teaching young kids a second language. Which one?

[PixieDust32]

Mis hijos y yo hablamos Español e Ingles.

 

[PixieDust32]

And if the kids or anybody knows Spanish, then Italian, Portuguese, French are so easy.

 

[Aidensmom]

Klingon.













Really, around here Spanish is almost needed. I learned both Spanish and Italian, but really only use the Italian in restaurants. Really, I don't know what other language would be that useful besides Spanish, unless my child was planning to live somewhere or have a career that required it.

 

[twojo21]

I guess the obvious one would be Spanish, but if you were going to start young children learning a second language that wasn't Spanish, which would you choose and why?

I have read a few things that say that NOW is the time to start teaching them a second language as they will absorb it like a sponge..... they are 5.

we plan to teach our children polish as that is my husbands culture/background & his family speaks polish.

 

[pirateofthecarolinas]

Our DD9 attends a Spanish Immersion Magnet School. She's finishing 3rd grade. She has one hour of English instruction a day. She is completely fluent. She can speak, read and write in Spanish. She can stay in this program through 12th grade. My DS4 will start K in another year at her school.

I wondered how she would do on her End of Grade tests this year in English. She aced them. In fact her "entire class" passed with Level IVs. The highest score given. That is amazing!

Our school system is considering a Chinese Immersion Magnet School. If it opens when DS4 is ready, I will send him there. I feel that in the future Chinese will be more important than Spanish.

Lori

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

French

I love the language, have some french ancestry somewhere in my familiy tree and it is the language I studied in school.

 

[Crankyshank]

It doesn't really matter - pick anything your children will enjoy and have easy access to. The more they are able to use it on a daily basis, the more likely they would be able to retain it. So if you have someone who speaks another language in their lives, I would select that language. It is much easier for bilingual children to pick up additional languages as they get older. Prime example - my friend Gus' mother is Swedish and he was raised bilingual. He now speaks a multitude of languages.

 

[grlpwrd]

It really doesn't matter which second language - whatever the learner can do in the first language, they can also do in the second language. The younger the better! And once you learn a second language, the third (or fourth, fifth..) is even easier.

How true. I grew up in Hawaii and I can easily understand many languages. I easily recognize the patterns, tones, expressions, etc. between them all because I learned at such a young age.

I think any second language will be beneficial, really. I would go by what would be beneficial in terms of employment and international relations, satisfaction, ease, and the ability for you to encourage and participate, too, or at least have another person be able to converse with them.

GL!

 

[Lynn CC]

My DS who is going in his sophomore year in college is fluent in Spanish (5 years). And is now learning Japanese and Chinese and is hoping to be fluent by the time he's out of graduate school. He says Chinese and Japanese will give your kids a HUGE advantage in the world as far as their college acceptances and career choices, and thinks those languages are FUN!
If he had to choose one he would choose Japanese before Chinese and he stated reasons something along the lines of, Japanese is the foundation to learning Chinese etc... things I didn't understand! LOL

 

[pumba]

our grandson learned sign language from the time he was able to imitate it. He is going to be two years old this week. He has an excellent vocab in speech. The doctors actually recommended this because children sometimes have a hard time to say words and this is so easy for them and they don't get frustrated.

Then Our area teaches all languages but French is the common one here. My grandaugher is a junior in high school and just finished French 4. She decided she didnt' want to take it he senior year. She can listen to her step fathers relatives from France and parle vous with the best of them.....hahaha

 

[ZuZugal]

German......it's my heritage!

 

[Kewz1]

German here too!

Kristen

 

[SandraVB79]

Living in a country where you HAVE to learn at least 4 languages, I can tell you the following from experience:

Don't start learning a second language before you know your first one really well!! And that includes writing!!!!

Belgium is a "weird" country language-wise: although we are small, we have three national languages (Dutch, French and German) At home, we are Dutch-speaking, and I went to Dutch-speaking schools.
In school, I learned French from the age of 7, English from the age of 13 and German from the age of 15 (when you start to learn German depends on what program you follow at school)

According to many different language tests I have done, I know these 4 languages rather well. I now feel ready to start another language, and it'll probably be Italian.

In my class have always been children coming from French-speaking families, going to Dutch-speaking schools. Result? They know how to speak French without an accent. They have an accent when speaking Dutch. They can't write French without errors and they can't write Dutch without errors (and I don't mean typing errors here!)
Their parents sent them to a school in another language when they were too young, so they couldn't first learn their "own" language properly before they were immersed by a second language.

I don't say it's wrong to teach him another language. Everyone should know more than one language. Just don't start too early with it.

 

[Rajah]

I personally would start a second language about 7 y/o, and hands down, I'd do Spanish. If for whatever reason you don't want Spanish, I agree French is another good one to do.

Having said that, I learned German.

 

[mrsv98]

DD has been going to a Spanish emmersion class since she was 2.5 In our area, there is a very large Hispanic population so it was a natural choice for us. She isn't fluent, but she does speak and understand some. Really, it is good for young children just to hear another language, it stretches their brains and helps their learning processes across the board.

I have heard experts say the languages to learn are Spanish and Mandarin, and perhaps Russian. These will be the most useful in the future.

 

[kpm76]

DH and I plan to teach our children French because it's our heritage and we both know the language. French was my dad's primary language growing up; he didn't learn English until he went to Kindergarten. He'd love for his grandkids to speak French with him

 

[shortbun]

Sign language

I second this! My son has been learning ASL since 1st grade and can sign well now. I did teach him to sign certain things before he could speak like, hungry, more, hurts, enough, I love you. He also speaks some Spanish. His first word was actually "agua" because my friend was caring for him a few hours a day and she's Spanish speaking. Funny thing was that he said it to me-not her!! Imagine my suprise and good thing I knew a little Spanish myself.

 

[Papa Deuce]

One of the reasons I asked was because we ran a package on our news last night about how Mandarin Chinese might be the most useful, in demand language outside of English in the coming years.

 

[Imzadi]

You have to ask, "Which language will they be able to use more later in life. It's one thing to just teach them a second language. It's another for them to be able to learn it, to use on practical levels.

I learned French in high school. It didin't do me a bit of good as I didn't keep up with it, and a couple of decades later, the one day I was in Paris, I could hardly speak anything worthwhile, except tell the taxi driver, "La Louvre, sil' vous plait!" to take me to the Lourvre (sp?) Museum.

Since I lived in NYC & Los Angeles for several years, it would have been more practical for me to have learned Spanish than French. It is something that I could use to speak to people here every day. Conversely, if I was ever planning to move to French Canada (NOT!) French is the better language to know.

By heritage, I grew up with an Asian language in my house, but, the dialect, it turns out, is not the popular one needed to converse with most Asians nowadays.

I also know sign language. BUT, sign language is NOT the same as American Sign Language. Believe it or not, sign language is not universal around the world. Different countries, different regions of the world, each have their own sign languages. Certain signs, phrases & idioms are not universal. And each culture & ethnicity is very proud & territorial of their own Sign Language, so it's not like they are ever going to give up their regional differences to homogenize into a universal "Sign Language."

When I run into people who speak American Sign Language (ASL) we might not be able to understand each other well because their structure, phrasing syntax of HOW & when they use certain signs, as well as the signs, themselves, that are different, throw us off.

American Sign language is not the same as Signed English, which is closer to how hearing people speak. ASL leaves out many of the words used in hearing English, & has some totally different signs & meanings and signed in a different order (phrasing) than either spoken or Signed English. Had I known ASL was so much harder to learn, I would have learned it first over Signed English. It made it that much harder & frustrating to try to learn ASL.

 

[SandraVB79]

Just yesterday, there was an item on the news about learning Chinese. Many people here send their kids to Chinese class, and they even want to introduce Chinese in high school.

Some people said it was a good idea, others said it wasn't, because:
1. Chinese is completely differently structured than the "western" languages. Every word has another sign, etc, which makes it very hard to learn.
2. Many many many different dialects/ variations of Chinese over that country. Many Chinese people can't talk to each other, because they speak another language (how are we going to pick one to learn?)
3. English stays the main business language, even the Chinese are learning it for business.

I don't know, with about 1/4 of the world's population being Chinese, it could be very useful, and one way, I would like to learn it. But, chances I will ever end up in China for work aren't that big, and I'll be better of learning Spanish or Russian or Italian. Or a language I can practice at least once every week. because I know that if you don't frequently use a language, you forget the whole thing very fast!!!