Introducing Latin When Already Learning Another Language

[MrsWeasley]

All three of my kids do a weekly Spanish class, and my eldest, who is eight years old, does Spanish with Rosetta Stone almost daily. She probably speaks it the best: able to follow along as Spanish storytime at the library but not really conversational. Spanish is definitely a higher priority to me than Latin, but I can't quite get rid of some guilt about not teaching Latin. So, I have two questions. Does anyone teach both Latin and another foreign language in the grammar years? Would I be better off waiting? If I wanted to teach Latin, how little could I do to make it worth it? What free or low-cost secular materials are available for teaching kids Latin? My language learning budget is already ate pretty much by having three kids in Spanish classes.

[cmarango]

We teach both Spanish and Latin, but coming from a bilingual household (although English is the primary language( this may be a slightly different situation than yours.  I started out doing Song School Latin and then moving into the Memoria Press latin materials.  I find that I can easily explain some Latin grammar by pulling from our Spanish (eg. verb conjugations and article agreements), and the vocabulary is often similar as well.  Additionally, I have no Latin background at all and am learning with my children.

[Reefgazer]

We teach Latin and French, and it hasn't been a problem at all. DD is doing Memoria Press' FFL and is doing extremely well with that, and we have a private tutor for French. I don't know if any free or low-cost language options.

[KrissiK]

We are 4 years into Lain with my oldest and just started Greek. It's going fine. I think kids learn languages much more easily than adults.

[SarahW]

We do both Dutch (heritage language) and Latin, and now also starting Greek. There's been no problem. I schedule them as different subjects, though I do try to "space" them through the week as best I can.

 

If the child is interested, multiple languages are totally doable. 

 

For Latin I started with SSL1, which is around $25 for a student book, which is all that's really needed.

[Wabi Sabi]

My son takes Japanese classes from a tutor. I decided to start Song School Latin with my younger daughter and planned on doing it with her while my son was at Japanese class each week, but he also took interest in it and now does it with her. SSL is definitely a bit young for him, but he still enjoys it and says it's one of his favorite subjects. If it was his only language I would look for something more rigorous than SSL for him, but since he also takes Japanese (which is significantly more challenging for him), I think that keeping Latin easy, fun, and on the lighter side is good for now. I view it more as a supplementary way for him to learn some word roots and increase his overall vocabulary rather than a full-on second foreign language. 

[Miss Tick]

We've done Spanish all along, and the two olders started Latin mid-third with GSWL. We did it mostly orally, finishing about a calendar year later. Now, mid-fourth we are starting Lively Latin, heading for Wheelock's in the future.

 

We do both languages every weekday. I try to spend about 20 minutes on each. For Spanish we use different approaches to the language each day. For Latin BBoLL1 has enough variety for daily use.

[happypamama]

We start Latin and another language in third grade or so, and for Latin we start with Getting Started With Latin, which is about $18 ($10 for the Kindle version) and takes just a couple of minutes a few times a week, all done orally.

[ALB]

We've done both Chinese and Latin all along and its been fine.  In our case there is less room for confusing the two, though, than with Latin and Spanish.  I would give it a try and see how it goes.  Kids are amazing language learners and can really surprise you.

[serendipitous journey]

Agreeing with all the above: no problem running 2 or more languages in elementary years.  We've done Spanish and Latin together with no trouble, and are hoping to add basic Greek and Chinese next year. 

 

We won't be doing all 4 to "fluency" though.  For Spanish esp. I just want a basic familiarity with the language, b/c the child strongly prefers Chinese.