biggest reasons to raise your child bilingual! Why not give them an advantage above their peers, before they even get to school?!
7. Earn more
Businesses want employees who speak foreign languages. They want people who can help them when operating internationally. This mitigates their need for translators and interpreters and the costs that are associated with it!
As such, this extra skill makes them more employable. As such, they’re able to get a higher wage from their employer! And this is relevant to any job they might want to do! Whether this is a doctor, salesman or parking lot attendant!
This is by far one of the best reasons to raise your child bilingual! If not the best reason to do so!
6. Health benefits
Studies have shown numerous health benefits associated with learning a language. Whilst all of the health benefits are too numerous to list, this alone should be one of the best reasons to raise your child bilingual!
Probably the most publicized (and best) reason to raise you kid bilingual is the heightened immunity to Alzheimers and other similar illnesses like Dementia.
Not only that, but it also offsets the onset of dementia by 4.5 years. This means that your child may be able to spend an extra 4.5 years with their loved ones when they’re older. That alone should be a great reason to raise your kid like this!
However, this is only if they continue to speak both of their languages into adulthood, and regularly!
5. Improves memory
This goes without saying. Because your kid has been able to store two languages in their brain, their brain is used to storing a lot of information! This aids their memory in the long term!
This is also the reasons why so many people who learn one or two languages, end up learning so many more!
The brain is also more ‘elastic’ when you are constantly learning new material. As such, with their already having been ‘elasticated’ during infancy already, their memory will already be greatly expanded!
This then links back in with the fact that bilingual children do better in school than their monolingual competitors!
4. Better understanding of the world
By being bilingual, it gives you a special understanding of the world. There are several reasons why being bilingual gives you a better understanding of the world!
Some of the reasons include:
- Understand various cultures
- Read different perspectives
- Find more information
- And more!
Not only does it increase your language abilities in your own language, which will certainly help when trying to understand the world!
By raising your child bilingual, it also allows you to read different perspectives. By raising your child bilingual, you allow them to access more information than their monolingual counterparts!
By raising your child bilingual, you allow them to access more information in both of their languages! This then, exposes them to more viewpoints, especially those that may be considerably different from their own!
In fact, people who were bilingual, and thus able to access more opinions on Brexit, mostly voted to remain! (However, this could also be put down to the fact that many people who are native bilingual, often have one or two foreign parents!)
3. Improves social skills
Being social often involves talking to people (even despite what the teenagers of today may think!) Speaking two, or even three languages allows you to do that a lot easier!
English currently has between 1.2 and 1.5 billion speakers. Spanish currently has 525 million speakers. And roughly 1.3 billion speakers for Mandarin!
If you were to speak just those three languages, you’d be able to speak with 3.3 billion people! (obviously, it will be slightly less than that as some people will naturally speak two or even all three of these languages!)
That’s certainly a reason to go to an international party! And if you can do that by raising your kid bilingually, that’s definitely worth it!
2. Makes traveling far easier!
I have to say, this is probably one of the best reasons to raise your child bilingual. Chances are, that when they’re older, they’ll want to travel the world. If not the world, maybe to certain countries.
And this doesn’t even have to be a country where their languages are spoken!
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been to Italy and managed to use my Catalan. Heck! I even went to Germany last year, and stood talking to a man in Catalan in the middle of a restaurant!
But it isn’t just that!
Even just traveling around Europe, the ability to speak Catalan has helped me tremendously! I was in Tarragona (Catalonia) two years ago, visiting the Roman ruins, when we got lost.
Had I not asked a local to point me in the direct of the ruins (in Catalan), we would’ve probably never found the ruins! (What a shame that would’ve been! They’re absolutely amazing!)
1. It makes life much more fun!
Chances are, when you teach your child to be bilingual, both (or at least one!) parent will speak the language. Imagine if you, your spouse and your child can communicate in two different languages! Imagine how cool that would be!
When I was a child, my father (who was half Catalan on my grandmother’s side!) made me a native speaker of both English and Catalan. When we were out and about, we would use English, an when we were at home, we’d use Catalan.
When we were out, and my father wanted to tell me off, or make an insult about someone we were with, he’d use Catalan. This gave us a unique ‘club’ that was exclusive to only my father and I.
Then, when I went to university, I found that there were several others who also spoke Catalan on campus! This again, gave us a unique club that separated us from the others on campus. It was great!
Got any other reasons to raise your child bilingual? Tell me in the comments!