The Trials of Growing Up Bilingual

This won’t be a learned treatise on bilingual upbringing. First, because I am not an expert on brain functions, and second, because I grew up using four languages, which makes bilingual a misnomer. But maybe it gives an insight into advantages and disadvantages of using several languages all at the same time.

In the ‘90s, German brain scientists made a major study which has gained standard recognition. They studied the working of brains when using speech, putting emphasis on the language used by the subject. They came to the startling conclusion that our brains use different areas for different languages, with exceptions. The standard or mother tongue was always situated near the frontal lobes with the acquired languages, if more than one, building a cluster behind it.

The revelation was in the exceptions. Bilingual persons had their two primary languages in the same brain area, using the exact same space. The languages were superimposed on each other in this spot. I did the test at a later date as well, and it showed my four primary languages all in the same area of my brain. To me this seemed quite logical, as there were instances in my live when I had suspected as much.

At an international golf tournament, local rules were issued to all players due to a storm that had passed the night before. The leaflet was printed in four languages, Italian, German, French, and English. At the first tee, the referee asked me in Italian, in which language I had read them, as the English contained a mistake. I had to admit that I had no idea in which language I had read them.

The same at home, when I was asked what language I had be using minutes before, I was never able to tell. This made me suspect that my brain was somehow unable to distinguish them like other languages I acquired later and could always tell.

Recently there was a very funny TV show on German television where they used well known pop songs in several languages and supplanted one sentence in it by a nonsense German one. If this supplant was in an English or French song, I couldn’t catch it, my brain ‘heard’ the correct wording. But I heard it perfectly well in Italian and Spanish songs.

Growing up with different languages has the advantage that other languages are more easily learned, I think. Your ear is accustomed to take heed of what is said, because you have to determine first which language is being addressed to you. The disadvantage of it is that the brain tends to blend out sounds that it is unable to place with a known language. I see you’re moving your lips but I don’t hear a sound, pretty well sums these situations up.

It has the distinct disadvantage that you have to work hard at it to learn any of these languages properly. It is so much easier to switch in the middle of a sentence to another language. Instead of thinking of the correct word in English, just throw in the equivalent in German or French. At one time my mother had to draw a line and set language rules. My brothers and I had to talk German with each other, French to grandma, Alemannic to father and English to mother.

My languages were a mess, and I spent my first year in school to sort them out. Later I was chucked out of English lessons because my accent was too posh for the teacher, and then I was chucked out of German lessons for using advanced grammar. Luckily my French teacher was a Frenchman and so was not impressed by my French, or I would have missed out on that as well.

What it runs down to is: No matter if you are bilingual or not, learning languages is hard work, and that includes your primary language as well as any acquired ones.