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Fascinating but I took issue with the opening statement which they now admit was wrong, that it is a bad thing, especially for young children, to become bi-lingual.
I have always thought this was not the case and canât believe that there was a strong body of opinion that bi-lingualism at any age was not a positive thing.
But how I wish I had paid more attention at school when it would have been so much easier but I was refused the option to take German because I was so bad at French. 
I think the most important thing is to not only speak but think in 2 languages when speaking them. After all these years I am still thinking in English and then translating to French and vice versa. A massive impediment to following commonplace conversations. Especially as, getting older, my memory for words, both French and English, gets worse. I have just been to the shops and spent 20 minutes with my French friends over coffee and I am getting better, I can feel it but thinking in French will never happen I am sure.
I was interested at the multitudes of goodbyes at the end and was especially pleased when the last of all was Hwyl Fawr, Welsh, the 1st language of both my Grandfathers who were completely bi-lingual. Sadly they rarely spoke anything other than English to me and my parents, though some words were commonly used in the family. Only trouble is my Welsh/English dictionary does not list that as goodbye, more often Ffarwel, which, though used in one of my favourite songs, Myfanwy, sounds like an Anglicism to me. 
My first ever New Year resolution, speak more French, to myself (I commonly speak to myself being the only one listening 
), but now I must try and avoid it in English. 
I don;t speak Welsh, but that looks like âfarewellâ to me. And wouldnât âHwyl Fawrâ just be âwell fare?â A bit like the Northern Irish say âsafe homeâ?
ETA: Google Translate says âHwyl Fawrâ = âgoodbyeâ. 
Yes, Iâd never heard of it being a potentially bad thing for a kid to be bilingual.
When my son was a baby (his mother is French whereas at the time I hardly spoke any French⌠I was only a stagiaire at the time so only spoke to him in English) we were told to expect him to be slightly slower at starting to talk compared to other children he was surrounded by. Apparently itâs not uncommon for bilingual kids to start slower but then they rapidly catch-up with their peers.
Being able to converse without first âtriangulatingâ it may possibly be better but Iâm sure even having to translate to-and-fro is better than nothing at all⌠it all keeps the old grey cells ticking over, and Iâm a firm believer in keeping an active mind is as useful as keeping an active body.
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Me neither, except how to say âcoffee bean 100â (donât click this link if youâre easily offended 
)
I grew up with parents speaking 2 languages, their own and each otherâs, so I was bilingual as soon as I spoke. The person who looked after me spoke a third which my parents didnât, so I spoke that one as well, my stepfather added a fourth but spoke several, and then I learnt a few more at school and university and afterwards - I think in all the languages I speak and never translate.
I think it is easier the more languages you are used to as you can improvise based on what you already know, and you are used to switching, and possibly your memory is a bit more toned.
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You can use just Hywl for âgoodbyeâ, and for âcheersâ.
Fawr means big or large, especially when used for places or people, just like Fach means little in the same context. You get lots of place and house names with Fawr and Fach in them. Iâve lived in âFelin Fachâ which means âlittle millâ.
I don;t speak Welsh, but that looks like âfarewellâ to me. And wouldnât âHwyl Fawrâ just be âwell fare?â A bit like the Northern Irish say âsafe homeâ?
ETA: Google Translate says âHwyl Fawrâ = âgoodbyeâ.
Yes, as I said, an anglicism, a bit like weekend in French.
As far as âgood-byeâ goes, my Collins Welsh/English does not give that at all and, doing it the other way round I canât find either word singly or together. I am beginning to doubt the validity of Collins.
As to all the rest of you (I was interupted in my reply just after reading @ChrisMann above) I agree totally and what a great gift you had @vero in your upbringing. I have mentioned before the family in Bedford that I lodged with many years ago. Father Polish, Mother Italian, 3 small children completely fluent in 3 languages and, with the speed and agility of their response I am totally convinced they thought in all 3 without even realising it. They constantly helped both their parents in translation because neither were fluent in anything but their own languages.
The only insight I got from infancy was being always referred to as Daffydd Bach, Little David. 
Daffydd pronounced as Davuth. 
BTW Daffydd is sometimes interchanged with âDaiâ. But imagine being named Ash as a first name and thinking that was pretty cool, until the terrible tree disease arrived and everyone was calling you âAsh die backâ
Very interesting and encouraging, especially the bit about learning later in life. Like many boys, I didnât learn languages well at school.
But goodness, what a distracting and irritating flurry of ridiculous pictures which accompanied the talking. I hardly watch UK TV and certainly not the current output: is it always such a mismash of pointless images (thank you, I know what a network is, and it isnât a bunch of blank post-its stuck to a window)?
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Bach is masculine and Fach is feminine, both meaning little. Place and house names are generally feminine.
Edit : I donât really know a lot of Welsh, but I lived in a Welsh speaking heartland for seven years and some of it sticks, particularly things associated with places, names and swearing.
Although I have often visited, I have never lived there, but my Grandfathers were both born in Llanelli to a Llanelli born Father and a Cornish Mother. She faced, when brought to the Welsh family home, opposition to a familly dismayed that an âEnglishwomanâ, had been brought into their midst and vowed to never speak English in her presence. A very strong character she vowed her sons would not speak Welsh in her presence and, when she was there, they never did. Nevertheless her maiden name, Dunstan, has passed right down through the family as a middle forename, right until my son, but sadly his now estranged wife did not allow a continuation of the tradition.
Sadly, I still consider English as the most sensible language I know, Welsh like French and most other languages messing about with gender for nouns and with silly numbers (imo obviously )
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I have two nephews, who were born in England to a Basque mother and English father (my brother). They grew up in Spain, both were taken out of school at around fourteen (donât ask why!) were subsequently raised separately and today are both very fluent in English, Basque and Spanish, while the younger one has been working in Brussels for the last few year so I presume he manages there too.
As Vero has already implied the more languages you speak, the easier it is to acquire more. My wifeâs first language is Afrikans, but she has a Masters from an anglophone university, and since weâve been living in France sheâs become far more able than me to have conversations in French F2F or on the phone. Meanwhile, Iâm secretly learning Spanish so that one day I can confidently order from a menu and explain what everything is. But Iâm learning the language of Spanish menus through cookery books, rather than Duolingo. As, long, long ago, I learnt French menu terms in exactly the same way through Elizabeth David .
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I think that when you think in another language it changes your way of thinking. People of different countries think in different ways, thatâs why their languages have developed differently. It broadens your mind in subtle ways, as does living in different countries. Somebody even once told me my personality changed when I spoke German!
A kindred - but more self-controlled, judging by your profile pic - spirit! I find food and cookery vocab sticks far more easily than anything (apart, perhaps, from gros mots 
).
I found just that, in Spanish, with vocab associated with the renovation of my flat in Valencia. The crew spoke no Eng - in fact they spoke amongst themselves in Valenciano, which is a dialect of Catalan.
Not only did I have to discuss the works - design, layout, specs - I did all the buying, so it was the same process at BricoDepot and L. Merlin. It brought my Spanish on gangbusters.
A paper version of the UK Screwfix catalogue was a help. âAh! Siii! Los tornillos para el pladur! Compra una caja de 1000. Muy bienâ. I had 3 months of this, daily, plus the usual day to day exchanges in the shops and wonderful Mercado Central.
Interestingly, mi amigo Fernando told me it was better to be âstuckâ in the present tense than get the gender wrong of an object. But the driver a the taxi/ambulance here in FR told me that making the le/la mistake was not a problem - I would be understood. Gender of objects being entirely arbitrary, that figures.
Now in France, the vocab has largely been based around medical matters. One of the two nurses who come daily to change the post-op dressing speaks no Eng, although she did once come out with âItâs beautiful!â, referring to the site of the excavation. My bathroom looks like a shop specialising in dressings - great piles of boxes. All this has to be discussed at the pharmacy.
I was fortunate to have 8 years, from age 8, of very good teaching of FR. It has really made the grammer element of FR a great deal easier. I can concentrate on extending my vocab and learning the idiomatic element - the FR that the FR actually speak.
One thing that interests me is not remembering whether I said something in FR or ENG. I think that may mean that whatever I said, my brain thought it in that language: I did not âtriangulateâ the thought.
I have been rather o.t.t.'ing YT vids on different language learning - not the tutorials themselves but the discussions/promotions/endorsements of different resources - Rosetta/DuoLingo/Babel/Anki and dozens of others.
What I have come away with, in these occasionally vituperative discussions of different methods by their proponents, slagging off those who maintain that their fave app doesnât work, is the concept of âComprehensible Inputâ, a theory propounded by a US prof called Stephen Krashen and now being explained all over YT by a polyglot called Steve Kaufman.
Almost all the people who have a language tutorial channel feature an interview with this genial Canadian, usually in their native language, as here with the fragrant parisienne, Nelly.
This theory, hardly rocket science, is that learning a language is almost entirely due to listening and reading, not speaking - you can only speak what you already know - or mugging up grammar.
One guy reckons to have learned Spanish by watching a Spiderman film 50 times. I did read of an eastern european who became distinguished in British film/theatre who learned English by dint of his time working as an usher at the NFT.
Taking up this idea, I have chosen âLes Confidences Trop Intimesâ as my FR lang binge movie. Thereâs no plot, no âactionâ. Itâs about an accountant who finds himself with a client who discusses her emotional problems with him rather than with the psychiatrist a couple of doors down the corridor, having knocked on the wrong door,
At the moment the mistake would have been revealed, taking her details, the accountant breaks off to answer the phone and never goes back to it.
Naturally, this movie majors on talking, in measured tones, by middle class, educated people who I presume are speaking âstandardâ French.
I was hoping that this would help get me out of the Zen-like position of being forever in the present in Spanish because, give or take the nuances of past tenses, Iâve got them in FR. Fortunately, for the future tense, ES has the same construction as the FR "Je vais ⌠"
Interesting difference bewtween ES and FR
But a guy with a Spanish lang channel, married to a Colombian, lived decades in ES speaking countries, has never heard anyone say, "Me gustarĂa ⌠" [insert beer/wine/tequila/patas bravas/w.h.y.].
I was prompted not to use âMe gustarĂa âŚâ by a Spanish friend. The direct "Me gusta ⌠" is fine, in direct contrast to the FR polite conditional "Je voudrais ⌠"
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I find Steve Kaufman very comforting - much more so than the âI can make you fluent in 3 monthsâ snake oil sellers - because, for all that he is plainly gifted, and motivated, he understands much better the fact that people learn languages in different ways and have different strengths.
I need to do some watching.
Sadly, for me so does medical vocabulary - not least because quite often the words are similar - pulmonary embolism = embolie pulmonaire. Thereâs been too much of this over the last few years.
Depends who you are - I HAVE to speak, in order to learn. Just listening and reading doesnât work for me. I donât remember. Itâs the words on my lips that are more likely to stick.
Ah yes. Fragrance personified.
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I follow your drift but the words on your lips have clearly already stuck. Of course, in any situation one must speak in order to resolve/contribute to the matter in hand.
I have had many weeks of medical encounters, too. As most medical terminology is based on âmedical Latinâ if one knows the term in ENG it will be more or less the same in FR.
Carcinoma/carcinome.
I have found it difficult following a conversation with a medic inspecting the op wound on my back, not being able to see his mouth.
Itâs extending your ability in any language, including ones native tongue, that is improved by exposure to the new.
I âknowâ the words âvoirâ and âregarderâ. I know how to conjugate them. But I needed to check with todayâs nurse which to use for watching films/TV before I explained to her my intention to watch âLes Confidences Trop Intimesâ multiple times to improve my comprehension of spoken FR.