It's not "normal". It's merely not difficult. Consider the words you use to express your thoughts, please, and make sure that they're accurate.

by Anonymous 13 years ago

Eh, it's normal to me. I was bilingual by the time I was five, as were most of my friends. It depends on where you live.

by Anonymous 13 years ago

Subjectivity is always correct, isn't it?

by Anonymous 13 years ago

Well, you're being rather subjective yourself. Factually, any child who grows up hearing two languages, which is frequent in many parts of the world, will be bilingual. Perhaps I should have been more specific. It's "normal" if you don't live in English-speaking countries. It's "not difficult" if your first language is English. I just didn't think there was a need to get persnickety over it.

by Anonymous 13 years ago

I beg to differ. It's an achievement for the parents if they actually sat down and taught their under five year old a foreign language.

by Anonymous 13 years ago

Often the parents don't sit down and teach. They just speak. I'm pretty sure if the child is bilingual, it's most likely because the parents are from a different country. Most parents, or at least the ones I know, would like their child to keep their traditions, so they speak the native tongue at home. Most children from a bilingual home learns English from school. Wow that was a long comment. >_<

by Anonymous 13 years ago

You're not really bilingual if you only know how to SPEAK a language. A child also needs to learn how to read and write in said language. This is where added effort from the parents comes in since the children will obviously not be taught this in school.

by Anonymous 13 years ago

I personally think if a child is extremely fluent in the other language, it should be easy for them to read/write the other language. Especially if the parents have magazines, books, etc. from their native land. But that's just my home. We have tons of stuff from Vietnam around, so it was easy learning to read/write without my mom's help.

by Anonymous 13 years ago

Maybe, but how old were you? A less than five year old barely knows how to read, period, let alone in multiple languages.

by Anonymous 13 years ago

Less than five, for sure. But, I'm talking about as the child grows older. >_<

by Anonymous 13 years ago

I agree. But the post is talking about being bilingual under five, which includes reading and writing at that age as well. ;)

by Anonymous 13 years ago

Ahh...Good point. :P

by Anonymous 13 years ago

Oh, do you know many bilingual 5 year olds? I have yet to meet one.

by Anonymous 13 years ago

Dora the Explorer.

by Anonymous 13 years ago

I live in Québec but always went to English school, so I was bilingual from a very young age. I didn't know that it was not normal to speak two languages until I was in grade 3.

by Anonymous 13 years ago

I wad bilingual by age five. And I thought Dora was 8.

by Anonymous 13 years ago