"etaka" <etaka@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1126612049.335302.250210@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> That's an interesting situation NC86's student is in, her parents have
> letting her conversational Japanese slip that way. My kids can now have
> spontaneous simple arguments with each other in English "It's mine!"
> "No, it's mine!" but I don't see us not speaking to them in Japanese
> soon. I doubt my wife will ever give up speaking Japanese as they grow
> up.
>
One would hope that she'd (The woman who moved to Korea, then back to Japan)
have an advantage over anyone starting from scratch at her age. Like riding
a bicycle.

I would think her brain would have gotten "wired" to make and understand the
sounds of Japanese, so that she would be able to speak with less of an
accent than someone who didn't get that exposure at an early age while those
parts of the brain were still being "wired."

So the parents who expose their kids to a foreign language early on are
still helping them out, even if they don't value learning that language
until later in life.