Multilingual Experiment: the 5th Year Update

FINE MOTOR & COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

Jumbo Jet, version 295

Our dear Ju will be 5 years old in a few months. He's asking me often, when he will have his birthday (May), which month are we now (January), and whether tomorrow will be February (no) and so on.

A child appears to have a nebulous sense of time until that magic moment that he figures out that there are 60 seconds to a minute and that when you say "10 minutes" it could actually mean 30 or 1 (well, many Singaporeans seem to think that saying 10 minutes will be understood by the other waiting party as 30 or more so who am I to talk). 

Acrylic on canvas "6 Trains", 2016

But apart from time, Ju has made leaps and bounds in so many areas of development that it's a real toughie to start this post! You can see from his latest pictures that he is something of a minor prodigy when it comes to drawing. If my memory serves me well, he started asking for drawings of trains at 2.5 years and since then he's been drawing non stop. I have enough drawing supplies to stock a small kindergarten. Ju pays very close attention to detail and for better or worse, he's a perfectionist. This means tantrums when he (or we!) doesn't get a particular turbine or cockpit done just right. Teaching him to manage his frustration with his perceived "imperfections" has been one of the main challenges since age 4. 

Christmas present for Oma, 2015.

While Ju can and likes to produce detailed and accurately-represented drawings, these are limited to his two favourite subjects: aeroplanes and trains. With some help from me, he learnt to include mountains, clouds and landscape features but not much else. It is an epic struggle to get him to add people in the trains much less anywhere in the picture. His forte: a train entering or exiting a tunnel. Ask him where the passengers are and he's got a good answer ready: "This train is going to the depot, everyone has alighted at the last station!" We are working on this. 

Ju's cognitive development is normal and his fine and gross motor abilities are developing very well. Since moving to Kuala Lumpur and transitioning to his new international school, Ju has made many friends and learnt to swim, play football, and most importantly read. The British national curriculum for the Early Years introduces phonics and early reading at age 4-5, known as the Reception year. This is early compared to the western European countries. In Germany there is no introduction to reading or even any formal education until Grade One (age 6). After 4 months of phonics training, Ju can now read simple sentences. The reading programme at his school is impressive and the children who finish Reception are usually literate by then and can spell. I'll devote a separate post on Literacy when I talk about school!

SPEECH AND COMMUNICATION

In my last update, Ju was 2 years of age and just starting to speak. In the last 2 and a half years, his speech has exploded exponentially in ALL THREE LANGUAGES. I cannot say this more emphatically and I feel a lovely kind of proud vindication every time I stop to wonder at how he has made it to this point!

People who discover that he speaks and understands German, Mandarin and English never cease to be amazed by Ju's ability. What is otherwise a normal day for him becomes an amazing thing to others watching him switch flawlessly back and forth from Mandarin Chinese to German in a conversation amongst him, his father and me. Family members are now used to Ju's categorical refusal to mix languages. He might be describing his train system to his Oma and Opa in German and in the next minute he would look up and inform me in Mandarin that Opa was driving the train wrongly. The only time he mixes in a word in the other language is if he doesn't know it in the current language. For example, "Mama, shen me shi Zug Schienen?" (Mama, what is "Zug Schienen" in Chinese?) He would actually ask for the term in Chinese if he needs to use it. Strangely, if he does not know how to translate a sentence to the other language, or if he doesn't want to take the effort, he prefers to say "I don't know" or "it's a surprise!" which is a euphemism for "I don't want to say". For instance:

Ju: 妈妈,今天我们在游泳池里跳进水里,然后浅下去地上抓一个东西!

(Mama, today in the pool we all jumped in and dived to the floor to pick something up!)

Oma: Julien, was hast du zu Mama erzalt? (Julien, what did you say to Mama?)

Ju: Ein uberraschung.... (a surprise....)

Of course, if you were constantly asked to translate what you just said, you wouldn't want to either, especially if you were 4 years old and had more interesting things to do! In fact Ju separates the languages so clearly amongst people that he would rather say nothing than speak the "wrong" language in front of the "wrong" person.

For instance, he speaks only in Mandarin with his friend and neighbour, Mia, who is Chinese. Conversation proceeds normally with Chinese speakers (Mia's parents and myself) but if Daniel enters the picture and everyone switches to English, Ju will not use English at all. He will answer Daniel exclusively in German. 

In another example, Ju will not speak any English at school in my presence. Getting him to say even a simple "Hello" or "Good morning" to the teacher feels as painful as pulling teeth if I were standing next to him. Mind you, he speaks English just fine, I have video footage from school to prove it. In fact he speaks English with a crisp German accent that is hilarious. He says "Ool of them" instead of "All (Orl, as locals like to drawl) of them" and he stretches out his "here" with "heeya" like you would say the German "hier".  

Strangely, Mandarin tones have not messed up his English or German tones. Ju maintains German and English closely to the native tones. Because German and English are much more monotonous compared to Chinese, Singaporean and Malaysian English has a sing-song quality that matches our Chinese tones, much like how a Hong Konger who is bilingual would speak. My early theory to explain this had been that simultaneous bilingual speakers like Singaporeans and perhaps Hong Kongers who learnt both languages at the same time tend to apply the Mandarin or Cantonese tones to English. This would be more pronounced in later generations who are taught English by non-native speakers and who grow up communicating with Singaporean parents who already spoke more tonal English, or "Singlish" as we call it, replete with lah's and lor's! 

The reason Ju does not speak in the distinctive "Singlish" manner could be down to two crucial factors: 1) I very rarely communicate in English with him and 2) His only English communication in the last 2 years have been primarily in international school where teachers are either British or European. 

First, English in the home is only spoken between Daniel and me, the parents. In terms of air time, Ju has had very little of it compared to the amount he hears in school mainly because Daniel is home after 7pm and Ju goes to bed at 7.30pm. In Brussels, he heard even less English spoken by us because Daniel only came home on weekends from Germany where he was working. Don't get me wrong! I am not in the least ashamed of my Singapore accent, hell, I would be the last person from whom you will hear a fake American or British accent. These days I inject a lot more English when I speak to Ju, but specifically only in cases for scolding or in an emergency like "Get down from there right now or you're going to break a leg!". But since Ju is way past the point for mixing languages, he never ever replies in English. 

Second, English communication for Ju is restricted to a clear social setting: school. Since age 2.5, he had gone to an English nursery in Brussels, then an English international school until he turned 4. His nanny who took care of him between the weekday hours of 3.30 and 7pm was Polish and so they communicated in English. (Interestingly, he hardly spoke to his nanny in my presence as he would be forced to use English! So I would often duck out of the room and spy on them talking just to hear Ju speak in English) After moving to Malaysia, we continued Ju's education in a British international school where he gets all instruction in English and 3 hours of Chinese lessons per week as his foreign language. 

The earlier Singlish influences in Singapore (between birth and age 2.5) were arguably minimal. He had begun basic utterances in English before moving to Belgium, but they were rudimentary and he was far from fluent. The video footage I have show a definite predisposition to Singlish tones, but this was to be expected as he spent close to 12 hours per week day primarily with my parents while we were working full time. 

It does sound rather bizarre for a parent to say that she has no idea how her kid sounds when speaking English. But this is our daily reality. Our son absolutely refuses to use anything but Mandarin and German in our presence. You can imagine the problems we have getting him to do his required reading practice at home. But here's the funny part: Ju has no issues accepting us reading to him in English, but it is an insult to his sensibilities if you expect him to read to us in English. 

Suffice it to say, our multilingual experiment has produced results far exceeding our expectations at the start, and it has also produced unintended consequences that we are just learning to deal with!

A New Blog

For all you readers who are interested in the Project Baby multilingual experiment, I've started a new blog here. It's devoted entirely to Ju's linguistic development and related issues which I think are interesting and helpful to anyone keen on multilingualism and bringing up their kids bilingual. Future updates on Ju's development will also be posted at The Multilingual Experiment.

Watch this space for my next post. It's coming real soon, I'm sorry for the absence, but there's been so much happening and an announcement I have to make as well. Thanks for dropping by!

Project Baby: The 24th Month Update

 I am happy to announce that Ju is almost at his 2 year mark, having crossed his 23rd month with a slew of new tricks, tantrums and toys. He has also learnt to pose for the camera, as can be seen below.

Juju at 23 months

Communication 

The last couple of months had me slightly worried as Ju still didn't say much more than the occasional Mama and Papa. We weren't sure if he had been referring to us specifically, i.e. actively communicating with intention or merely vocalising at random. Since the 23rd month I think, his verbal development seemed to take off steadily. He can now identify and address the following people: Opa (A-pa), Oma (Ee-pee, don't ask me to explain this one), Poh Poh, Gong Gong (Doh-doh), Yi-Yi, Uncle Tobi (Bi Bi) and Uncle Chrissy (Ee-chee). He addresses himself as Chu-chu in a barely audible mumble. He not only picks out people accurately in photographs, he has learnt to associate traits with certain people, particularly his Oma and Opa. For example, when Dan asks him in German who will pick him up at Frankfurt Airport in May, he says "A-pa", and when prompted "Who else?" he replies "Ee-pee". And when he wakes up in the middle of the night and notices that Dan is not around, he shouts "PAAA". He also greets us at the door with loud yelps of Pa and Ma when we go get him after work. It's really the best part of our day.

With Oma and Opa

Certain people have become part of his long term memory, or maybe his awareness of people in his everyday life has simply developed. When we drive him to my Mum's in the morning, he would sometimes say "Poh Poh" as we turn into the driveway. He revels in noticing things in every day life that correspond with the pictures in his book. For example, he makes a big deal each time we drive past the Esso petrol station because he recognises the petrol pumps. We have to name the pumps before he's satisfied. The same goes for the moon, the sun (setting and rising), balloons (naturally) and of particular passion, the train. Ju starts making the choo-choo action with his arms when he sees the MRT tracks and gets upset when there is no train in sight. His expressive vocabulary now includes "nana" (banana), "ya" (Chinese "ya zi" for duck), "mei mei" (Chinese "cao mei" for strawberry) and "mi mi" (German "milch" for milk).This week, he started to say "apple".

I tested his phonetic ability with the ABCs, and made an astounding discovery: Ju can pronounce A, B, but not C, D, E, not F, G (sounds like chii), not H, I, J, K, L, he does an excellent M, N, O, P but no Q. He can do an impression of R (sounds like Aaaaarrrr!), no S but he can do T. No U, V, W but an impression of X ("icks"), no Y or Z. His phonetic ability corresponds with the words and sounds he is able to utter.

Play

Ju cooks for Doggy (background)

Ju's raison d'etre is play. I've taken him out of his playgroup as it seemed to be doing more harm than good since they did a lot more teaching than playing. Ju hated being kept 1.5 hours in a small space with 4 other toddlers he had no interest in (the same held for the other toddlers). Now he spends his days walking to the playground for his daily exercise and then playing with his toys at home. He gets some time in the backyard in the afternoon to do his favourite activity -- watering the plants. Then he sometimes gets a bike ride with Grandpa to the beach to feed the turtles. In the evening back home with us, he plays with his kitchenette or reads with us. I'm not too concerned about his social development with the absence of a school environment as I mentioned before, and this month I can say there is nothing to be concerned about. Ju appears to be as people-oriented as the next 2 year old. He shows some interest in other children when they are engaged in a fun activity he would like to partake in (like tricycles and bobby cars) and responds positively when I talk about Gleb and Kyra, the Ukrainian kids next door. Last weekend, I asked Ju if we could give one of his toys to Gleb (14 months). I had placed the toy in a paper bag but he reached in and pulled it out, then pointed at himself. At first I thought Ju meant that the toy was his. But then he pointed at the door and I realised that he wanted to give it to Gleb. So we went next door for a visit. 

Teddy bear gets to eat

Ju is also fully into imaginative play now. He is quick on the uptake and imitates as soon as he is shown the first time. He loves his kitchenette and one day after he met a dog drinking out of a dish of water for the first time, he figured that animals, like humans, ate too. I am barely beginning to appreciate the wonder that it the toddler's imagination. The picture on the left was taken 2 months ago at a cafe. Ju yelled for the bear the moment its owner, a 4 year old girl, sat down at the adjacent table. I suppose he is still gender-indifferent. The girl reluctantly loaned her bear to Ju, who proceeded to pay attentive care to it, sitting it next to him and offering it spoonfuls of pretend-food. It was as endearing as it was painful to pry the bear away from Ju when it was time to leave.

Toilet Training

Last time I talked about potty training, Ju was not doing much in his potty as yet. He is now able to do his pee-pee 4 out of 5 times he's forced to sit there. Ju HATES the potty. His actual need to pee corresponds to the intensity of his resistance to it. The more pee he has to let go, the more he would protest, kick and yell. We now have a routine: pee before bedtime, after his nap and when he wakes (if he isn't still sleeping when we leave the house in the morning). I have to use various strategies of carrot and stick -- more sticks and threats -- to get him to comply, but most of the time, it works. I was and still am wary about traumatising him with premature potty-training, but it appears from observation that Ju resists for the sake of resistance rather than aversion to toilet training. If he is made to do it with enough regularity, his diaper stays quite dry. But he has not developed the inclination to tell us in advance of a pee, since his natural instinct is to do it in the diaper. Poos are almost always done in a fresh diaper. We have taken to spelling the word "Potty" so that he will not hear us discussing our plans and throw a fit to pre-empt us. I admit that it's a little undignified to pounce on a toddler and yank down his diaper whenever we want him to pee, but we've tried telling him nicely that it's time for the potty and all it's gotten us (every time) is a loud rebuke or a chase around the room.We have great moments though, like when Ju does a pee, he starts to clap his hands and say "Yay"! It's hard not to break into a grin and applaud with him.

Teeth brushing is turning into less of a civilisation battle at the sink every evening. I gave Ju one of his old water bottles minus the top part with the straw. It's a bright, colourful blue and I let him play with it with the faucet on. It gets me the 15 to 20 seconds I need to brush his teeth. He has also learnt to rinse and spit although sometimes he swallows just to annoy us. I can empathise with his 2 year old point of view: life is such an endless stream of play possibilities, why stop at all to pee and brush his teeth?

Look Ma! Fish!

The Wheels On The Bus

Finally, Ju has joined the ranks of the common folk -- iPhone addiction. We promised ourselves that we would NOT give it to him, having tsk-tsked at every family at every restaurant and food court table we've seen who were absorbed in their individual gadgets. But Youtube really has its uses and Ju gets to watch 10 minutes tops of it each day. I let him watch Wheels On The Bus (a real winner, you can't go wrong with this one) animated, he still enjoys Lisitsa on the piano doing the Butterfly Etude and two others with animated trains and balloons. The guy can scroll down my phone and start the videos he wants on his own! He's really from the generation of clicks and scrolls. I've taken to removing my phone from its cover (it's a distinctive one with white polka dots on black) when I want to use it for a while without Ju whining and moaning for the Wheels On The Bus. It's more effective than telling him the battery's flat (he understands the concept of charging batteries) since I myself would like to use it.

Last month, we took Ju to the underwater aquarium. It was a real an eye opener for him. I would have enjoyed it half as much as he if we didn't have to squeeze through it with a million other visitors. And if we hadn't forgotten to bring his shoes. Still, it was all worth getting to see him point and giggle with wonder at the scores of stuff zipping around in all manners of shapes and colours. Toddlerhood at its best. Soon he will be two -- my baby is becoming a boy!

Prepositions in Wizard of Oz

My Experience With German

Language By Accident

With the exception of those who are true linguists (people whose life obsession is to learn as many languages as they are interested in) none of us choose the language(s) we speak. In a monolinguistic society like Germany, France or the the UK (I exclude the new immigrants) and China (I mean the dialects in addition to Putonghua), people speak the language they grow up with and they learn a foreign one or two, as in Western Europe, but they are mostly dominant in only their mother tongue since the opportunity to use the second or third languages is rare given the monocultural envionment. In smaller nations such as the Nordic countries or Holland, people are more bilingual given that linguistic cultural imports (like movies and music) are consumed in their original form, i.e. not translated into the native language. That's why on a holiday, you're more likely to encounter a Swede who speaks fluent English than a German or French one.

What about Singapore? Or the handful of tiny nation-states scattered across the Pacific that also use English in addition to their native languages? We're a quirk, a flash in the plan if you will. English is not considered our native language despite it being the lingua franca, the official working language and the first language taught in schools here with the mother tongues being called the "second language" (in the 90s, "second language" was dropped in favour of the term "mother tongue" to denote Chinese, Malay and Tamil for political reasons). I suspect it has a lot more to do with history, race and ethnicity rather than which language Singaporeans are strongest in. But I digress. This is not an essay about why English is our native language.

I would restate again that people do not choose the languages they speak and learn. It's a happenstance of birthplace, the education system and which world economy is currently dominating the airwaves. In the 20th century, it was America and Britain and for a decade or two, Japan. Today, it's China. If your child is learning French in school, you would not have a long wait before someone asks you why he isn't learning Chinese. Then again, there are many folks who are schooling and nurturing their kids in their own native tongue for the sole reason of passing on their heritage and this is completely reasonable too. In fact, if I were to take the extreme economic-advantage position, there would be no reason to put Julien through the torture of German verbs.

I jest of course, no offence meant to Germans, I would be the first to tell you how insane it is to memorize thousands of Chinese words. The point remains that languages are living things, they're not some physics or math theorems you should master. Languages are tools of communication and a window on culture. There are no better or worse languages, but there are languages that can give you an advantage depending on where you happen to be and what you have chosen to do.

Why Not German?

I am asked constantly why I don't speak German, or why I have never learnt it. The short answer would be: no time. The long answer is more interesting I hope. I am bilingual, so I've always been able to juggle two languages and make the code-switching in everyday life, since my parents speak different languages with me. I spoke a smattering of Cantonese as well, my mother's native dialect and the only tongue my maternal grandparents spoke. I loved the idea of French (note: I loved the idea of speaking it and being in France, not necessarily the French way of life, which I knew nothing about when I first learnt it) and so I studied it in university for two years. At age 19, any language feels great to learn, and French was fun. And as with any foreign language, it just gets harder and harder if there aren't environmental conditions to support its acquisition. So by my third year, without native speaking French friends or actually having to live in France for at least a year, it was pretty much au revoir to francais for me. I retained the basic structure of French grammar (which doesn't go beyond the present, past, future and imperfect tense) and some vocabulary to this day, but for lack of use, it's as good as Greek. So with 4 languages under my belt (each at different levels of proficiency), I did not approach German with as much enthusiasm as I would have expected of myself when I met my German husband at age 29.

I dabbled in a few classes of Spanish after graduating, and even a bit of the local Hokkien dialect. But I couldn't see the point in acquiring a language I didn't need. Language acquisition takes time, effort, practice and committment. On top of these, you need to use the language or you may as well learn Advanced Calculus. I've heard people complaining about foreigners who write English well or have excellent English language grades on paper but in person, they can hardly string a sentence together. So you see, while I was in university with all the time in the world to study and learn, it was no problem picking up a new language. In my late 20s, the motivation to put myself through the rigours of homework, practice and more practice (which I wouldn't get with Daniel anyway) didn't exist and the prospect of this seemed like a waste of my precious Saturday afternoons.

I'm not picking fault at the process of language acquisition, I am stating the facts of it and what is entailed in language acquisition. Julien is picking up 3 languages at the most amazing pace, but he is 17 months old and he has no other job to do but to listen to us talk to him all day. He isn't even required to answer us! How great would it be if you went to German class every day from 8am to 8pm and all you had to do was play with stuff and not have to talk to your teacher? I'd take this class in a heart beat.

Furthermore, I didn't live in Germany and I didn't have to speak to Daniel's parents but for a few weeks in the year when they visited Singapore or we visited them. Of course I made the effort: I bought books, a CD, a dictionary and I prepared before each trip. This was more for social reasons than anything else. And I was more than a little pleased when people in Germany complimented my German with each passing year. It was encouraging and no one gave me a hard time for bad grammar and tenses or my broken Germanglish. And trust me when I say it matters to many learners how others perceive the way they speak the language, I have heard Germans tell me they are simply too shy or embarassed to speak to me in English even though there is no way I would judge them or laugh at them.

The Way Julien Learns

In 2011 I gave birth to Julien and the world of social exchanges became transformed. There came a new person in all our lives and for the most part, life became tenfold richer and more full - of excitement and excrement. Suddenly, there were more things to talk about with the Germans, more reasons to interact and visit cross-continent. When I first met Daniel's parents in 2008, I started to email his Mum, because this was the only way to communicate with her (with an online translator, bless Microsoft Bing Translator, anything is possible). We kept up the weekly conversation and today, I still paste her emails into a translator. Technology is convenient, but it doesn't help you acquire a language. 

Now I am learning German (organically) along with my son, but nowhere at the rate that Julien is learning it. A child's mind is like a supercomputer. A billion neurons are firing every 3 seconds in his first 5 years of life. That's his job: to learn. Our adult brains will never acquire language the way a child's brain does until he is age 7. In a nutshell, Julien is learning German completely differently from the way I am: he is using both sides of his brain. Scientists discovered that in early childhood, the language center of the brain (located in left hemisphere) isn't formed yet, so a child processes language with his entire brain - the parts responsible for learning language and producing it is more diffused across both hemispheres. MRI imaging found that as we get older, the brain begins to specialise so that only one part in the left hemisphere takes over the work of understanding and producing language.

This explains why 33-year-old me finds it a terrible chore to remember genders and cases in German while Julien will most likely take to it "naturally".

Learning German "Organically" - What Works and What Doesn't

When I say "organically", I mean without the intervention of a teacher or a structured classroom curriculum. The problem with picking up a language through informal interaction is you would never learn the rules of its grammatical structure and syntax. You would be confined also to the parameters of the conversations you have. This way has been great for me, don't get me wrong, more words and phrases stick than if I had had to memorise it in a whole semester of language class. But the biggest obstacle is usage. Passive/receptive language acquisition, like what Julien is doing now, precludes the active component of speech. It is only when I have had to structure a sentence that I realise how handicapped I am. 

4 weeks ago, I started German lessons at the Singapore Goethe Institut. I am not in the beginners' class, since my test score let me skip 3 levels. My acquisition has leaped exponentially for the following reasons:

1) I have to do homework (which means daily or almost daily revision, which is necessary)

2) I have to speak German in class

3) I have a teacher who explains things and gives me the rules

Rules of grammar are for me like the roadmap to someplace I need to get. I just need it. I must say GI has a good program structure and the methods are effective. We get out of our tiny classroom at least 2-3 times each lesson to the break area and practise with one another the lesson, be it asking and answering questions on the Dativ prepositions or the Warum/Weil agreements. Using the language makes ALL the difference, and in this I have a small advantage because of my family circumstances. Daniel and I still speak no German with each other, but he helps with my homework and when I have a question on Why This Particular German Rule is So Annoying. So far, Daniel has agreed with me more than not that it is annoying. 

My experience with German has been largely positive, despite my bellyaching. The pronunciation is easy enough, I get plenty of practice if I just go online for lessons, and I have access to German speakers. The pace is much slower than French, which aids comprehension and conversation by 500%. I'm going at it really slowly, as I have no personal goal to master it in a year. After all, ignorance still comes in handy when you are not in any mood to join in the conversation in German!

For me, languages are the most interesting thing in the world. They are puzzles and when you get them, they become such handy tools. And starting on my fifth, I can say that multilingualism isn't just some lofty hobby, it can and should be normal. Our brains are capable of so much more, and looking at the state of our "bilingual education", I would guess that something just isn't being done right at the level of acquisition. If schools would help their students learn Chinese or Tamil the way I am learning German now, as a foreign lamguage, I am certain it would benefit a lot more children. If they hang on to the belief that Chinese is a "mother tongue" for Chinese kids, then the thousands of Chinese tuition schools will continue to reap millions of dollars each year. 

Learning Chinese: A Reality Check

According to the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Service Institute, Mandarin is one of the five most difficult languages in the world for native English speakers to learn. The Institute quotes 2,200 hours as the minimum number of class hours required for attaining fluency in Mandarin (that's over 2 years if you put in 3 hours a day, 6 days a week and do that without a break for 2 years) but I do not know their exact definition of "fluency" since most students who clock those hours report being completely lost when they get to China. The other four languages are Japanese, Korean, Arabic and Cantonese. (Yay, I have limited proficiency in two of the world's 5 hardest languages!)

A disclaimer before proceeding: I studied Chinese (writing, reading, speaking) for all 12 years of my formal schooling (the last 2 years are what the British call college, what is junior college in Singapore and is not mandatory) and have a Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK5) Intermediate certification. While this might qualify me as proficient in the language, I do not claim to be a native speaker as I am more proficient and comfortable in English. In fact I have lost maybe half my 3000 or so characters along with 80% of my academic proficiency at age 18. I am, however, able to converse with a native speaker from China and have had prolonged conversations with my Taiwanese friend whose patience outstrips my Mandarin vocabulary. Those of you who already know me would know that I am ethnically Chinese, my grandparents were born in China and I use informal Chinese on a daily basis in a predominantly English-speaking environment although Singapore is a multicultural society with an ethnic Chinese majority.

To begin, I'm not putting anyone off from learning the language. As a new parent whose single biggest challenge is to bring her child up in 3 languages (including Chinese), I think I am entitled to say that this is not a walk in the park. It's closer to a swim across the Pacific with your hands tied behind your back. You're more likely to drown before you get to Hawaii. Many westerners who have put in their hard yards to seriously learn the language have paid their dues and pretty much all of them agree that Chinese is pretty damn hard to learn (read a great tongue-in-cheek piece from American scholar David Moser or input "Chinese is hard to learn" in Google and find all of these people easily). There are plenty of good blogs out there which explain in great detail the difficulty in achieving minimal proficiency in this beautiful yet exasperating language -- David Moser's is a must-read for all beginners, Hacking Chinese gives good and practical advice -- but what else can I add to the conversation? 

Well, as an almost-native speaker,  I can comment on the difficulty of learning the language and the claims about what strategies work best, since I spent a good 12 years at it and during this time, I have been in the shoes of Western students who have never learnt a tonal language.Yes, I have wanted to tear my hair out staring at a list of words I had to memorize (we learn writing and reading at the same time) before a test and wishing to God and The Cosmos that I could quit Chinese was a weekly -- sometimes daily -- prayer. Ask any Chinese student or student of Chinese who didn't do it voluntarily. This is my version of a reality check for anyone who's deciding whether to embark on this journey. Oh, I'm not saying it isn't worth every bit of effort you're going to put in, it's damn well worth it after the 5 or 6 years you've been at it; but for those of us who like to live life without the blinkers of delusion, painful as it may be, here are a few things that some of you might find helpful if you are thinking about taking Chinese on, or wondering whether to call it a day.

1) Your Chinese-speaking husband/wife/girlfriend ain't gonna be much use

From first-hand experience, I can tell those of you who are thinking of or who recently acquired a partner who speaks Mandarin to forget it. If you think he/she is going to be your free tutor, conversation partner, you're better off speaking Mandarin to your dog. Your dog would be more interested. As others can attest to this, spouses and lovers are in your life for other reasons -- communication, getting intimate and the other half of the chores -- and they don't have the time or patience to be your teacher. 

My husband Daniel is German and in our 4 years together, he has not picked up enough Chinese from me to have a conversation beyond two sentences at the coffee shop. I, on the other hand, have enough German (from being self-taught) to have a protracted conversation with his relatives: me in broken German is a lot more comprehensible than Daniel with any Mandarin. A big reason for the disparity in our ability is the requirement for me to speak German in order to communicate with his parents (they don't speak anything else). You may think that's a real pain, but it's like a little accelerator for any student of any language. That's why you always hear about immersion and people advising you to go to China or Taiwan to really accelerate your proficiency. It's the deep end of the pool. Do or die. And most of the time, when you have no choice but to use the language, you do almost what any baby does naturally in language acquisition: you soak it up. 

But what if you don't want to spend 6 months in Beijing (in the smog) stuttering to locals and ending up having a conversation with them in English? There's plenty out there. Watch movies or TV from the Mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong (here we get Taiwanese and Hong Kong stuff dubbed in standard Mandarin, putonghua) online. Lots of Chinese pop music available, Jay Chou has atrocious enunciation, but he's a good starter kit to Chinese pop culture. Youtube will give you hours and hours of Chinese lessons (only helpful for students who already have some foundation and need practice), Chinese programs, and pop culture. Or you could just come to Singapore, aka "Asia For Beginners". There's enough Chinese resources here you can get on the cheap (books, libraries, media and the people) while having the safety of falling back on English when you feel like you're going crazy.

2) You can't escape rote memorizing
Many have commented that the learning curve at the beginning is steepest and it gradually gets easier as you ease into the grammar and gain traction with the tones. I would say the first year is akin to jumping off a cliff into a black abyss and then climbing back up again and repeating this another 5 times with every new word. Alright, I'm exaggerating it, but people who hate memorising and got by learning their French and German and Spanish relying on the alphabet system and cognates should take me seriously. The steep curve at the beginning for all novices is due to the fact that you must learn to recognise and pronounce enough individual words to have a basic conversation about the weather. Many students think it's sufficient to speak Mandarin and they choose to be illiterate. This is well and good if your aim is simply to have a couple weeks holiday in Taiwan or Shanghai. My view: Chinese is the hardest thing you're ever going to attempt to learn, may as well go the whole hog.

Native speakers have the advantage of having been exposed to the language since birth, so that syntax and all that grammar stuff becomes second nature. You instinctively know how to form sentences and express yourself in the native lingo. This might take the non-Sino learner maybe a year or two, depending on how much practice, interest and determination you have. But if you are doing this at the same time as you're learning new vocabulary (and this is the labour intensive part), it really feels like you're heavy-lifting all the time because you are consciously acquiring the entire system of word recognition, memorization, pronunciation and sentence formation all at once. It can be really daunting and I get it. I've given up learning German grammar because it's too hard. German isn't my passion and neither is cracking the magician's code that is their grammar. Hell, thinking about the genders in German is enough to make me take a sleeping pill. I need enough German to be understood and to understand and nobody has any problem with that. So if you're bent on becoming fluent and proficient in Chinese, make sure you're doing it because you have nothing else in your life that's more important than devoting the next 3 years of your life to this project. Because it WILL take that long, at the very least.

3) Give it up if you're tone-deaf

I'm serious.  Daniel is as close to tone deaf as one can be, but to his credit, the man tries hard. He gets by being understood even with his atrocious tones, but he can't really understand someone who's speaking in Mandarin because he can't tell the difference. This is crucial. I've had many conversations with Daniel that went like this:

Me (speaking to Juju): 帮妈妈把垃圾丢掉 bang Ma Ma ba la ji diu diao (Help Mummy throw away the garbage)


Daniel: Why did you ask Ju to throw away the spicy chicken? (辣鸡 la ji)

Me: It's 垃圾 (la1 ji1) not 辣鸡 (la4 ji1) ! 

But to Daniel, all the la ji sound the same. Here's a fun sentence to demonstrate tones: Lao3 shi1 lao3 shi lao1 dao1. If you know that Lao3 shi1 means "teacher" and lao1 dao1 means "nag", you could figure out that lao3 shi is probably "always" = "Teacher is always nagging". Western learners make a big deal of the tones, but I always tell people there are only 4 plus one neutral tone, it's not so hard, as long as you figure out those 4. It's really like singing in only 4 or 5 notes. Which brings me to my next point:

4) Learn to read

Yes, we have tones and it's a real pain to have to memorize every word with its exact tone. That's why you need to learn to READ THE CHARACTERS. Hanyu pinyin is a romanised form of the language which makes it really convenient to type on the keyboard, look up a word in the dictionary and figure out how to pronounce the word, but only if you already know how to read and write! It's really not a solution for learners who can't read. I'll tell you why: learning solely with Pinyin is like playing the piano without seeing the notes on the score. You're half blind. Think of the piano keyboard: it has several octaves but only 8 white keys and 5 black keys representing a note in each octave. There are 8 possible C keys and 7 possible C sharps. You can't possibly know which C sharp to press unless you can read the note on the scale. It's the same for Chinese. My previous pinyin example, la1 ji1 on paper doesn't make any sense unless you read it together with "ba3 la1 ji1 diu1 diao4" and you figure out that diu1 diao4 means "to throw away", by which you understand that I meant 垃圾 the garbage and not spicy chicken. But if you could read the characters, you would have no doubt about what I meant. In fact, when I learnt French, I would make it a point to look up every new word I heard to make sure I knew the spelling. I am a highly visual person and seeing the French or German word in my head reinforces my memory of it so I can pull it up again in future. If you can see the word in your head, you can remember it a lot better, and this is even more critical in a tonal language with pictograms in place of an alphabet.

Take the word 老 which on its own is an adjective which means "old". If you heard someone say 老百姓 (lao3 bai3 xing4) you would naturally guess they were referring to someone old or something which was old. In fact, you would need to know that the three words go together to make another word: commoner or common folk, which has nothing to do with being old. Again, 老板 lao3 ban3 (the boss) has very little in common with being elderly (although some bosses could be aged) nor a wooden plank which is what 板 is. Wait till you get to 4 word proverbs like 老当益壮 lao3 dang1 yi4 zhuang4（to gain vigour with age). So you need to learn individual characters and words that are composed of 2 or 3 characters and then proverbs and idioms (there are more but I won't go there). 

5) Context is everything

The Chinese don't like to get to the point. Even after they've finished the sentence, you still have to figure out what they meant because there are not tenses that resemble the Germanic or Romantic languages. It's worse than the Germans making you wait for the verb at the end of the sentence. When you're deciphering Mandarin, you need to replay the entire sentence in a split-second to work out the meaning because the context sets the meaning. Take this example: "Wo3 qu4 de2 guo2" and "Wo3 qu4 le de2 guo2".

Context A:
Question: Ni qu na li du jia? (Where are you going on holiday?)
Answer: Wo qu de guo (I am going to Germany).


Context B:
Question: Ni qu le na li du jia? (Where did you go on holiday?)
Answer: Wo qu de guo (I went to Germany).


Context C:
Question: Ni qu guo na xie guo jia? (Which countries have you been to?)
Answer: Wo qu le de guo (I've been to Germany).


Context D:
Question: Shang ge xing qi, ni qu le na li? (Where did you go last week?)
Answer Wo qu le de guo (I went to Germany).


Without the question (which sets the context), you would not have any idea if I was going to Germany or I had gone to Germany; whether I've been to only Germany on holiday or if I went to Germany last week. But then again, some people find the lack of tenses totally refreshing, since there are fewer arbitrary rules to learn. There isn't any better or worse here, it's just a completely different way of orienting your comprehension of what is being said. Instead of relying on tenses, you rely on an intuitive reading of the context.


*******

If you aren't put off already, I'll throw in two more cents on the arduous learning of Chinese. It's true what they all say about immersing yourself in an all-Chinese environment and memorizing every single word. But if you can see yourself making this commitment, the other reasons for learning Chinese is just as compelling as the challenges I've just listed. That's why I love the language, it's like the Tao of Ying and Yang: what is black is also white, and what is agonizing is also beautiful. Learning to write is a wonderful skill and the journey can be an endless puzzle of discovery for those who love puzzles or a perpetual endeavor of frustration. I've written elsewhere in this blog about how to write Chinese characters. In school, it was typical for students to write pages and pages of "xi2 zi4" (Writing Practice) for every new lesson. This was anything from 100 to 1000 repetitions (we would write 10 repetitions per new word) a week, sometimes twice a week. It does get easier because once you learn enough, you can use what you've got and this reinforces your long term memory. Your "core" 2000 word vocabulary will get you by in most situations. 

As students, we also read a lot (out loud), what is called "lang3 du2" (recitation) to practice our enunciation and pronunciation. In Primary school, our teacher would get the entire class to recite the entire essay (sometimes 3 pages) three or four times per lesson. If we didn't recite with quite enough expressiveness or if our tones were too flat, we'd have to do it from the top. There is only one word for this: arduous. At times you wanted to bash your 10 year old head on the cement floor you were sitting on. But I must say the 6 years of reciting ensured that I have perfect tones. This is the shit of Chinese poetry reciting, it's an actual art form. To become fluent, you'll need to do this a lot, and the best part is you can actually practice lang3 du2 on your own. Of course, having feedback is a lot better, so you'll need to attend class or get a tutor. It's like playing music, you really need someone to correct and encourage you. 

Finally, if you can get through all of that, you get the satisfaction of connecting with any Chinese speaker in the world (and there are many), discovering the magnificence of a 5000-year-old culture and just taking simple pleasure in being able to read stuff that, to any other person, looks like hieroglyphics. You do need a certain amount of proficiency to be able to do this, but like the circle of Tao, if you love the language, you'll master it eventually, and then you'll love it all over again. 

11th Month Update: Pointing and Walking

Gross Motor

This month has been amazing!  Ju is 6 days shy of 11 months and it seems like he's been walking forever. I can't really remember when he started cruising or taking the one or two tentative steps before toppling over. But this month his development is off the charts.

The first milestone is of course walking. He seems to be more efficient at it now, as his balance improved and unless he really needs to get someplace quickly, he would toddle over like a little boy who's had too much to drink. Of course he took a few harrowing spills, most recently onThursday when he fell on his face and his teeth cut him a little and there was blood. He bawled like a baby for a few minutes but we calmed him down with an amusing toy. I almost fainted from the sight of the few drops of blood in his mouth, like, I literally had to out my head down because I was really gonna faint! But thank goodness there was no damage, his teeth were intact and he later sucked on his fingers as if to swallow the blood. Eew.

The other thing he's been doing is pointing. It's the most adorable thing, he points at everything, especially the things he wants. Best of all, it's a great tool to test his vocabulary. Check this out:

Me: "Juju, 风扇在哪里?" Ju points to the ceiling fan.

Me: "Juju, clap your hands." Ju claps his hands.

Daniel: "Juju, wo ist der Ventilator?" Ju points to the ceiling fan.

Me: "Juju, 拍拍手!" Ju claps his hands.

Me: "Juju, where is the fan?" Ju points to the ceiling fan.

Communication

Which brings me to the third development: our trilingual experiment is working!  His German grandparents taught him to respond to the question Wie gross ist der Juju? He would willingly reach up his arm above his head. So I got my Mum to teach him the English version and my Dad the Chinese one. Now, we all take turns asking him in three languages (with control questions interspersed in between of course, as in the above example) and he pretty much gives you the same response to "How tall are you?" and "Juju 你多高?"

Apart from these phrases, Ju also waves when he hears "Bye Bye" but not so much to "Tschues" or "再见" which we don't use as often as the English term. So I've begun a more systematic socialisation regime. We would all chip in and teach Ju one set of nouns and verbs at a time, depending on his interest. Currently it's birds and light switches. So we would repeat the same sets of related words every day when he points at the sky or the lamp: "The bird! Where's the bird? In the sky! Let's go see the birds."

And I would do it in Chinese: "鸟鸟! 鸟在哪里？在天空中！我们去看鸟. 你看!  一二三只小鸟."

It can be somewhat tiring because you're still not getting much of a response from your baby at this stage, apart from grunts and grins when you flip the light switch on or point to the dog walking past.

The other really amusing thing he's picked up is turning both hands out in a shrug, as if to say: "I don't know" but where Ju means "There's no more" or "I don't have it". He usually does this when he flings a toy out of reach and can't get it back or when he's eaten up his snack. I have no idea how he learnt to do this, but I recall one evening when he finished his cookie, I used my hands in this gesture and told him, "没有了" (no more). And he imitated my gesture right away! I burst out laughing and so did he (he usually laughs when you start laughing at him, it's like an infectious thing). Since then, whenever he hears us saying "没有了" or "no more", he would generally make that gesture.

It seems that at this stage, physical mimicry is dominant, as Ju is also able to mimick other gestures even if he can't verbally speak yet. One afternoon, Daniel and I were testing the remote controls on the air-conditioners in the house. The aircon in the living room didn't seem to switch on and we were both pointing remote controls at it, as well as in the other rooms. We thought nothing of it until the next day when Ju picked up my phone -- it is white, like the remote control, and about the same size -- and pointed it at the air-conditioner! Since then, he's been pointing TV remote controls at the ceiling every time he gets hold of one. It's hilarious but we also realise that children are observing us very, very closely. Maybe even our non verbal cues are being picked up. It's imperative that we be very careful around the baby, particularly when we're angry or emotional.


Sleep and Feeding
His sleep is still problematic. Ju sometimes goes to bed without a bottle and I give it to him at around 10pm when I go to bed to make it last through the night. However he needs the bottle at times before he would fall asleep at 8pm. This means no bottle at 10pm and maybe it's related, maybe not, he would toss and get up throughout the night, three or more times. His mattress lies next to our bed, for easy access, and I admit after 3am in the morning, we give up and plonk him in bed with us to he would stop fussing. This doesn't lead to restful sleep, oh no. Last night he continued to toss around like a basketball and I got several kicks to the face before he went under. At times, his body was positioned like the dash in the middle of the letter "H" (between Daniel and me) as I got squeezed precariously to the edge of the bed. Obviously, we've got to go back to the brainstorming room for this one.


Ju eats everything. And I mean Everything. Fussy eating has no place in this family, I can tell you, though trying to feed him can be trickier than playing Grand Theft Auto. He won't stay put in his high chair for long and when he starts yelling, we have to take him out. This is followed by a high speed, obstacle-laden chase around the living room with a spoon. I used to regard parents chasing their kids around, spoon waving, aiming for the little mouths in between their hyperactive scurrying with condescension. "Wimps!" I would label these adults who couldn't control their offspring and make them stay put for a meal. How wrong I was and how I've had to bite on every little snarky judgement I've made about hyper children and coddling parents.


Don't get me wrong, I still believe in independence training, not molly-coddling and all that "western" parenting jazz. It's just that reality is a totally different ballgame and one so-called method of control or discipline is not going to fit all, or fit your child even if you want to adhere to it like an unbending priest. Teaching Ju (I prefer to call it teaching instead of disciplining since that implies attitude problems) is a really slow, uphill task that involves understanding what he wants, where he's coming from and figuring out from experimentation and observation the reasons for his behaviour.


I prefer to see it as a science, a series of continuing experiments in getting it right with Ju. Some strategies may work, and sometimes it is just a puzzle why a behaviour is persisting. He is an ever-changing psycho-emotional-physical phenomena! Parenting someone as exuberant and irrational as this one-year-old marvel is going to take careful observation, persistent experimentation and creative innovation, and a whole lot of tolerance for mistakes. I am not aiming for perfection as a parent, because I want him to grow up learning to do all the stuff I've just described, and I hope I will be able to do just that.

Accusative & Dative Definite Articles

A great way to teach yourself how to conjugate the German definite articles in accusative and dative form.



Lesson:
Das Meer (neutral); Die Stadt (feminine); Der Wald (masculine)

         Mas        Fem        Neu
 dat    dem        der        dem          (static)
acc     den        die          das          (moving)

Now to do this while I am conversing with someone without having to stop for 3 minutes to recall this table and conjugate the right verb.

Singlish for Idiots: Wait a while, OK?

Ju is coming to 10 months and is most adept at shrill yelling, cackles and wet razzing which leaves either the 

floor or the person next to him drenched in drool.  I don't know if he really understands language, i.e. when

he hears "Bye, Bye" does he associate that with waving, and hence waves, since he only waves maybe 8 

out of 10 times we coax him with Bye Bye and only after 5 to 10 seconds of exuberant goodbyes from 

everyone. He's started to ignore me when I yell at him to stop, but he does give me a knowing look before 

he about-turns and goes on his merry way into whichever room he is banned from. 

Today I will say a little more about the most frequently used Chinese words in our household: wait, and 

okay? And of course, more clues on our peculiar Singlish ways!

*****

Okay or not?

One of my frequent refrains to Ju is "Wait a bit, okay?". I would say:

等一下, 好吗？ or 等等, 好吗？ 

(deng yi xia, hao ma) or (deng deng, hao ma) 

好吗 (hau ma) can work as a tag to a statement.  The function of the tag is to turn the statement 等一下(wait a bit) 

into a suggestion or a request. Another way to say "is that okay?" is 好不好? which is literally "good, no good" but

translates also to "good, or not?"

This explains why Singaporeans like to use the Singlish term "okay or not?" to turn a statement into a question,

like this: "Each of us pays $10, okay or not?" instead of saying just "okay?" or "Is it okay if each of us pays $10?"

It totally makes sense because "okay or not" is the literal translation of  好不好 (okay, not okay). 

Next, to express consent and agreement, the response is usually 好  (hao) or  好啊 (hao a) with the 啊 in

neutral tone. [This also explains why in Singlish there is so much "ah"'s, it's because people are translating the  

啊 word into their English sentences.] 

*****

Wait a while, okay?

The other infamous singlish phrase is "wait a while". It is a literal translation of the Chinese 等一下 (deng yi xia).

The phrase 一下 always follows a verb (like 等, to wait) to indicate that the action expressed by the verb is 

informal and does not last long. Like such:

我看一下，好吗？ (wo kan yi xia, hao ma?)

Lit: I look, okay? 

Meaning in context: Could you let me have a look at it? 

So when I want to ask Ju to hang on to his horses and just wait a bit, I say 等一下 because I mean that he

should just wait a second or two, hence the  一下 which loosely translates to "a while". So the usual way we

would ask someone in the informal way to wait a sec is: 

等一下啦! (deng yi xia, la!) 

This is why when Singaporeans actually mean to say "Hang on a sec!" or "Wait, please", they instead say
"Wait a while lah!".

Multilingual Experiment: Yes, No and "Give"

Ju is 9 and a half months and for the past two months, has been hearing pretty much everything in triplicate, as our multilingual project goes into full swing. Ju reacts very reliably to "NO!", "NEIN!" and "BU KE YI!" but he also reacts to other phrases. Most important, the 3 languages are very different in terms of structure but more for Chinese. Aside from the pesky cases in German, simple German is structured very similarly to English:

EN: Give me the ball.

GER: Gib mir den ball.

But in Chinese, you would conjugate this sentence very differently, because we place the object (the ball) in front and importantly, there is no "the" since we don't use articles before nouns, but there is a term 把 "ba" which you have to place in front of the noun so that it makes sense:

CH: 把球给我 (ba qiu gei wo)

So if you wanted to tell a native Chinese speaker from a non-native one (who used the online translator for example), he/she would say: 给我球 (lit: give me ball). But this is a literal translation from English and doesn't work in Chinese. Verbs would never come in front of the noun in Chinese unless it is used in the Interrogative:

CH: 给我! (no article)

EN: Give it to me!

GER: Gib es mir!

And as you can see, again, there is no need for an article (it) in Chinese.The word 把 is a curious little word with mutiple meanings. It is an article as in 一把刀 (a knife) where 把 indicates the article associated with the noun knife. Or, as in the way I used it above when asking Ju to give me the ball, it's necessary when forming such sentences (1):

我把蛋糕吃完了

Lit: I (the) cake eat finish already

where 了(can be loosely translated as "already") is the clause that changes the sentence to the past or present perfect tense and  把 indicates that I did an action to the cake (I ate it). Or (2):

请把书还给我

Lit: Please (the) book return give me

where 请 means "please" in the most polite and formal form; 把 again indicates that an action is to be done to the book (return it); and 还给我 means "return to me" although the formation in Chinese is "return give me". Again, no articles necessary and in the interrogative form, you drop the 请 so it means "Return the book to me". As I said, the noun always comes first, but you need the clause 把. 

NEGATIVES

Unlike in the English "No" and German "Nein", Ju would not have heard any Chinese equivalent. Instead, we use different negating words depending on the context. This video is great in explaining how we negate in Chinese.

Ju hears mostly these phrases:

EN: No!

GER: Nein!

CH: 不可以! 

Bu Ke Yi (Cannot, Must not)

In Chinese, 不 (bu) doesn't mean anything on its own. It has to paired with 可以 (can) to mean cannot, and the implied of course is the action. So I would yell at Ju: 不可以进厨房 (lit: cannot go into kitchen).

To answer a question in the negative, as in "No. I don't want", in Chinese we say 不要 without having to say what it is (the article "it"). So I would ask Ju:

EN: Do you want it?

CH: 你要不要? (lit: You want don't want?)

And to indicate negative quantity, we say 

EN: There is no more.

GER: Es gibt kein mere.

CH: 没有了 (lit: don't have already)

where 有 means "to have" and 没有 negates it. So for Singaporeans, you get why people like saying "don't have!" when they mean "there isn't any" or "don't have anymore" when they mean "there isn't any left". So in Chinese, 了modifies "don't have" depending on what you mean:

没有了 no more left

吃了 have eaten

不要了don't want anymore

可以了 (now) (you) can

The best part about learning a language as a child is how you pick up these rules of grammar naturally just by listening to the phrases and sentences every day. I don't have to teach it to Ju formally and it is only when I thought about writing this post that I realised just how many rules and how complicated Chinese really is if you try to learn it with the rules of grammar!

Here is another great video which describes the rules of structuring sentences in Chinese (some of them).

How Babies Learn Language

I watched this TED talk by Patricia Kuhl about a year ago, or sometime while I was pregnant with Ju. I remember being fascinated by what development psychologists were discovering about babies and how they learn language, particularly foreign languages.  Dr Kuhl gave a more in-depth lecture at the University of Washington, available for view on Youtube, but the TED talk summarises her research findings in a short couple of minutes.

The Golden Window

In a nutshell, the facts are pretty indisputable: babies are able to discern all the sounds of all languages in the word up till a certain age -- 10-12 months. Kuhl posits that between 8 and 10 months, all babies begin to take rapid statistics of adults' speech and these statistics are then used in later stages for their speech development. But get this, after 10 to 12 months of age, babies' ability to detect other languages other than the one they are most exposed to (the mother or native tongue) drops significantly. 

The science is simple: after the 8 to 10 month window when babies are rapidly taking statistics of the sounds they hear in adults' speech, the ones who are NOT exposed to more than one language start to tune out the foreign language sounds in order to focus on the native language sounds. Kuhl experimented with American babies at age 7-8 months, testing their ability to discern Chinese language sounds. All the babies could do so.  Then, one set of babies were exposed to 12 sessions of 35 minutes of Chinese (over 12 weeks) during the critical window and another group (the control group) were not.  The babies that were not exposed to any Chinese lost their ability to discern the Chinese sounds but the exposed group of babies were able to discern the sounds!

Kuhl argues that as native language acquisition begins at the 7 to 10 month stage (where babies start to actively take speech statistics), foreign language acquisition declines because all the babies are hearing are one language, their native tongue, unless of course, they are being raised bilingual or multilingual.  This also explains why adults have a horrible time picking up foreign languages, particularly after their teens. The OPTIMAL age span for learning language is from age 0 to 7. After that it decreases slightly and then dips at purberty. After that, it's just downhill.

Putting Science To Practice

I have always been a fan of science and experimentation. In fact, I've been testing Ju for a couple of weeks on his object permanence cognition. (Still negative, if you're wondering) Anyway, Dr Kuhl's research really stoked my excitement about language learning and how I can possibly help Ju in our multilingual project. To refresh your memory, here's the map of Ju's linguistic inputs. I've added in what I consider an assessment of the degree of exposure: High Exposure is where he hears the language passively as well as actively spoken to him on a daily basis. Medium High refers to daily exposure at a somewhat lesser degree, maybe 1 to 3 hours.

Ju has had this type and degree of exposure since birth.  If the research is valid, then this is the crucial period where Ju is taking statistics, absorbing German, Chinese and English. Dr Kuhl explains that it is through "motherese" (the universal way that people speak to their kids, in a high pitch, repetitive way) that the babies are able to take their statistics. When we speak "motherese", our speech becomes slower, vowel sounds are extended ("Hiiiii Babyyyy!" instead of "Hi Baby!") and as a result, we produce better acoustics, our articulation of words and sentences is clearer, and hence these form the “little nuggets” that map your baby's brain as he absorbs the sounds.

Newsflash for those who think popping in a DVD with Chinese songs in bright, fun animation is going to help your child pick up Chinese.  The study also measured the effect of audio and audio/visual input on the babies. Result? No result. The babies who heard or watched a videorecording of the very same Chinese lessons given to the "exposed" group had no significant improvement in their ability to discern Chinese sounds.

Learning is SOCIAL, i.e. the social part of our brains are responsible for language acquisition.  Not surprising, since it was during constant exposure to my in-laws or other people while I was in Germany that my German improved at the most tremendous rate.  They don't recommend "immersion" for nothing.
So don't be lazy and take heart!  Every child can learn multiple languages and the best way to do it is through interaction. Throw away the DVDs and shut off the television and computer. Your child is like a piggy-bank with a supercomputer, the more you speak, read and expose him/her to languages, the more likely that one fine day the supercomputer will start churning out the very things you hoped to hear.