EthiopianFood Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 If you are doing a second language, but especially if you are doing a third or more, how much time do you allocate for each language per day/week? I love the idea of dd eventually learning several languages (we'll see how that goes, obviously!), but I can't get past how much time I would imagine would need to be devoted to be able to build and maintain any level of fluency. It seems like you would need to do an hour a day to really know much of anything beyond some key words, but then it would be 2 hours a day for two languages, etc.? :001_huh: Do people actually do this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anabelneri Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 Last time I was looking at the data, I remember thinking that we needed to spend at least one full waking day or about 2 hours per day every day in the target language to achieve fluency. Since I don't speak the target language, it's been a pie-in-the-sky type of goal. These days my daughter gets one full hour a week in French plus 20-30 minutes other days. Definitely not enough for fluency. Last year we had a couple months where she had 2 2-hour classes and 1 1-hour class each week (plus our 20-30 min/day time) and the difference was noticeable. I haven't figured out how to recreate that experience, but I would sure like to. And next year she's planning on starting to study Japanese too. I have no idea how that is going to go, so my goal is "exposure" at this point. Good luck planning! I'm hoping others reply with more ideas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joannqn Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 I have my kids doing Rosetta Stone three times a week for half an hour. It's not what I would have chosen, but it's what we ended up with. DS wanted to learn Korean, which is harder to find curricula for, and Rosetta Stone had it. He's about 77% done with level 1 (out of 3). I'll probably try to get him in touch with a Korean church locally that I've heard about at some point. When he gets more confidence, he can also speak with his taekwondo master and his wife. DH also has Korean clients who'd like to meet him eventually. DD was going to learn Spanish with me. I took it in high school, did fairly well, and wanted to recover what I've forgotten. But DD saw what DS was doing and wanted to do that instead. She' nearly done with level 2 (out of 5). According to the progress reports, it only took her 20 seat hours to complete level 1 :huh:, which is supposedly equivalent to one year of high school Spanish. When she's done with all five levels, I'll probably have her continue by creating a Spanish lit and composition class and, hopefully, find some opportunities for her to speak it as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura Corin Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 We did about three hours per week per language. We studied Latin, Chinese (partly by immersion) and French. With French added in we started to get busy. Laura Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kate in Arabia Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 We are similar to Laura, however that is in "class work"; we spend roughly 0.5-1 hr each day on Arabic. We also have Arabic storybooks, Arabic cartoons on tv, Arabic computer games that we encourage them to play with in their free time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassy Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 DS10 does French three times a week, half an hour at a time. We do Latin twice a week, also for half an hour. DS7 and DS4 also do French, mostly twice a week for half an hour, although the plan had been for them to do it three times - I'm working on fitting it in more regularly. DS10 also sits in on their lessons, although their lessons are a bit basic for him - lots of songs, games and colouring :001_smile:. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElaineJ Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 We do about 5 hours a week in Latin and about 4 hours a week studying Chinese. It does definitely take a good chuck of school time. I think you just have to decide whether the end goal is worth it to you or not. I spent a lot of school hours studying French and have retained almost nothing, so I do think that part of the decision has to be whether or not you think they have a reasonable chance of reading or speaking it regularly in the future. Elaine Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donna Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 My dd just started doing Spanish and Gaelic with Rosetta Stone...my plan is to do that for a year or two so she gets some vocabulary under her belt then get her into a class or have her meet with native speakers so she can become more fluent and use the languages. (We have fairly local options for both languages.) She does about 20-30 min each language 4-5 days a week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EthiopianFood Posted November 2, 2011 Author Share Posted November 2, 2011 We do about 5 hours a week in Latin and about 4 hours a week studying Chinese. It does definitely take a good chuck of school time. I think you just have to decide whether the end goal is worth it to you or not. I spent a lot of school hours studying French and have retained almost nothing, so I do think that part of the decision has to be whether or not you think they have a reasonable chance of reading or speaking it regularly in the future. Sigh. I hear you! :glare: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodland Mist Academy Posted November 2, 2011 Share Posted November 2, 2011 We spend about 3-4 hours a week on Latin and 2-3 hours a week on Spanish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcconnellboys Posted November 2, 2011 Share Posted November 2, 2011 When my son was in elementary school (1-4), we really just played around with learning vocab and doing fun language related activities (Latin and Spanish). When he got into fifth grade, we started a more formal, written study of Latin and Spanish. The last two years, we even added in Greek, but there really just was NOT time in our day for three languages. In fifth through seventh grades, I alternated language study. One week, he would do 3 Latin and 2 Spanish lessons, the next week he would reverse. So after two weeks, he had completed a total of 5 lessons of each. We added the Greek into the Latin time period, but as I mentioned, an hour for both just wasn't enough time for that. Alternating the lessons of two languages makes both proceed a little more slowly, but I was okay with that. He will finish up a program that purports to cover through high school Latin II level next year. It will take him 5 years to do this. I will not put him into a formal high school level Spanish I program until next year, when he actually is a ninth grader. I will consider all his Spanish work up to that point to be preparation. If I find that he is flying through that program, however, then I will move him on to Spanish II. I already happen to own the Spanish I curriculum, which is why I will start with it to gauge where he is.... This year, because I simply do not have time in the day for him to do 2 hours of languages, he is doing 3 hours a week of Latin (M,W,F) and two hours a week of Spanish (outside class on Tuesdays with a native speaker, and the homework for that or other work at home on Thursdays). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
9763653 Posted November 2, 2011 Share Posted November 2, 2011 If you are doing a second language, but especially if you are doing a third or more, how much time do you allocate for each language per day/week? I love the idea of dd eventually learning several languages (we'll see how that goes, obviously!), but I can't get past how much time I would imagine would need to be devoted to be able to build and maintain any level of fluency. It seems like you would need to do an hour a day to really know much of anything beyond some key words, but then it would be 2 hours a day for two languages, etc.? :001_huh: Do people actually do this? We are a trilingual family, but added the third (English) very recently. Both kids already had a passive understanding of English from hearing me speak it with others, but could (did) not speak it. My personal experience is that learning a language by immersion is the easiest, especially at a young age but for adults too. While I do give instruction in grammar and spelling, and we read children's books, in the target language, most of the learning goes on organically. One day, I simply switched to English in everyday conversation for a large part of the day. Spending two hours a day is no chore if you simply speak the language while shopping, etc. Learning a language does not have to be part of the formal "school day". Pointing out the words for everyday items in the target language, and then asking the child to repeat, can be a good beginning. At the beginning of our venture to learn English, I was not sure whether DD would ever speak it. That was only around three months ago, and DD recently started speaking English! She still has a weird accent, but can converse pretty well. We build vocabulary by looking at books and talking about what the pictures are. Obviously, this method only works if the parent already speaks the target language. Having other native speakers or at least fluent speakers around helps a great deal as well. I am sure that we will approach Latin from a totally different angle :D. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Embassy Posted November 2, 2011 Share Posted November 2, 2011 We spend about 3.5 hours a week on 3 languages (1.5 on Arabic, 1.5 on Mandarin, and 0.5 hours on Koine Greek). We are going slow since my kids are still quite young. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaMa2005 Posted November 2, 2011 Share Posted November 2, 2011 We do Rosetta Stone for Mandarin and Spanish - each program is 45 minutes a day - every day. DS has just started Sing Song Latin so it is quick and painless :D . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FaithManor Posted November 2, 2011 Share Posted November 2, 2011 45 minutes per day in Latin. 1 hr. per day Icelandic (ds 13 is enthralled with the idea of learning to speak and read Icelandic and translate old Norse.) Ds 14 finds Latin very easy and tends to not spend more than 30 minutes per day and will get through Henle 1 and 2 this year. But, German slows him down a bit, though he likes it, and takes about 75 minutes per day. As a matter of fact, that is his longest subject except math. However, if I were doing multiple foreign languages with younger students, I probably wouldn't spend more than 20 minutes per day on each one so as not to overwhelm them....I'd keep it to nice, neat, bite-sized lessons. Faith Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FaithManor Posted November 2, 2011 Share Posted November 2, 2011 Oh, also, if the parent is fairly competent in the language, I'd recommend switching back and forth from English to the others. I know a foreign language teacher who has language sections in his house. The kitchen is for English. He feels this is necessary because of safety issues and his children's first language is English. The upstairs is French. The downstairs is subdivided between standardized Italian and Spanish. The lawn and the garage are German unless he's speaking again about a safety issue and then he and his wife switch to English. All seven of his children get along quite well in all of the above languages! Faith Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HejKatt Posted November 2, 2011 Share Posted November 2, 2011 Mandarin - 20 minutes/day for M-F, listening to audio CD of the curriculum and drilling flashcards. - 20 minutes twice/week doing read-alouds (I'd do more, but I work in the office twice/week). - I speak to them in Chinese whenever I can sneak it in. :tongue_smilie: Total = 2-2.5 hours/week Swedish - Rosetta Stone when I'm prepping dinner, that's about 30 minutes/day for about 2-3 days/week (he doesn't always want to, and it's the end of the day so he may play instead of doing RS). Total = 1-1.5 hours/week Sadly, but not surprisingly, Swedish is a distant third in our lineup. I really like FaitihManor's suggestion about language-areas in the house, it's a handy way to ensure practice time is evenly distributed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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