On Sat, 18 Aug 2007 19:20:55 -0400, Dave Smith
wrote:
>Hatunen wrote:
>>
>>
>> >
>> >Children not only do better, they do differently.
>>
>> They do it without even trying. Anyone who has lived in an area
>> where a lot of people are fluently bilingual from an early age
>> knows that.
>
>That is true, but it seems that some people like to stick their heads in
>the sand and pretend that their fantasy world is the real deal. I had
>several childhood friends who were children of immigrants or born in
>various European countries. The parents has limited English vocabulary and
>strong accents but the kids were fluent and had no accents. My next door
>neighbour was born in Italy. She came over in the early 50s with her
>parents, who live next door to them now. The parents have limited
>vocabulary and strong accents. After more than 50 years here they still
>sound like they just got off the boat. Maxi is welcome to go to any North
>American Chinatown. Little Italy, or other ethnic community and see the
>children translating for their parents.
So also my own family. My grandparents were all from Finland and
came over as young adults. My grandfathers all learned a heavily
accented English with some odd grammatical uses, largely as a
necessity to work here. My grandmother never really did learn
English. But my parents and my aunts and uncles were fluently
bilingual, although my mother had to learn English to go to first
grade, which she did handily without actual lessons. My one
cousin lived with his paternal grandparents as a small child
during WW2 and also had to learn English to go to school. None of
my parents' generation nor my generation has a trace of an
accent.
I think it was Pinker who pointed out that Henry Kissinger and
his younger brother came to the USA together when they were mere
lads. Henry was a bit over the age of easy language acquisition
and we all know how thick his accent is. But apparently his
brother speaks English with no accent at all (yeah, Mx, I know
that's anecdotal).
--
************* DAVE HATUNEN (hatunen@cox.net) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps * |