Language immersion

[sammason]

Were you 'immersed' in a language (or more than one) in early childhood, allowing you to grow up bilingual, trilingual or whatever? Did you immerse your own kids? What's it been like, during and after the immersion

Comments

[germankitty]

Dunno if it was immersion, exactly, but our son kind of picked up English early due to being exposed to the language each day through TV and books/magazines lying around the house. We also took him on vacation to the UK semi-regularly.

We're all German, but hubby and I both have teaching degrees in English, hence the early media exposure. The sprog used to watch his kiddie programs in English (which I had recorded for him while he was at school), with me watching along and providing a simultaneous translation. After two years of that (ca. age 8) he was watching most stuff by himself. His formal language training at school started at age 10, and a year or so later he was able to follow shows like "Star Trek", "Highlander" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" on his own, without asking for ANY kind of translation. From age 12 onward, he was reading fanfiction in English without a dictionary, and was more or less bilingual by the time he turned 15.

We never TAUGHT him English at home; he just sort of absorbed the language through being around it all day every day in an all-German family/environment. And speaking both as a parent and a teacher, it was quite a satisfying experience. :-)

I should probably add, though, that it most likely helped a LOT that the sprog had a way with language in general -- like being able to use formal mode of address, irregular verbs and the subjunctive in our native German almost 100% correctly by the time he was four. And no, we didn't drill him in any of this, he just received casual, on-the-spot corrections as you do with any child that age.)