<p>I think it's all about passion for languages. I have bilingual children and my first was having difficulties with my native language compared to the second one. It's all individual...So the answer is </p>

<blockquote>
  <p>it depends</p>
</blockquote>

<p>in my opinion I think there is no advantage over the children from monolingual. Children from bilingual families take 2 different languages as one. So in some sense there are still monolingual... </p>

<p>here is some paper:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Because a key expectation parents have is for their child to perform
  well in school, it is important for parents to know that bilingual
  children and monolingual children develop their learning abilities at
  different speeds. Children learning two languages learn each language
  more slowly than monolingual children learn their native languages. It
  is easy to understand why -- children have a limited amount of time
  with which to dedicate to listening and reading language; if a child
  is bilingual, he will split that time between the two languages, which
  slows his learning speed. This often affects the academic performance
  and communication skills of bilingual children, which can cause stress
  in the family. In a sense, the average school is set up to go at a
  monolingual speed, which might outpace bilingual children.</p>
</blockquote>

<p><a href="http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/child-development-bilingual-vs-monolingual-household-7371.html" rel="nofollow">http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/child-development-bilingual-vs-monolingual-household-7371.html</a></p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Bilingual 12-year-olds perform worse at school than their monolingual
  peers, a researcher at Sweden's Örebro University has found.</p>
</blockquote>

<p><a href="http://www.thelocal.se/20110323/32766" rel="nofollow">http://www.thelocal.se/20110323/32766</a></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-11-03T16:07:21.357Z
Could you name some research papers backing this up?
Joachim
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-11-03T16:25:35.660Z
bilingual children have disadvantage in learning...http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/child-development-bilingual-vs-monolingual-household-7371.html
Grasper
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-11-03T15:42:08.417Z
2014-11-03T16:27:34.017Z
2014-11-03T16:27:34.017Z
Grasper
<p>Do children from bilingual families learn two languages faster than children from monolingual families learn one language? In other words, I'm wondering if there's a language learning advantage to growing up in a bilingual home. If that is the case, what about for families that speak 3 languages or more?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-11-01T20:44:30.073Z
Not every child growing up in a bilingual family ever becomes a "productive" speaker of both languages involved, not even if each one of them is exclusively used by one of the parents when speaking to the child, while both parents understand a shared language, possibly the preferred one when they speak to each other.  Fairly often the child develops into an active speaker of the "shared language" and receptive (passive) speaker of the other one.  How, then, do you define when exactly a particular language was "learned"?
Jirka Hanika
<learning><language>
Do bilingual children learn two languages faster than monolingual children learn one language?
CuriousSuperhero
# Do bilingual children learn two languages faster than monolingual children learn one language?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-10-31)

Do children from bilingual families learn two languages faster than children from monolingual families learn one language? In other words, I'm wondering if there's a language learning advantage to growing up in a bilingual home. If that is the case, what about for families that speak 3 languages or more?

**Tags:** learning, language

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Not every child growing up in a bilingual family ever becomes a "productive" speaker of both languages involved, not even if each one of them is exclusively used by one of the parents when speaking to the child, while both parents understand a shared language, possibly the preferred one when they speak to each other.  Fairly often the child develops into an active speaker of the "shared language" and receptive (passive) speaker of the other one.  How, then, do you define when exactly a particular language was "learned"?  

---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2014-11-03. Score: 2 | Accepted answer

I think it's all about passion for languages. I have bilingual children and my first was having difficulties with my native language compared to the second one. It's all individual...So the answer is

> it depends

in my opinion I think there is no advantage over the children from monolingual. Children from bilingual families take 2 different languages as one. So in some sense there are still monolingual...

here is some paper:

> Because a key expectation parents have is for their child to perform
> well in school, it is important for parents to know that bilingual
> children and monolingual children develop their learning abilities at
> different speeds. Children learning two languages learn each language
> more slowly than monolingual children learn their native languages. It
> is easy to understand why -- children have a limited amount of time
> with which to dedicate to listening and reading language; if a child
> is bilingual, he will split that time between the two languages, which
> slows his learning speed. This often affects the academic performance
> and communication skills of bilingual children, which can cause stress
> in the family. In a sense, the average school is set up to go at a
> monolingual speed, which might outpace bilingual children.

<http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/child-development-bilingual-vs-monolingual-household-7371.html>

> Bilingual 12-year-olds perform worse at school than their monolingual
> peers, a researcher at Sweden's Örebro University has found.

<http://www.thelocal.se/20110323/32766>

> **Comments:**
> **username_3**: Could you name some research papers backing this up?  
> **username_2**: bilingual children have disadvantage in learning...http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/child-development-bilingual-vs-monolingual-household-7371.html  

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