バイリンガル Bilingual

夫の姪が２才半で、私の甥が２才。年齢が近いので二人を比べると色んな違いに気づき大変面白いです。そこで、最近思ったのが言語。甥は日本人とメキシコ人のハーフですが、アメリカに住んでいるので日本語・スペイン語・英語を同時に覚えないといけません。そして夫の姪はフランス語のみ。一つの物に対して３つの単語を覚えていっている甥と比べ、夫の姪は一つの単語を覚えるので、話すのが確実に甥より上手。いずれは甥も流暢に話せるようになるとは思いますが、それも並みならぬ努力が必要になります。完璧なバイリンガルは難しく、どうしてもどっちかが勝ることが多いです。私の周りもやはり親の言葉や環境の言葉、どちらかの方が得意となり、上手くバランスを保つバイリンガルは少ないです。私自信もそうですが、常に英語と日本語、バランス良く話したり、聞いたり、読んだりしないとどっちが劣っていきます。でも、同時に様々な世界を知ることができるので、これからも勉強したいと思います。

My husband's niece is 2 and a half years old and my nephew is 2 years old. It's interesting to see the differences when comparing the two as they are close in age. And recently, what I thought was difference in language. My nephew is half Japanese and half Mexican and lives in the U.S. so he needs to learn Japanese, Spanish, and English at the same time. On the other hand, my husband's niece only learns French. Compared to my nephew who needs to learn 3 words for 1 thing, the niece speaks much more fluently. I do believe that in time my nephew will be able to speak fluently as well but in order to do so, he will need to work very hard. To be completely bilingual is very difficult and in many cases one language will be more fluent than the other. Bilinguals around me also are better either in the language of their parents or their environment and cannot maintain a good balance. I myself have to always keep a good balance between Japanese and English by talking, listening, and reading or one will start to drag behind the other. However by doing so, it opens you to many worlds and so I hope to keep on studying.