[MandieD]

I wonder how much overlap there is with the ability to easily gain native-level proficiency in a language. We’re raising our child bilingual, partially because no one should learn German from me (started in college, speak well enough to get through life, but everyone knows I’m a native English speaker), but I’d be ok with our child learning English from my husband, as he speaks well enough that Americans think he’s British. His mother, who also learned in high school and university, taught him for a maternity leave year at age 4, then left it to the school system, which didn’t expose him to English again until he was 10. His younger sister does not speak English nearly as well as he does. I’m quite sure that early exposure is why he doesn’t have a German-sounding accent when speaking English.