That sounded funny.

I see... I think it would be better to address Tenchu's inappropriate insinuations rather than forbid the topic at hand altogether. For that reason I will try and give a reasoned and mature reply to his immature post. I hope you don't mind. And I hope you see that it my way.

-Way below? Why... because you say so?
It is simply not true and I have statistics on my side. Obviously averages differ but they are insignificant and certainly not "way below" like you say. I won't go any further because this has been deemed inappropriate for some reason (personally I think that your comments rather than the topic itself should be deemed inappropriate) but if you look it up I think you will be able to educate yourself. Furthermore I live in a multicultural city and I frequently use the local swimming pool and the university gym.... go figure.

-Why would you assume that I have a small one? And why would it matter overall? I mean I can see the physiological advantage of being bigger in size. But as long as you have one... and it works, I see no reason to be insecure.

-A decent fighter outside the ring? Why would he need to be a decent fighter outside the ring? On the street it's the guy with the gun, the knife or the most homeboys that wins fights. If your neighbourhood really is that dangerous.. perhaps you should teach your kid about how to avoid confrontation, or maybe even protect him yourself?... you know like a father is supposed to....

Ronin - You just got back from a ban. Don`t push it by ignoring mod requests.

With a Japanese husband, there is a lot I`d like to say about the subject too - but this is NOT the time or place. Ignoring the subject is often the best choice when it`s not even worth the reply.

I've got nothing more to say... I'm happy with the last word if you're willing to give it to me. I'm counting on the hope that you mods will decide it's the voice of reason and maturity and let it slide.

Therefore I don't think I've crossed any line here.

The best part for me is definitely the thought of knowing that little Kai is fast becoming bi-lingual.

He nows says Mutsukashi and Itai-Itai-Itai for every bump he has:)

im mixed :3
my dad is half japanese and my mom is white ^^

I first heard that in 'Rush Hour' by Chris Tucker and split myself laughing! Lol, I thought it funny not offensive, my son too is half black(Jamaican) and i'm Indian by origin, i'm always gettin told how cute he is.

They hav stupid forms here in Britain where you hav to state your ethnicity and they never hav 'black/asian' anywhere under the 'mixed race' section, jus 'black/white' and 'white/asian' or 'other mixed', I hate these forms and sometimes refuse to fill them in but get told they're jus so the goverment can moniter equal opportunities etc

I'm not a mix of races, but this is a list of my different ancestories that I know of so far...

English
Irish
Scotish
Swiss
Norwegian
German

By the common description of "mixed" (i.e. it "shows" through skin color or certain physical features) I'm not. However, with ancestry...I only know half of mine.

Black (again...impossible to know from where...)
Native American (grandmother is Cherokee and Blackhawk...great-grandmother was Cherokee, great-grandfather was Blackhawk)

I think interracial children can be so cute. My only worry is society's reaction to them. I hate it when I see interracial kids get picked on for it. It's totally their fault for being born the way they were.:rolleyes: It's even better when they get to learn about their heritage. One thing that I really hate about being what I am, is that I have no links to my heritage. If I were to give it a name, I'd say I have culture envy. That's probably the reason I'm so enamored with foreign culture.

I am mixed so well nobody can see either of them in me ><

My mom is Dominican, and my dad is Cuban.

People say I look hispanic but not even close to any of those two...closest someone has ever got was "Puerto Rican"...at least the saw a little Caribbean in me lol

I'm Human...mostly, might have some Martian, but that goes way, way back.

wow thats awesome. Im native American 2. I am Italian, Spanish from Spain, Mexican, French, Greek

And how often do you see that?

My mixed boy:)

Japanese/Aussie..

Trilingual with Korean..

Caucasian Means Mixed Race
 

The Word "Caucasian" Simply Means "Mixed Race"! It is high time that we all accept this fact people. The study of Geography originated from Germany where many Racial studies were done. The more the Germans studied the differences in all the Human Races the more evident it became that there were elements of all the races in the Germanic Heritage. This was one of the reasons for burning the books in WWII. Hitler wanted the evidence of this fact removed. The word "Caucasian" is actually what happens when all the races blend together. The Term "White" is a general, simplified, term for the word "Caucasian". The word "Caucasian" simply describes the span from the Caucasus to Asia, and everyone in between. We must not confuse the term "White" with the term "Nordic", which is used for the Northern, Scandic, Races. It is also very important that "Caucasian" people remember that there is a little bit of every race inside of them now. We are now in the time of world wide / cross cultural interbreeding where "Caucasian" simply means "There is a little bit of every race in me".

ChildOfMyth,

You've got to be the most uneducated person I've met in a long time...

My son is mixed Indian (British Born) + Japanese (wife) at moment living in Tokyo, because of work i live in China so fly back and forth like a yogo!!
Plan is next year we will go back to UK.

This thread is very interesting to me as my wife and I are trying our best to separate the two languages for our baby son. We now live in Scotland and I speak to him in English and her in Japanese, but she speaks English to me in front of him.

I some times let the odd Japanese word slip out (bad habits), but I try my best to not speak Japanese in front of him. I did hear that bilingual children are supposed to start speaking a little later and to actually read real experiences of this are somewhat settling. He is only 6 months at the moment, but we are trying really hard to engage him in both languages like reading books in both languages and speaking to him all the time.

Any advice that you could offer me to improve what we are currently doing? Do you think my wife should stop speaking English? She is trying hard to improve her level while she is living here, as we will eventually move back to Japan when I have acquired enough teaching experience here in Scotland.

I will keep an eye on this thread I think. ;)

that is lovely :) but why separation? i think in your situation i would prefer talking all languages by everyone, without any strict rules. maybe stick with one as a main family language, and that should probably be the one used in place where you gonna live for next 20 years (during the childhood) so kid does not have to switch language when home and when going outdoors ;)

The reason for separation is that without any firm rules there is no way for a child to know which language is which and to use them separately. Using them in a mixed jumble will leave the child with one language - a mix of the two that isn`t a real language and that would be of little use outside of the family environment.
As for using the language of the location you are in... That is the opposite of reason in this situation. If you are using the same language inside and outside of the home... How is the child going to learn the other language? They`ll be monolingual - no different than children with monolingual parents.

In general, the main successful patterns seem to be one person, one language - and one location, one language.
One has individuals always speaking a single language to the child, giving the child the chance to associate one language with one person and keep the two separate. The other has one location always having the same language environment - this one tends to work best when both parents fluently speak the language that is different from that of the "outside world". For example, using 100% English in the home while living in Japan.

As long as there is a firm rule that is not broken, a child will be able to learn both languages distinctly.

In my case, neither traditional pattern would work for my family, and there were things I was completely unwilling to sacrifice for the sake of that second language - so my son is monolingual Japanese.

i see your point, but i would be worried more from psychological side-effects of having 2 parents speaking 2 different languages. last thing i would be wishing for is when my child come to school and on a first essay about family would write something like "my father is ok, but he doesn't want to speak with me japanese, he is a bit different (understand psycho)".



you need one language on which you build up a healthy connection between child and both parents, equally

kids are very smart and you can learn even more than 2 languages in the early age. simply by taking hours of language, you know, sit together with your kid and say "come on we are going to learn a bit of english" and then talk english, but after that return back to your family language, but always talk together (you all 3) same language. for non-mixed language families it is recommended that kids come to contact with foreign language at around 4 years old (depends individually).

but i wouldn't take that route that one parent learning one language and other parent learning other language only. if both parents talk both languages kid gets a teachings from 2 sources about the same thing and that is much valuable.

But children do not see it that way. If the father has never spoken Japanese to the child, it is never an issue. It is more like "Mommy speaks this way, Daddy speaks that way." It is a given as the child has been raised in that environment and is accustomed to it.

Wrong. You need to build up a healthy connection between child and parents, with active and clear communication. It does NOT have to be in a single language. If a child is being raised bilingually, they are pretty much equal in both languages. They are NOT speaking a foreign language to one parent - they are speaking both of their *native* languages with their parents.

A child knowing a bit of a foreign language and being a native speaker of more than one language are very different things. Yes, you can teach a child quite a bit in a couple hours a day. But chances are they will never be a native speaker of that "foreign" language as it is and always will be presented as foreign. It will be a second language, not a native language. Not to mention that the sudden change of a parent into another language on a set time schedule tends to be stressful for the child and not give that language a good image.

But how does the child know which language is which? If parents mix languages when they speak, a child will mix the languages when they speak. Except in the case of the child, they will not know they are mixing two languages so will be unable to use one or the other. They will only know ONE language. This is called a creole language and is NOT what you want to happen when raising a bilingual child. When it does, both languages are "foreign" languages to the child so there will be no other native speakers of the language they have acquired.

But, who am I to tell you? :mtongue: I`m just a linguist who specialized in language acquisition and did a fairly large study on children in bilingual Japanese-English speaking homes...

I think you're underestimating the brain of a child. I was brought up speaking two different dialects of Berber, Arabic and French. I had no problems separating the languages. My parents as a baby started speaking to me in Berber and apparently the moment I started forming sentences and speaking (2 to 3? At what age do kids start forming coherent sentences?), they spoke to me in all three. To top it all off, at around 7, 8ish, we moved to England where I spoke ONLY English with my dad for about a year.

Now, I speak 2 dialects of Berber, even though I count it as just one. I speak an Algerian dialect of Arabic and Literary Arabic. My French was the worst of these languages, but it was still good enough to not be allowed to take French lessons in school because the teachers said I was too advanced. And of course, English!

I will say one thing though, for me I think it was too much! By the age of 8, I was jumping between 4 languages. This made my French very weak, whereas my brothers were extremely good at Arabic, Berber and French at the age of 8, 9, 10 etc because they didn't start English till they were at least 14! So I think you're right when it comes to mixing too many languages. But I think two, is perfectly ok.

Sorry to butt in, but I find this discussion really interesting. There's lots of kids in the world being raised with three or four languages, and they never have any trouble. I know several British Indians who speak the native dialect of their mother, the native dialect of their father, hindi or urdu AND english. It's pretty natural to them to swap between them depending on the situation. When it's just mum, they speak in mum's language, when dad comes home, they speak hindi/urdu; outside the house it's all English. But there's no way they could combine it because for starters, dad doesn't speak mum's dialect and visa versa, and dad's good at english but mum isn't so much, etc etc.

Actually, fluency must be a factor, right? I imagine for a lot of mixed Japanese families, both partners aren't going to be perfectly fluent in both languages. Plenty of couples out there where one side doesn't speak a lick of Japanese, or conversely, only middling english. The only time I can think of where it might be better if both parents were to constantly speak both languages to the child across the board is for languages where male and female speech are drastically different.

This is the important part. They didn`t mix while you were acquiring your first language. If they had been mixing from day one you would not have had the background to be able to figure out which bit belonged to one language and which belonged to another.
As an infant acquiring a language for the first time, without some rule to show that languages are separate, there is no way to distinguish between them. It isn`t underestimating at all. Even adults cannot do this.

As an example, let us say that you are dropped into a situation where you interact with people who do not speak a language you are familiar with in any way. If they speak to you mixing two or more unfamiliar languages together, you will have no way to know where one begins and the other ends. In fact, you will have no idea at all that they are mixing! And if you pick up the language, you will pick up this mixed form. This is what happens when an infant is exposed to mixed languages from day one with no indication of the lines between them.

On the other hand, let`s say that you go somewhere and are talking to people who use a mix of a language you may not be a good speaker of, but that know quite a bit of. You will probably be able to tell pretty easily which parts belong to language 1 and which belong to language 2 - even if you don`t know the language all that well, it will be fairly clear from the feel, word form, and grammar differences. This is what happens when a child has exposure to a single language long enough to acquire a great part of it. (What happened with you.)

ETA;
I`m not sure whether you wanted to support what I said or go against it...?
What you are saying supports it, if that is what you intended. :)

For a child in that sort of family, they are a native speaker of all of those languages. If the mother speaks to the children in her dialect, the child learns that "mommy speaks this way" and will speak that way with the mother. The same goes for the father... And the same also goes for "mommy and daddy speak to each other this way" for the third household language. There is a clear pattern that is easy for a child to learn and which will give a very good way to keep the languages separate.

I`m sure fluency is a huge factor in making the choice of who speaks what, what sort of pattern to stick to, etc. Obviously, it will be easy to have the mother speak her native language to the child and the father speak his if one of them isn`t very good with the native language of the other. There are cases where the parents themselves are natively bilingual but still do the one-person-one-language pattern, so it doesn`t have to be based on fluency.

The key just seems to be finding and sticking to a pattern. Consistency is what makes the big difference. I`ve even heard of a day rotation - English on Monday, Japanese on Tuesday, then English again on Wednesday, etc.
One thing that is pretty clear is that mixing by the parents with no rules to the exposure usually ends up with a monolingual child only speaking and being fluent in the outside language in the end. (Language of school and peers). The second mixed in language ends up being a second language at best, a sketchy "foreign" language at worst.

Apologies, I think I replied to your post without reading everything about this discussion. I assumed that you were saying to not mix languages until for example they are in school or something because of what you said about speaking only in Japanese to your child. I remember seeing a picture maybe a year ago and he was already in school, so I assumed!

But now, I think it's clearer! Yes, I guess there does need to be a degree of separation! For my niece, I've always spoken to her in Kabyle (one of the berber dialects), whereas her father and mother only speak to her in French. Now, she'll be 3 in a couple of months, so she's already speaking. With me, even though I only taught her vocabulary. Like, when she played with a toy car as a baby, I would say Car in Kabyle. Now, I still do the same thing... Hopefully I haven't confused her, lol.

When it comes to my son, there were several pretty large factors in deciding to go the monolingual route with him. For one, he has a disability and we were uncertain of whether he would be able to speak at all. (And actually ended up taking until 4 to speak his first word.)
Second, my husband does not speak English. Using English as a home language would have been impossible.
And third, me using only English with my son and my husband using only Japanese would still have shut my husband out of a great part of my son`s life because the time spent by my husband with my son is much much less than that I spend with him. Children tend to learn the primary caregiver`s language first, and that would have been English.

And, because of the disability issues, there was a chance my son would only be able to learn a very little bit of language at all. If that had been English there is no doubt it would have cut down on his quality of life.

Anyway, it was a case of sacrifice for us no matter what, so I chose not to make them. It`s a personal family choice, having nothing to do with my views on bilingualism and learning other languages. :)

If you are the only one speaking to her in that language, I am sure that she has noticed that and is not confused at all. :)

ok you are starting to convince me :) so what to do in situation when both parents need to speak with kid at one time?

which language should they speak? still each of theirs?

Yes. If that is how they have been doing it, when they both need to speak to the child at once they should follow the same pattern.
Remember, for the child BOTH of the languages is their native language so it should not be hard for them.
If it has to be a family discussion, then the parents should stick to the language they use to talk to each other when talking to one another, and stick to the language they use when speaking to the child when they are doing that. Or if one can`t understand the language of the other, stick with the language they use when speaking to between themselves even when speaking to the child.

Really, it`s all about making a rule and sticking to it. Mixing languages based on how you feel or the direction of the wind isn`t a rule.

For example;
Mother speaking language A to the child. Father speaking language B to the child. Mother and father speaking language B to each other, and the "outside world" speaking language A (or even C!). This is a fairly common pattern.

Or... Mother and father both speak language A in the home, but speak language B outside the home. The "outside world" language is B.

It`s all a matter of giving the child a structure to work from to distinguish the different languages.

Something that probably wouldn`t work is mother and father both speaking language A and B without any pattern. The child usually ends up speaking the language of "AB", which doesn`t really exist.

I believe one should have a solid grasp of whatever language they will be using most, before introducing additional ones. Unfortunately that is a bit at odds with my strong belief that bilingual education should start early.

Integrating British and American English may not seem a major difference, but at least in the '50s it had a significant impact on me. Everyone around me from age 4 spoke British, except my parents, so by the time we returned to the U.S., most American's could not understand me. My parents had expected the problems with the accent, but the surpise was most of my vocabulary was not understood either. Remembering how confused I was at 7 suddenly having to learn new names for things, I can imagine how much more difficult it would be for a child with to learn a completely different language, or have no distinction as to when they should use which of the multiple languages their parents speak.

They simply switch between the languages. I have Norwegian cousins that do the same. I think it has been mentioned before, do not underestimate the power of the mind.

So you think I am okay in what I am doing then Nyororin? If and when we move to Japan I plan to label everything in the house with an English/Japanese label it is going to look like a shop. I am already teaching him phonics using Jolly Phonics inspired songs and gestures. He just sits there and looks at me smiling, but there is no harm in starting as early as possible. I sing the JP songs in the shower all the time anyway being a P1 teacher. Hehe.

My wife speaks to him in Japanese and has a few lovely books that she reads to him, as well as singing Japanese nursery rhymes from a CD her Mum sent us over. We are having lots of fun with him the moment, and it is going to be a wonderful day when he says his first word! :p

I don`t think there should be any trouble as long as there is some sort of set pattern. There just have to be enough strong clues to give him the chance to sort things out. I would just be sure to make it a rule that your wife speaks to him in only Japanese (not just most of the time, or on occasion) and that you speak to him in English all of the time (without some Japanese thrown in here and there.) Of course, this may already be the case.
The sort of "mixing" to avoid is speaking a bit in Japanese here, a bit in English there, and so on without any sort of pattern to it.

Good luck, and it truly is wonderful when they do start talking to you. I had to wait 4 years for mine, but it is so much more fun when they start telling you things.

I'm not in an interracial relationship, but I often times wish I was mixed. ^_^ I think it'd be really neat to say that I'm half this and half that. XDD

I AM russian, irish and italian, but (as silly as this sounds), they're all Caucasian. It don't count. lmao.
My sister is half Puerto Rican (different dad) and that's just neat!

reading tenchu's message I hope it was not serious but a wind up.

what a dreadful way to describe your wife.

If I were her-- If you were NOT joking-- I would leave you.

It was So insulting.

"As for people of mixed nationalities in Japan. I imagine that it's tolerated"

So basically you have no idea what you are talking about. The author of this thread is looking for real answers not your assumptions. Others have written about all kinds of things and very much off focus, which is very annoying. Please make sure your on the right thread. Getting back to the issue:

Japan is a country that prides itself on its supposed homogeneity, and conformity is valued. Realistically, racism and discrimination do exist. There is a Japanese proverb that states: the nail that sticks out will be hammered back. Due to Japans centuries of isolation that ended in 1854, there is still a distrust for foreigners. Following WWII when the American GIs pulled out and left for the US, many mixed children were left behind. It was not uncommon for the mothers of these mixed children to leave them at orphanages due to the humiliation they would face with a mixed child. During the Korean War era, anger and hate in Japan toward the mixed children was still intense. By now, the more offensive postwar view of children of mixed race has largely disappeared. The derogatory term “ainoko” meaning half-breeds and its equally loaded successor “konketsuji” (mixed blood child) are of the past. However, the term “haafu” to describe a mixed child in Japan is still heard, especially among children. Growing up being different is still frowned upon and Japanese children are especially cruel. Mixed children knowing they are conspicuously different, go through childhood either trying to prove their legitimacy, or turning their back completely on trying to be Japanese. There will be great pains to fit in as an adolescent: even if the mixed child speaks Japanese and knows the tough dialect of the Kansai region, there is still problems fitting in. Why even at international school, full of Westerners, there are suffocating rules of the Japanese seniority system; juniors and mixed kids are silent until spoken to and carry their superiors' bags (and so-on). Mixed couples will also have issues and foreigners and mixed adults will often see this, as their opinions are often shrugged off as insignificant. Many Japanese positions and places are reserved for “true” Japanese people. Although, nice to your face, mixed couples can tell in the eyes of true Japanese people that they see disapproval and resentment of a Japanese marrying a non-Japanese. Now it is true that some haafu are seen on fashion magazines and TV and has some younger generation women running to get plastic surgery for eyelid incisions and nose jobs to look more western, for that “non-japanese-yet-japanese” look but these idealizations and fantasy are in the world of sports and entertainment. It is often stated that, as a haafu, you never get full admission to the club. The question most asked by mixed children is am I really Japanese? Never mind that the mixed child was born in Japan, and their first language is Japanese, or that they’ve spent three-quarters of their lives in Japan. The problem is you don’t look Japanese, and that has always foiled attempts to pass as one in a country that cloaks itself in an impenetrable veneer of homogeneity.

this will all change when caucasian-japanese will become the majority

in 2006 ...735,132 marriages in Japan, of which 40,154 involved were international...thats 40,154 possible caucasians-japanese babies in a year

mixedasians.com &bull; View topic - Are whites taking over Japan?

Everyone forgets that more than 90% of those international marriages are between Japanese and other East Asians. In other words, producing children who look Japanese.

International marriages between Caucasians and Japanese are a small small fraction, and the number of those who actually stay in Japan are an even smaller fraction of that.

Japan is in absolutely NO danger of being taken over by Caucasian-Japanese babies. :rolleyes:

zainichis don't count ...so 90% of international marraiges are between japanese and westerners

Umm... Last time I checked, all of Asia wasn't Japanese. If a Japanese person marries someone Korean, Chinese, or Filipino - the top nationalities for international marriages - they are still considered *international*. Any marriage where one partner is not a Japanese citizen is an international marriage.