Raising Multilingual Kids

Being a multilingual family is our normal, but it's definitely a curiosity for most people. As a family, we juggle English, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese. I say juggle because it feels that way. My spouse and I speak English to each other. Our kids speak Japanese with their dad. They speak Chinese with me. It sounds like a mess, and sometimes it is, but it somehow has worked us in the sense that this linguistic mishmash has not inhibited our ability to communicate with each other.

When we had E, we had a decision to make: how many languages would we teach her? English was a given since we lived in America. What about the other languages we spoke? Culture was as much part of it as language itself. But it would be a challenging road of consistency and awkwardness, since as parents our only common was English. At least one of us would have to speak to the baby in a language the other didn't fully understand. 

Before I delve into our odd little journey, let me explain our backgrounds. My husband is Japanese and was raised in Japan. He attended an international school, which is why he speaks English with an American accent. He also studied French during high school and university. So he is fluent in Japanese and English and can get by with basic French. I am Chinese but was raised in the U.S.. I lived in Spain briefly as a child and continued to study Spanish in university, where I studied abroad and attained a minor in Spanish. I have also been studying Japanese since arriving in Tokyo last year. So I am fluent in Mandarin, the Wu dialect, and English. I am now conversational (at best) in Spanish, having not spoken it in years, but my ability to read is better. On the other hand, I am barely literate in Chinese despite being completely fluent (a result of not attending Chinese school on the weekends while growing up in America). 

Which Languages to Prioritize?

From my perspective then, it wasn't a top priority for my kids to read and write Mandarin so long as they could speak it. I couldn't ask of them what I couldn't do myself. Also, a greater proportion of people in China compared to Japan speak English, probably because English has been an essential part of Chinese education for decades now. And since my husband's command of Japanese is better than my Chinese, it was natural to prioritize English and Japanese. 

My guiding principle is that no matter how many or how few languages they know, my kids must know them well. Speaking many languages but mastering none - this is what I wanted to avoid. 

Language as a Gateway to Culture

I have been steadily (but very slowly) studying Japanese for about a year. It's a language that totally immerses you in a different mindset: to speak Japanese is to think Japanese. The thing I find hardest about Japanese is all the double negatives: I don't want you to not do that. What?! It's hard for my English, or even Chinese, mind to wrap around. Communication here can be an art of evasiveness. This is an obvious way that the language reflects the culture, but it does in many other ways. 

There is a lot of discourse about what it means to be Japanese in the international community here, especially among expat kids and kids with one Japanese parent. For most, language is really a gateway to a culture. You can know a language and still not fully understanding the culture, but it's difficult to grasp the subtleties of a culture without knowing the language. So I wanted to give my kids a shot at fully embracing their Japanese identity. While they could always learn Japanese as adults, it would be harder to learn it, and it would be different from growing up having known it. In a way I suppose I am making a choice for them, but it's one that will pass them by if it's not made now. 

Is There Room for One More? 

Japanese and Chinese, though they share similarities, are vastly different languages with different grammar and writing systems. Written Japanese has four components: Romaji (the romanization of characters), Kanji (Chinese characters, though many are not the same as modern Chinese characters), Hiragana (Japanese characters), and Katakana (a different set of Japanese characters used for foreign words). Written Chinese has two components: Pinyin (also a romanization of Chinese, though different from Japan's) and the full set of 8,000 characters that the average Chinese adult knows. Despite a bit of overlap, Chinese and Japanese are really very different languages. For one, they don't sound at all alike. 

Growing up, Spanish was a big part of my life. I lived in Spain briefly as a child, spent summer vacations there, and studied abroad there. I minored in Spanish in college. Spanish language and culture has been an important part of my life and in many ways my identity as well. Because of it (and my Chinese illiteracy), I find myself more equipped to learn most European languages than Asian ones, including Japanese. This has influenced what books I read, what art I like, and my perspective on the world. It's a perspective I would like to share with my kids, even just a little. If you believe that language is a gateway to culture, which I do, then my hope is that someday my kids also study a language from the European continent. But it's only a hope and not an expectation. 

Right now

Right now E is learning how to read at her English-speaking school, so the focus is very much on English. While her English improves, it creeps into her other languages. She says things like, watashi wa freak out shita (I freaked out). So we just keep reminding her the Japanese or Chinese words for whatever she is saying. We have accepted that, especially at this age, her grasp of each language will naturally fluctuate depending on the circumstances. My best language is English, so I am in charge of reading all the English books at bedtime. The kids then rotate to their dad, who is in charge of reading the Japanese books. It may sound like a pain, but it's just our routine now. 

Learning how to write English. 

I think being a trilingual family wouldn't be so strange in some parts of the world, especially if the  languages have common roots. The biggest challenge for us is 1) how different our languages are and 2) we share only English as the common language. As the kids start primary school, I'm sure we will adjust as things change.