How knowing nothing increases knowledge

I'd say that my two kids' English and Japanese is on an almost equal footing, and that's thanks to my family's collective ignorance. The giri-no-shacho, my mother-in-law, can speak no English and I can speak little Japanese. As a result, my children have enormous benefits - in England they had to use Japanese to communicate with their Grandma, and in Japan I am a constant thorn in the side of Japanese domination. They always have to talk to me in English, and Japanese with the matriarchs. One beneficial side-effect is that they can translate almost at will between the languages, without us ever teaching x in English is y in Japanese, so to speak. I'll say to Emma: "Tell Grandma dinner's ready," and she'll dutifully trot off upstairs and say "Baa-chan, gohan da-yo!" Ignorance is the best education.