Korean Job Discussion Forums

[allbyb]

My son (who is half Korean) is now 2 years old and can still only say a few words.
Have any of you who have bilingual children found that there oral language development has been slower than other children (although he can't speak much my son understands both Korean and English very well)?
Wherever we go people are always surprised that he doesn't speak and I'm wondering whether a visit to a speach therapist is necessary.
I'd appreciate it if anyone could share their own experiences.

[ajgeddes]

Although, I do not have a child, my friend who has a baby like yours said that babies who grow up hearing two languages generally learn to speak later that single language babies, but in the end have a much larger vocabulary (obvious), so I think you should have no worries.

[laogaiguk]

[JiWoo]

I know a couple people who have had their kids begin talking late and are fine. But I too would suggest seeing a therapist or doctor to be safe. I have a friend who's son didn't talk for a long time and she thought he was fine and learned later that he is autistic. I'm sure that's not the case with your son b/c he's hearing two languages and my friend's kid was not. But I'm just saying it's better to check it out early on in my opinion.

[Spiky]

I really wouldn't worry about it. Studies have shown that bilingual kids generally tend to start talking later (sometimes at around age 3) but within a year or two they are totally caught up and are at level in both languages. So don't worryabout it! It's coming! Relax and enjoy your little one!

One more idea, some parents have used a sign language type system--needn't be formal, but just casual common sense gestures to signify different meanings that helps aid communication until the words start coming.

Good luck and try not to stress about it--there's too much competition in the world today to outdo and outshine & try nto to let your kids get sucked into it. Give it a year--just spend a lot of time talking with your child and reading books to him/her and he/she will develop at his/her own pace.

[Scott in Incheon]

I have two bilingual kids....5 and 3...and they both took a little extra time to start speaking. Now you can't shut the 5 year old up. I would put off the visit to the speech therapist at least for a bit. You would/will be amazed at how fast it comes when the kid is ready to speak.

[Xerxes]

My child grew up bilingual, and yes she did speak slower than most kids. Not that much more, but by a few months. (She started speaking right at 24 months too.)

I was kind of freaked out too, and started to read to her books in English. It was a picture book and I would gesture with the pictures and just have fun making stupid faces about the pictures and having fun with it.

I was considering taking her to a speech thearapist if that kept up for another month or two, but she started talking. Even now, she is a methodical thinker and speaker and she is very imaginative. Just not the rapid speed, rapid talker type. (I teach her English writing now--after many many months of my wife nagging me to do so--and it is now my favorite time of the week to teach her!) (My wife had set her up with other tutors who taught her the English to where she can write in English some original sentences--people are surprised by the fact that I did not teacher her myself )

It has become a habit now to read to her and I still read to her sometimes eventhough now she is 10 years old. Studies do document that kids growing up in a bilingual family start to speak slower (I remember too from my college linguistics class--Chompsky et al).

It's fun to read to her still, and she's really cute about it even now. She'll turn her back when she's sleeping (because she is a girl now) and listen and turn way around and correct me if I skipped a sentence or mis-said a line, just when I thought she was asleep. She is infront of me reading a Korean kids newspaper (Kids Chosun Ilbo) while I post this. She kills me. She is the most precious thing I have in my life.

[laogaiguk]

[peony]

my 3 year old nephew only just recently started speaking in full sentences, speech was slow in coming as he is growing up in a bilingual family though, other friends i know that spoke only korean at home had their kids speaking much faster

dont worry about it, my sister did freak a bit earlier on but he's just fine now and has the advantage of being bilingual

i've also read somewhere that boys start speaking a bit slower than girls

[betchay]

i have two nieces and four nephews who are filipino-americans... they grew up in america but are fluent in both filipino (with a twang) and english...

read these articles from the babycenter...

http://www.babycenter.com/dilemma/toddler/toddlerdevelopment/1225939.html
http://parentcenter.babycenter.com/expert/bigkid/gdevelopment/71103.html

[Scott in Incheon]

[Binch Lover]

I was raised as a bilingual (French and English) child and apparently I couldn't really tell the difference between the two languages for a long time and spoke a mix of the two. But in the end I guess I managed to sort it out in my head and everything worked out fine. The best thing is that I now speak fluent unaccented French despite never having lived there for more than 2 or 3 months and don't really need to practice it very much to keep it up. If I speak to French people they assume I am also French, but I do tend to forget some vocabulary. So your kid could have a lifetime of bilingualism (word?) if you keep it up and don't worry!

[Homer]

Can't say for sure yet as our son is only 1 but he uses both English and Korean when he speaks (just basic words) and responds equally well to either language.

I speak English only to him and my wife uses Korean only.

My brother has kids and is married to a Japanese woman (they live in tokyo) their oldest started speaking for real at the age of 1.5-2 and by the age of 5 spoke equally well in English, Japanese and French!

Some kids raised in multi-lingual households do take a bit longer to speak but if the parents are persistant and stick to a structured language environment, the kids pick it up in a snap.

[itaewonguy]

Come on you don��t you need a therapist... He is only 2 years old!
Some children are shy, confused! he must understand that what he is hearing are two different languages but cant understand why yet so he is just trying to figure it out! Give him time! Do not push him, especially taking him to therapists, and then he will think something is wrong, you will all think that! Trust me! My daughter is now 8 years old non-Korean age!
And she started as not the fastest speaker compared to some other hakwon driven kids around! However, this is not a competition on who speaks first! She did fine and slowly started speaking with full correct sentences as a normal child in Korean.
NOW I had my wife speak only Korean to her for the first 4 years until she started kindergarten and I spoke only English to her, of course her ability to speak English was not as good as her Korean which I let her take her time and we slowly got her there, she started school at 4 and I told my wife from now we both speak only English to her When we are together. Because she gets enough Korean at school and with friends and when she is only with mum, we did this for 2 years and it brought her ability right up! Now of course she was not perfect as a foreign child her age. So I was worrying about that, so I sent her to my mum��s house for 3 months in NEW ZEALAND and put her in school there and she came but perfectly fluent! Now she speaks and writes FLUENT Korean, and speaks very good English, her writing is not good, so that is what we will slowly work on!
It is not a race, but she is orally fluent in both languages! In addition, she will soon study a third language because Korean and English are like her first language, so she needs a second language...

but back to the original question, I wouldn��t worry about a therapist just relax and keep doing what you are doing, teach him slowly, play games, let him watch a lot of English TV shows and just take it step by step.
It is confusing for a 2-year-old child to hear two different languages, and he is at the age now where he is sensing something is different. Just like one day, he stood up and one day he started walking. He will just start talking.
P.S don��t fall into the my son needs to be #1 routine, he doesn��t need any pressure , leave that to the crazy obsessed Agamas..

[spark05]

My son is, unfortunately, not bilingual but I did speak a lot of Korean to him when he was a baby. My Korean at the time was at about a 3 yo level so I kind of hit a wall. But I'm hoping that now that we're living in Korea he'll pick it up quickly because he was exposed.

It kind of depends on the personality of the child as well. Some children wait to talk until they have it all sorted out in their head...the types who think before they act. Others will speak what they know then adjust it as they learn...the type of act before they think. But the best way to help language development - read tons of books and turn off the TV. I think most research leans towards that the children will have a larger word base if you combine both languages than monolingual kids by the time they start school (kindergarten, probably).