I think the biggest advantage of being bilingualism is it helps to training my brain and my memory, with an others words, when I speaking with English-speakers, my brain is turning to "English thinking mode" (Thinking as an English-speaker to make sure I'm using a right pattern so people could understand) and keep recall the English words to complete a sentence. Speak a foreign language is requires me to keep response (processing translate) fast which training my brain, and keep remember new vocabulary I've learned to expanding my memory. It's very hard when I just getting started to study my second language-English, because it's very different from Chinese, so it's not help when I'm trying to study English by using a "Chinese thinking mode" but making errors in grammar. Yet, I found out I forget a lot of Chinese vocabularies just after I came to America about half year, I already used to speaking English in my daily life and I even have to using English to instead Chinese words because I really can't recall them sometimes, which is called retroactive interference In Chapter 7 (occurs when learning something new hampers earlier learning). I'm learning French this semester, because French is similar with English, it helps me a lot to learn faster than when I'm using Chinese to study English, which represents another interference: proactive interference (occurs when earlier learning gets in the way of new learning). but there are also some retroactive interference going on (I always confused by those similar words and using French word in English or opposite). To know three different languages is the limit of my ability, because human's memory has a limit, we can't keep absorbing new information without forgetting old ones. But if we aren't trying, we never know where our limit is.
While I'm not multilingual yet, I agree with the advantages you point out. One of my good girlfriends is a native Vietnamese speaker and my boyfriend's first language is Norwegian. They've made me not take language for granted and more conscious of forming my communication. It also pushes your thinking limits when it is a barrier. Does Chinese have any consonant patterns like our textbook pointed out is common between languages? (Like snore, sneeze, smell, snooze)
I think it's so cool that you are bilingual, and also wanting to learn French as well. Let me tell you, I was initially learning Spanish, I started in 1st grade, it was required and was part of the daily elementary schedule. When I got to middle school, I took some Spanish again, then in high school I took three years of Spanish. After that, I kind of gave up because it was so irritating to me to have to learn so many different rules and exceptions. I am planning to learn American Sign Language. I feel this will be useful in a profession (as will my small background in Spanish). But still, I could never call myself as being bilingual, I wish I had the motivation to keep going like you! Keep it up!
I know three girls who were adopted from Russia by an American couple when they were pre-teens. Now they are all 18-19 and they don't know any Russian at all but they still have Russian accents. That's another example of how learning something new hampers earlier learning. It's also, in my opinion, really sad that it's so easy to forget a language when one stops using it.
You can say that again! I am also an international student and I have an experience of learning two foreign languages at the same time: Chinese and English. My English was even poorer until two years ago, so I can dare say that I was more fluent in Chinese back then. Now? I barely remember Chinese! Moreover, when I try speaking Chinese, I find myself using English words in Chinese word order. For me, retroactive interference seems so powerful that I forget every earlier memory. I am quite scared of forgetting English if I start studying Chinese again. I really want to be multilingual but retroactive interference makes me hesitate to put it into action.
Since I grew up in Michigan and Minnesota, I'm a native English speaker and not bilingual. It was fascinating to read about your experience of speaking both Chinese and English! I also liked how you connected learning a language with the kinds of learning interferences we read about--retroactive interference and proactive interference. Though I'm not fluent, I studied ancient Latin for four years and became very familiar with it. It's not a language you learn to speak--you just focus on reading it--so I don't have a "Latin" thinking mode like you have English and Chinese thinking/speaking modes. When translating Latin to English or vice versa on paper, I approached it similarly to a math problem; that is, I just figured out what it was saying without actually *thinking* in the language. Because of my experience and after reading about yours, I think that learning to read a language versus learning to read AND speak it are regarded as different processes by the brain.
I find language very interesting also in how it changes our thinking modes but to be fluent in a language you actually have to understand it. Not just half doing it, because you might be missing something important.