[mulattoraver]

My daughter is one year old right now and is starting to mimmick both my wife's Japanese and my English. Of course most of what she says is baby talk. I've heard her say, "baby" and "chodai." Whether she knows what she's saying or not is one thing but the fact that she's starting to mimmick speech is big. There was a really good Newsweek publication about how babies learn. One of the facts that really surprized me was that babies start to "search" for grammar at seven months. What does this mean when to a child raised in a house with Japanese and English, where the grammar is so vastly different?

I worry for my daughter since, as Nyororin said, it's hard enough for a child to start school being "different." I've worked in the public school system in Japan and seen what "mixed" kids and "non-Japanese" kids can go through. Just like back home, how they fare depends on how well they can fit in. Looking different isn't usually much of a problem and can even lead to a sort of celebrity status. What got some of my students in trouble was when they would make mistakes speaking. Standing out does not exclude you from the group in Japanese schools but being foreign TO THE GROUP does. Speaking Japanese well will be crucial to my daughter's enjoyment of school. No matter how much I wish that she grow up bilingual, she will resent my efforts if they keep her from making friends at school. Not to discourage anyone but few of the Japan-born students I met spoke their (foreign) parent's language.

The best thing to do then is to give her a place to speak English that will be good for her and not just my parental ambitions. I think that MMM makes an excellent point about his child having Japanese friends and English friends. What his child really has is two environments to speak freely in. He learnt his Japanese at home and gets to use it with his friends. He has also learnt English and has his American friends to chat with. I think the great thing is that MMM's son has grown up with the two languages being a part of his every day. There have always been two languages in his home.

My hope is that my daughter will gain some proficiency in English--I don't expect her to be perfectly fluent growing up in Japan--which she can use to talk to her Canadian family and which she can use to make English-speaking friends here in Japan. We live in Yokohama where there is a very large English speaking population so there should be some opportunities for her to make friends in both camps.

Language and culture come from everyday experience. I have no plans to force my own culture on my daughter since I will fail. I'm hoping to just make it a part of her childhood. I don't want to say, "Speak English!" or "Sorry honey, I don't speak Japanese." I'll continue to speak English to her and nothing else.