Will teaching Mandarin to children "mix-up" a child's English?

Despite the obvious benefits of learning a second language, some parents still struggle with the idea of introducing a second language before their child has mastered his first.

Will teaching second language "mix up" a child's English?

According to researchers, young children who are raised with a second or third language will occasionally "mix up" words between the languages during the early stages of learning the language. This effect is sometimes referred to as language "code-switching." Associate Professor of Linguistics Carmen Fought explained for PBS, "Code-switching occurs in bilingual communities all over the world, and seems to be a way of exploiting linguistic resources that comes naturally to the human brain."

Psychologist Ellen Bialystok PhD, a leading expert on the cognitive effects of bilingualism, who stressed that occasional intermixing of the two languages does not mean the child is confused. To the contrary, she said, the mixing of different languages was often an indication that bilingual children were showing off."They show how clever they are in taking advantage of all the things they know how to communicate," Bialystok said.