Shouldn't Japanese Come Before English?

When people talk about children's Japanese literacy and reading comprehension, some wonder whether time spent on English will weaken Japanese.

But children's Japanese ability is not determined simply by whether English is present or not.

To build Japanese vocabulary and reading comprehension, what matters is using high-quality Japanese abundantly in everyday life.

If children rarely spend time with Japanese books or meaningful parent-child conversation, and instead mostly encounter short, fragmented information, they will not get enough experience deeply understanding and expressing themselves in Japanese.

What builds Japanese literacy is not eliminating English.

It is making sure children get abundant Japanese input and output at home, in preschool, and at school.

All over the world, many children grow up hearing two or more languages from an early age.

Research on bilingual children does not suggest that exposure to two languages, in itself, causes language disorders.

Genesee (2006) reviews research showing that children who acquire two languages from infancy can develop two language systems.

Paradis, Genesee, and Crago (2011) also explain why it is important to distinguish between typical development in bilingual environments and genuine language-development difficulties.

Even when a child has language-development concerns, simply taking away one language does not necessarily solve the problem.

What matters is preserving the language needed for family and community relationships while seeking professional evaluation and support when appropriate.

Bilingual development does not look exactly the same as monolingual development

Bilingual children learn words across two languages, so if you compare each language separately with a monolingual child, their vocabulary may sometimes appear smaller.

When looking at a child's language ability, you need to consider which language is used at home, which language is used in preschool or school, how much exposure they get to each language, and which concepts they know across both languages together.

Creating time for children to hear English does not automatically mean they lose that same amount of Japanese ability.

What matters is how each language is used throughout the day.

Children can talk with family in Japanese, read Japanese picture books, use Japanese in preschool or school, and play with friends in Japanese—while still adding English audio in a way that fits naturally into daily life.

What can become a problem is not English exposure itself, but allowing it to cut into the time children need to think, talk, read, and connect deeply with family in Japanese.

There is no need to create an English-centered life at the expense of Japanese.

Palkids passive audio exposure is not an attempt to change the language of the home from Japanese to English.

Instead, children continue living in Japanese as usual, while English audio is added during playtime, meals, getting ready, and other everyday routines.

For example, even if a family does 90 minutes of passive audio exposure every day, most of the rest of daily life still happens in Japanese.

Children wake up and talk with family. They eat meals. They spend time with teachers and friends in preschool or school. They read Japanese books. They talk about what happened and how they feel.

English audio can be added to one part of that life without giving up a Japanese-speaking daily life.

Young children sometimes mix Japanese and English within the same sentence or conversation.

When adults see this, they may worry that the child cannot tell the two languages apart.

But mixing languages alone is not enough to conclude that the two language systems are confused.

Children use whatever language their conversation partner can understand, whatever language fits the situation, and whichever words are easiest to retrieve at that moment.

They may also use one language to fill in a word they do not yet know in the other.

Japanese and English differ in sound, rhythm, word order, and the people and situations in which they are used. Children learning two languages gradually discover through experience which language works with which people.

For example, they may use Japanese with grandparents who do not understand English, and English expressions with an English teacher. Little by little, children begin to adjust their language depending on who they are talking to.

Cummins (1979) proposed the idea of developmental interdependence: first-language and second-language development are not completely separate, but share a certain underlying foundation.

Cognitive and academic abilities developed in the first language—such as understanding texts, classifying ideas, explaining reasons, and putting events in order—may also help when children tackle similar tasks in a second language.

For example, a child who can understand story structure in Japanese may find it easier to follow characters, events, causes, and results in an English story once they know enough English vocabulary and grammar.

The ability to read explanatory texts in Japanese and organize key points can also become a foundation for learning English reading comprehension.

For that reason, building rich Japanese does not conflict with learning English.

On the contrary, children can draw on the comprehension, thinking skills, and learning strategies they develop in their first language when they study English.

Simply playing English does not automatically improve Japanese ability

The fact that some abilities can be used across languages is different from saying that exposure to one language automatically increases vocabulary or grammar in the other.

Rich experience using Japanese is needed to build Japanese vocabulary, reading, writing, and explanatory ability. English also requires its own input, understanding, reading, and opportunities for use.

Research beginning with Bialystok (2001) has discussed the possibility that routinely managing two languages may relate to attention control and task switching.

People who use two languages choose which one to use depending on the situation and the person they are speaking with, while regulating the influence of the language that is not needed. The idea is that this experience may affect some cognitive tasks.

That said, being bilingual does not mean every child's cognitive ability automatically becomes higher across the board.

Later studies have reported that some tasks do show possible cognitive advantages while others do not, and that results may vary depending on age, how the two languages are used, socioeconomic context, and research methods.

So rather than saying, “Start English because it will make children smarter,” it is more realistic to see the true benefit as gaining access to people and information through two languages.

When bringing English into the home, make sure the daily experiences that build Japanese are still in place.

If these foundations are in place, families can both add English audio or English picture books to part of home life and continue to build rich Japanese.

For many children growing up in Japan, Japanese is the language at the center of family life, school education, friendships, and learning.

Nurturing that Japanese richly is one of the most important roles of home education.

At the same time, children can also be exposed to English audio in a gentle, age-appropriate way from early childhood and gain experience with English sounds and rhythm.

The goal is not to replace time in Japanese with English, but to use Japanese daily life as the foundation and add English experiences within it.

In Japanese, children should get abundant experience with deep parent-child conversations, read-alouds, stories, explanation, and thinking.

In English, they can encounter spoken language through passive audio exposure, online lessons, and English picture books, then gradually connect it to meaning and print.

What matters is giving each language the input and opportunities for use that it needs.