Discussion 3 (Week 8)

Discuss your experience of either learning a second language sequentially or simultaneously.

At childhood I am exposed to both Tamil and English language. My mother speaks both English and Tamil to me, but since I grew up with cousins who spoke English, i was only able to speak and understand English but only understand Tamil, unable to converse in it. At later age, at schools, I was exposed to Malay language and continued learning English at school. At diploma level, I learned Mandarin but as I am not using it, i could only recall a few words from the vocabulary that I learned. At diploma level also, I tried taking Thai language class but was not able to fully learn the language, but I got my chance through an exchange programme to Walailak University in Thailand. While being there i got the chance to learn the language more and fully utilize it, as the duration of time being in Thailand was short, I was only able to converse sentences for buying food and asking direction and shopping (language that I use to survive). The language is Spanish, i am still learning the language and in my third level this semester, however i find that if I don't use the language, I easily forget the sentence structure and the vocab.

sequentially is when second language being introduced after a great deal of the first language had been learned. the different starting time making it obvious that another language is learn after one already acquire his/her first language.

simultaneously is when one learn two or more languages at the same time which can be seen in two situation which are 1P-1L and 1P-2L

based on my own experience, i have been exposed to Negeri Sembilan's dialect and Perak's dialect since young. it occurs that I am not being able to speak using the both dialects. however, I can understand the dialect wholesomely even though I always reply back in standard language. as i grow up, I have been exposed to Hindi language because they are still many of my relatives using the language. I continue growing up with Malay and English languages at home and school. then, i studied Mandarin, Thai's language and Spanish for extra languages.

I can conclude that you can acquire the language well if you practice it. being exposed to the language is simply not enough.

for me I was exposed to two languages simultaneously. as I was living with my grandparents and parents, I was exposed to Hokkien and English from an early age. My father would speak English exclusively whilst my mom, granny and grandfather would speak both Hokkien and English to me. However, I would define my first language as English. Till now, I am m0ost proficeint in English while my Hokkien is only below average. This is probably because I didn;t use Hokkien as frequently anymore when I entered kindergarten. Mandarin substituted Hokkien in my conversation with my granny and therefore I left Hokkien behind.

conclusion:
first language : English
2nd Language : Mandarin / Melayu (additives)
Hokkien substituted by Mandarin

Discuss your experience of either learning a second language sequentially or simultaneously.

I am a bilingual person and most of the people in Malaysia are bilingual. I can speak Chinese, Malay and English. My first language is actually Chinese. Since i was a child, my parents speak Chinese to me. However, when i entered kindergarden, I start to Malay and English. Sometimes, my grandparent will talk to me in dialect but since I did not live with my grandparents I can only understand what they are speaking but I cannot speak or write in my dialect. My second language learning is basically through sequentially. I totally master Malay and English when I entered secondary school. In my opinion, bilingual children have more advantage compare to monolingual children. this is because bilingual children can speak more than one language and this will definetely help them when they graduate and entered society for work.

since my dad is english educated, he used to speak english 2 us when we were young..but i always reply him with mandarin but i think i wil practice 1 language of 1 parent to my future children because i think learning a second language simultaneously will let d children to become multi-tasking and response faster:) mom used to speak mandarin with us..but "teo chew"(dialect) wif dad..that's why we dono how to speak the dialect now..

I was exposed to both English and Malay since young, our family used a mixture of both language to communicate so i learned English and Malay simultaneousy. I guess it was not difficult learning both languages since i've been exposed to both language since young, plus i love reading which also helped.

Then when i was in primary school, i went to a Chinese school. It was difficult for me because no one in our family can speak Chinese, so everything is new. I was the weird kid in school because i could not speak Chinese at all, instead i can only speak Malay and English. I learned Chinese from scratch to speak to my friends in the school and since there is no one at home that could speak Chinese at home, i only practice in school. It wasn't long before my brother and cousins were sent to a Chinese school, then i had them to practice my Chinese.
After that, i sort of learned Cantonese on my own by watching dramas. I think it was because it is similar to Chinese that i could easily picked it up.

At the university, i learned Korean and i find it not so difficult because there are similarity ibetween Korea and Chinese. In addition, i do like watching Korean shows which helped a lot.

When I was young, before I entered kindergarten, both my parents spoke mandarin with me, and both my grandparents spoke Hokkien with me. I can only understand Mandarin but not the Chinese characters writing that time.
In that level, I learnt Mandarin and Hokkien simultaneously. When i entered kindergarten and primary school started from age of 6, I learnt Chinese language, Malay language and English language in school. That level is also a simultaneous process of language learning of mine. After i enterd primary school level, i seldom spoke hokkien with both my grandparents. However, my Hokkien is still practicable right up to my adulthood now, but not that fluent as the native speakers are. Simultaneously, I also understand for Cantonese and Hakka, but less practise them as oral conversation in daily life.

When I entered university, I learnt basic Japanese language and Spanish language. It is the sequential learning after my 3 major languages which are Chinese, Malay and English. It is a bit difficult to learn those 2 langauges as I am adult now, the learning process is not as effective as the children do.

From small i was only exposed to my mother tongue which is Tamil.
Once i entered Tadika.,where all the of my friends were Malays..i start learning Malay..i would say it is a simultaneously learning both the languages..because i didn't master my mother tongue at that particular age.then when i go to Standard 1 till my Form 4..i learned English..yet was in quite a bad condition..because most of my friends talks in tamil..so i never practise English that often..but when i came to Form 5.,i had a punjabi friend who come to my school & class n started to talk english with me..since she doesnt understand tamil.,i was forced to learn better english in means of communicating with her..and indirectly she became my english teacher..eversince that particular time.,my english improved much more faster than anything before..Thats how i mastered my both the 3 Languages in lyf..Mother tongue was by Nature Setting..Malay & English were by classroom n Life experience setting.. :lol!: [b]

By Nature.,all of us are exposed to Bilingualism..and in a country like Malaysia..which is a multibilingual country..u cannot avoid it..
we are the child who successfully learned more than one language and and mastered it much than a native speaker..i mean most of us we are..

From my experience , my first language is Tamil .At home , i have been using Tamil language to communicate since i was young .I started 2 learn second language when i entered my pre-school studies.There , Malay language was used as the communication medium.At first , i were awkward because i could't understand anything , but after few months i started to recognize some words and i also able to speak Malay language hardly . Through my kindergarten i started to learn my second language sequentially .At the same time i'm able to use Tamil language at my home.Now i am trying my best to learn this English language.Want or not i have no option because i am persuing my tertiary studies in B.A English.

Since young I was exposed to English , mandarin and hokkien simultaneously.
As both grandparents from my mom and dad's side doesn;t understand english
( which I was taught and would use it in my daily conversation with my mom)
I had to learn hokkien in order to communicate better with my grandparent's from my dad's side while mandarin for
the grandparent's on my mom's side.
But my hokkien and mandarin were never as fluent as my english because i was sent to a kindergarten which
uses English as the medium of instruction and communication. I was exposed to english more than the other 2 languages therefore, I am more comfortable using english engaging my daily conversation as i can express my thoughts better with the amount of vocab I have compare to the other 2 languages.

At early age, I was exposed to two languages, which are Malay Language and also English Language by my parents (simultaneously). My dad uses a mixture of English and Malay, while my mother talks mainly in Malay. Since born until I'm at standard 4, I lived with my grandparents and also mother (my dad only come back on the weekends). My grandparents use a dialect which is Kampar; a dialect originated from Indonesia, when conversing with me. I managed to understand the dialect fully but rarely use it when replying back (I use standard Malay).

At school, I learned more on both English and Malay, while being exposed to different kind of dialects since I learned in several schools in different parts of Malaysia (Johor, Perak, Penang). From form 1 until form 3, I learned Arabic, a compulsory subject, but did not do well with it since I don't have that much of a basic from my childhood (sequential).

During my diploma years, I was again having to take Arabic as my foreign language, and still, I did not get high grades for that particular subject. I find the grammar for Arabic very confusing. I also familiarized with Terengganu Dialect as I had my diploma there, and also some Kelantanese dialect.

At my degree years (now) I took German (now I'm taking level 3), and I find that the language is quite interesting and I even try to learn outside the class by watching movies in German Language (sequential). At my 3rd semester, I went to Thailand for the whole semester for a student exchange program, and I was exposed to Thai speaking environment (since Thai people rarely speaks English fluently at that particular place), and I took a class for Thai Language, taught by a Thai speaker (sequential).

at childhood, i was exposed to both tamil and english language.my parents speak to me in tamil but my mum teach me something new in english. As i grow up, i was able to speak and understand tamil well but i dont know how to read or write in tamil until date,maybe because i was not from a tamil medium school. When i first enter kindergarden i start to learn english and malaymore in brief, since my kindergarden was an english medium,they tend to speak more in english than malay. i was more exposed to malay language when i step into primary school.i could write and speak malay and english quite well. when i was 12, i could almost write n speak a good malay though english was not to the extend of professionalism, but once i entered my secondary,which is also an english medium school,i started to speak english more often, and i could write even better. HEre, everything was almost in english, we only speak malay during our malay language subject or to communicate with certain malay staff. Later on, when i started my degree, i took up spanish,im still leraning now...im not good enough to speak or write because im dont often speak and write or even watch others speaking spanish.NOW, i can speak my own language,malay and english well.

Sequentially is when the children learns their second language later at school and simultaneously is when the child is exposed to two different languages in the home at the same time.

Our family speaks Kayan, Malay and sometimes English at home. I learned Mandarin when I was in kindergarten and in primary school. Sometimes, I speaks Mandarin with my siblings and my Chinese friends. I learned English through songs and movies. My father also sometimes speaks English with us at home. As I grow up, I been exposed with many languages. In university, I learned Korean language until level 3.

What can I say about bilingualism is, being bilingualism is definitely an advantage for you, as you can speak and understand more language than others. When i was young, my parents speak both malay and english with me but since we are living with both of my grandparents which speak 100 percently in malay, makes me comfortable to malay more instead of english. But when i was 4 years old, i was sent to an english kindegarden where english was the only language that can be uttered over there. So in order to let say ' survive ' in the kindergarden i need to use english everything when i need to ask for something or ask permission to go to the toilet.. Due to this, my brain like sending signal to the tongue and let the tongue confortable and use to the english words and also the pronunciation. And its up till school yime and also the university.

As we known that, there are acutually two types of bilingualism : the first one is sequential bilingual learner and the other one is : the simultaneous bilingualism..

Its make me wonder, which type of second language learner am i actually is ?

I am a bilingual person who start learning Persian as a first language.I can speak Persian,English and French.At a very young age,when I was almost 3years, I went to kindergarten and i start learning Persian from since.Then when,i grew up and i entered to high school,they start to teach us English as a second Language.When i start my university degree,i just started to learn French as 3rd Language and I could be well in it.

sequential learning is where one learns his/her first language then after follows by their second language and the other extra languages by sequence which is after the great deal of acquiring their first language, so every language learning is comes in order.
whereas, the simultaneous learning is where one learns two or more languages at one time

in my experience my first language is tamil and i was exposed to it since i was small. i could learn it proper because there is no other languages that was exposed to me untill i enter kindegarten. then i started to learn english and malay at the age of 5. in my situation when i was learning my first language sequentially, i have never faced any problem with it. but when it comes to learning two languages simultaneously, i was facing some trouble, where in learning english and malay. i acquired english faster than malay because majority of my friends were indians atthatme and they used to speak in english and tamil most of the time and same goes with my teachers.so i was facing problem in acquiring my third language which is malay. then once i entered my primary school which is in tamil medium so i dont get any chance to communicate in malay either with my friends and teachers. so i couldnt do well in my malaylanguage which was exposed to me simultaneously untill i enter secondary school.

Simultaneous bilingualism is a form of bilingualism that takes place when a child becomes bilingual by learning two languages from birth. Simultaneous bilingualism is a form of bilingualism that takes place when a child becomes bilingual by learning two languages from birth.
I become bilingualism through simultaneous learning. My parents converse in our native language with me, while with my grandparents,we speaks in English.
And it so happen that I am always considered as a slower speaker and shy by some people in such early age because I always mixed up both language at the same time. And my relatives converse in various language like Kenyah, Iban and Chinese and Malay. Since I always am stay in hospitals, surrounded by missionary from English spoken country I get more motivated to speak in English.
And most tv shows that I watch are in english. But as I grow up, I am good in each language that exposed to me.

At early age, i was exposed to Kelantanese dialect because both my father and mother are the origin of the country and i use the dialect to interact with friends at school and also people in society.

When i first entered kindergarten at the age of 5, i was introduced to standard Malay language, English, and simple Arabic language. Then only i learned the languages sequentially. Right after i turned into standard 1 school student, i learned more formal Malay language and English until i finished my high school age at 17. Unfortunately, i didnt learn Arabic anymore in my primary school days but later on i accidentally took Arabic as a compulsory subject for my PMR and performed well in my PMR. Basically i learned the Malay language and Arabic language sequentially and use them in those particular subject during school time only.

LAter on when i was in foundation, i used English more frequent than my high school days. and right after i pursue my degree in English i use more and more proper English. So basicallly i learned the language sequentially.