TRILINGUAL BY SIX

     Two things professional educators don’t really want you to know:

1. If your children aren’t multilingual by age 6, they probably never
will be.

2. If your children are taught to read at age 4, some happier child
who didn’t learn until age 7 will probably surpass them by about
the 4th grade.

This just might mean that much of the preschool education we buy is
a waste of good money. Maybe it also means that high school and college
language courses are a colossal waste of time. (Do you remember it that
way?) It tells you that when you see those pricey language-learning products
at your local bookstore, maybe you should just keep right on walking.
Most importantly, it means that if you want your infant or toddler to be
fluent in Spanish, French, or Chinese one day…you’d better not dilly-dally
around!
     In Papua New Guinea—where the Stone Age is at least a living memory,
if not a present-day reality, and the literacy rate is only about 65%—it’s
common to find tribal villagers who speak five or more languages fluently.
In fact, multilingualism may still be more common than literacy in that
country. In the United States, on the other hand, where we spend billions
of dollars annually on foreign-language education, it’s pretty uncommon
for mainstream public-school students to actually become fluent in even
a second language. For any parent willing to consider raising multilingual
children, this raises a set of perplexing questions. It might also open up
some very exciting possibilities.
     How do the villagers do it? Why can’t we? Do they know some ancient
secret that we’ve forgotten? Are false assumptions permeating our educational
system, our scientific theories, and our social structure? Having
watched my own children become fluent in multiple languages in an ordinary
American setting, the answers to these questions seem embarrassingly
obvious. Shortly after her first birthday, my oldest daughter became
multilingual as if by accident, without my permission, without even consulting
me first.
     Could be you’re already following me here. It’s not what we don’t know;
it’s what we think we do know that holds us back—our false assumptions.
Before I show you how to raise trilingual children, I’ll need to deconstruct
those for you. Maybe you’ve heard this one already: What do you
call someone who speaks three languages? Trilingual. What do you call
someone who speaks two languages? Bilingual. What do you call someone
who speaks one language? American. In the most linguistically diverse
nation the planet has ever seen, most of us who grew up in the United
States speak just a single language. In some circles, we may find ourselves
the brunt of a lot of jokes. Perhaps they leave us feeling a little insecure.
Maybe we really are less intelligent than people in other countries. Maybe
we’re just spoiled and lazy.
     As far as I’m concerned, it’s none of those. It’s just that our approach
to learning additional languages is, quite frankly, all wrong. I’d like to
think that we could tweak our educational system just a little. The United
States could be just as multilingual as many other countries, but old habits
die hard, and frozen bureaucracies move only at a glacial pace. I’m not
sure that anything new will happen within a convenient time frame for
you and your children. Thus, if you want to give your children this educational
advantage, you might have to take matters into your own hands.
You would have a high chance of success; it really isn’t terribly difficult to
raise trilingual children. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
     However, it is important to start as early in life as you possibly can.
That’s actually controversial, but as far as I’m concerned, you shouldn’t
allow yourself to believe otherwise. Historically, American children who
attempt to learn a new language in high school, in a classroom setting, the
way we’ve always done it, have a success rate lower than 1%. Everything
else you might like your children to learn in life will probably wait until
the school years, but languages will not.
     The most famous linguist the world has ever known is a guy by the
name of Noam Chomsky. Supposedly, only Jesus Christ has been quoted
more often. Several decades ago, he theorized the existence of a “language
acquisition device” that virtually every human brain has during the early
years of life. Though not all scientists accept the theory, it has remained
a very popular explanation for why children learn languages so well.
Basically, it’s a survival instinct. From a very early point in life, children
have always needed to communicate with other humans just to stay alive.
Since newborns never get to choose where they will be born, their brains
are equipped with all the tools necessary to learn any language spoken
on the planet. Inside the brain, all human languages are viewed as having
some fundamental common form, and learning to speak any one of them is
just a matter of fine-tuning what we are born already knowing. Language
is like an iceberg, and the fraction of it we acquire after birth is just the
tip of the tip. Thus, babies and small children do not “learn” to speak a
language; they just tweak their innate ability. Experience has shown that
this language acquisition device can fine-tune the brain to use more than
just one language if a child’s surroundings warrant it. Most small children
in the world grow up needing to communicate in at least two languages,
and they manage to do so without much trouble at all.
     But the language acquisition device doesn’t stay active forever. Under
ordinary circumstances, most children acquire the fundamental linguistic
abilities they need by the time they are about 3 years old. While they
may still need a larger vocabulary and smoother pronunciation, by this
age, they have learned the basic patterns of whichever languages they
will need. At this point, children no longer need the language acquisition
device, and it somehow fades into oblivion. Maybe it does not suddenly
disappear, but it gradually fades. The “critical period” for language learning
draws to an end.
     Scientists who do not accept Chomsky’s theory are quick to point out
that older children, even adults, are perfectly capable of learning new languages. In fact, some say they learn them faster, though I have to wonder
if that claim might be a little misleading. Take the case of a Harvard freshman
studying Spanish pitted against an average 2-year-old learning the
same language. After 2 years, who will be speaking the language better?
Why, the Harvard man, of course. Now, fast-forward 20 years. At that
point, who will be speaking the language better? Most likely the toddler
will have the edge. You get the basic idea. Even if children have no special
instinctive language-learning ability, they have more time, more opportunity,
fewer other “subjects” to study, fewer responsibilities, no romantic
liaisons, no career stressors.
     Adults who attempt a new language have a very poor long-term success
rate. Teenagers, we’ve seen, are no better. In the hands of reasonably
motivated parents, children probably have a success rate well over 90%.
The reasons behind that difference are not necessarily important to us. If
you want your children to learn languages (and learn them permanently),
start early. Use the language acquisition device to your advantage. If
Dr. Chomsky is correct, it’s a fundamental human instinct. If he’s wrong,
do it anyway.
     World-famous scientists with off-the-chart IQ scores like to attend
international conferences where they fight like cats and dogs about these
matters. Are Dr. Chomsky’s theories fact or flop? Is there a critical period
in life for language learning or not? Is human language an instinct or
something we all just learn by imitation? For me, a father who just wants
to raise multilingual children, my conclusion is, “It doesn’t matter.” Look
beyond the trees to the forest, because getting bogged down in theoretical
arguments will not make anyone a more successful trilingual parent. I’ve
already satisfied myself that young children are superior language learners,
and I think I can convince you of that too. Whether they learn them
instinctively or not, whether they have a built-in language acquisition
device or they don’t, whether the first 3 years of life are a critical period or
not, just doesn’t make all that much difference. With only a little experience
in raising your own multilingual children, I believe you’ll come to
the same conclusions. Nevertheless, because it’s a useful way to conceptualize
the childhood language-learning process, I give Dr. Chomsky’s
theory the benefit of the doubt and present it as truth. If you’re a scientist,
and that sort of thing annoys you, let me cross my fingers behind my back
and apologize before I move on.
     In terms of practical application, the science on actually raising multilingual
children is incredibly sketchy. Most of what exists examines kids
over the age of 3, and nearly all of it examines only bilingual children.
Almost none of it has anything to say about trilingual children, so a fair
amount of educated guessing is necessary. To the greatest extent possible,
I’ve tried to base my comments on the available science, but that’s
not always an option. Sometimes you have to fall back on common sense.
Other times, you just need a vivid imagination! When it comes to many
real-world specifics, I have resorted to that—just dreaming stuff up. There
is no real alternative at this point in our technical understanding. When I
suggest something that I just dreamed up, I’ll call your attention to that,
so you can take it with a grain of salt if you like. And I’d like to point out
that if you wait until science can be more helpful, your children will probably
be over 100 years old.
     But maybe you’re not terribly scientifically inclined. Maybe you’re
more like a young adult renting a first apartment with a kitchen. One
weekend you decide it might be fun to bake your first loaf of bread. You
don’t want to be a gourmet chef; just a simple recipe will do. You’re not
terribly interested in all the utility company infrastructure that brings
electrical power to your apartment, you don’t really care about the engineering
that went into the design of your new oven, and you’re not overly
concerned about the phylogenetic classification of the grain you use in
your bread. You just want to follow some simple directions, slap some butter
on the finished product, and enjoy a little self-satisfaction. If it’s just a
recipe you want here, I’ll try to give it to you. In fact, the last chapter of
this book contains such a recipe. Maybe you’ll need a bit of a cooking lesson
beforehand, but, if not, just follow the recipe, and you should be fine.
Maybe you’re pretty busy, and maybe too much information would only
slow you down. Feel free to skim anything you don’t find helpful, but be
advised, you might miss a bad joke or two if you’re not giving this your
full, undivided attention. (A joke, you see, is an invitation to think outside
the box, and I’ll ask you to do that, more than a little.)
     Across the world, the recent trend has been to teach typical school
subjects like math and reading to younger and younger children. About
that, I’ll have enough to say to make you lapse into a coma. In some
instances, maybe this strategy has worked, but in others, it has failed. As
we’ll see, school subjects are far from instinctive and must be taught in
what might fairly be described as a boring way, at least as far as little kids
are concerned. Spoken languages, on the other hand, are fun and natural
for little ones, unless we as adults go out of our way to make them boring
or unless we delay their introduction. After puberty, languages are
taught in the same dry, boring way as math and science. As often as not,
our schools begin teaching new languages around that time, when they
cease to be fun and easy, and I think that’s a colossal mistake. It would
be better to focus on languages early on and redouble our efforts to teach
the traditional school subjects more diligently in the later years. In fact,
across the globe, many top-performing educational systems in the most
highly literate and multilingual countries do exactly that, as we’ll see. But
fortunately (or unfortunately, depending upon how you view it), the best
language-learning years seem to be the ones well before the start of formal
schooling. So schools in their traditional sense can hardly be blamed for
this missed opportunity. To illustrate, there are measurable differences
in proficiency between children who begin learning a language at birth
and children who begin learning at about 10 months of age. Virtually no
school system is designed to seize this very early opportunity. Going back
even farther, into the 3rd trimester of life in the womb, which is definitely
not soundproof, fetuses are listening to their mothers’ conversations. By
the time they are born, they can already distinguish their mothers’ voices
from other voices. Within a few weeks, they can distinguish their mothers’
languages from other languages.
     If you happen to reside somewhere other than the United States, I have
to apologize just a little. I’ve tried my best to make this book relevant, no
matter where you happen to be parenting, but obviously, I know my own
home system better than I know others. I think you’ll find much that is
helpful as you read, and I think you’ll be able to apply it to your own unique
situation in your own country. As I’ve implied, language is quite political,
and circumstances vary greatly from place to place. Nevertheless, the
world is rapidly becoming a more globally minded community, and daily
life in each country is growing more uniform. Modern life is modern life,
no matter where you are, and that will only progress, I think. Whether
your setting is urban or rural, developed or primitive, you can formulate a
trilingual plan for your children there.
     Let me show you how.