Simultaneous vs. Successive Bilinguals: German Language Competence and Sociodemographic Characteristics of Four-Year-Old Children

Zaretsky, Eugen; Hey, Christiane

Simultaneous vs. Successive Bilinguals: German Language Competence and Sociodemographic Characteristics of Four-Year-Old Children

James Alexander Gordon on 17th September 2025

Author Information

Eugen Zaretsky, Marburg University Hospital, Germany
Christiane Hey, Marburg University Hospital, Germany

Abstract

Introduction. Previous studies have shown that simultaneous bilinguals achieve better language competence in both languages than successive bilinguals. In the current study, sociodemographic conditions of the German language acquisition were compared for four-year-old simultaneous and successive bilinguals. Methods. All simultaneous (n = 452) and successive bilingual children (n = 885) were tested with the validated German language test “Kindersprachscreening” (KiSS.2): speech comprehension, vocabulary, articulation, grammar, and phonological short-term memory. Successive bilinguals were defined as those acquiring the second language from the second year of life or later. Sociodemographic conditions of the German language acquisition were compared on the basis of KiSS.2 questionnaires for parents and kindergarten teachers. Results. Simultaneous bilinguals showed better German language skills in KiSS.2 than successive bilinguals. Also, they attended more often nursery schools, associations and study groups, and began earlier to attend kindergartens. They played more often with German-speaking children and had less often opportunity to speak their non-German first languages in kindergartens. They spoke German more often at home. Their parents had a higher educational level and began earlier to acquire/learn German. Discussion. Simultaneous bilinguals spoke better German than successive bilinguals not only because they began earlier to acquire it but also because their conditions of the German language acquisition were more favourable in terms of the quality and quantity of the language input. Simultaneous bilinguals also showed a higher sociability and contacted German-speaking children more often than successive bilinguals. The latter, on the contrary, tended to interact with children speaking other languages than German.