PhotoGal Posted February 5, 2012 Share Posted February 5, 2012 Hi all, I'm wondering if anyone here is teaching a third language (so one native language - English in our case - along with two foreign languages). I studied a second language (Spanish) in high school and then learned some of a third (Chinese) as an adult - and I often get confused. It is like the two languages are being held in the same place in my brain, kwim? So I can think of how to say part of what I want say in one language and another part in the other language. Just wondering if anyone has advice to help my kids not be as confused as I am. :D Right now they are fairly kid-conversational in one language (Chinese) and just starting another (Spanish). The languages are pretty different, so hopefully that will help them not get too confused. But maybe there is something I can do to help. I don't really talk to them in Chinese because my tones would be all off, so they mostly only hear/speak it at Chinese school. I'm hoping keeping each language in a different environment will help. Any advice? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riverland Posted February 5, 2012 Share Posted February 5, 2012 Sorry, no advice, just a similar story. My 12 yo dd's first language is English, which is the only language spoken at home (because I would butcher anything else!). She is learning Spanish and Chinese. She's been absorbing Spanish since a toddler, and now studies with a tutor at high school year 3 level. Her Chinese is probably also equivalent to high school year 3. Last year, she also had Latin, so there were a total of 4 languages bouncing around in her head. Last year, she had Spanish and Latin class back to back. This year she takes Spanish and Chinese classes back to back. She frequently does her homework assignments one after the other. She has never had a problem confusing the languages. This might be problematic for some kiddos, but in general, they are so much better at learning languages than adults or even teenagers. If your kids are having problems, then maybe alternate days: Spanish M-W-F, Chinese T-Th, then switch the next week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beaners Posted February 5, 2012 Share Posted February 5, 2012 I wouldn't dare call myself fluent, but I took Spanish all the way through middle school and high school. I also added French for the last two years of high school. I took Latin in college. I'd say all of those are fairly similar as languages go. Oddly enough, French is the only one I do much with today. I read news articles to myself and books to my children. Other than occasionally blanking on a word and coming up with it in another language, I didn't have a problem confusing words in the two languages. I tell myself that I would probably only be drawing a blank if I didn't have the other languages to fall back on. My problem was the accent I carried from Spanish into French. Madame used to tease me and tell me that I certainly didn't sound American, but I didn't sound French either. It improved over time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura Corin Posted February 5, 2012 Share Posted February 5, 2012 I found that the more I had to switch between languages, the easier it became. I learned French at school and university, and then Chinese as an adult. The Chinese seemed to replace the French, so if I tried to swap back, I would speak French with bits of Chinese thrown in. Then I began to teach French to the boys, whilst keeping their Chinese up. The more I went back and forth between languages, the less confused I was. I can now switch quite happily, as can the boys. That being said, I think it's good practice to get one language bedded in a bit (maybe for a year) before adding another. Laura Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted February 5, 2012 Share Posted February 5, 2012 When I took languages in school, the beginning time was spaced two years apart (and that is still the case back home); first language starts in 3rd grade, 2nd language in 5th (nowadays 6th ) grade. That way, the first language is already a bit solidified when the second one was introduced. I do not recall ever having confusion between Russian (1st) and English (2nd) language. It may be different if the languages would have been very similar (Latin and Italian, or French, for example). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rosie_0801 Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 . It is like the two languages are being held in the same place in my brain, kwim? That's because they are :) I found the same as Laura. The more practice I had, the easier it got. Rosie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhotoGal Posted February 8, 2012 Author Share Posted February 8, 2012 That is good to know that it will get better. Maybe the kids will have an easier time than I have had. Sometimes my brain comes up with a sentence that has a bit of Chinese and a bit of Spanish in it and it really doesn't make sense. And these are easy words like "you" that I mix up. The kids have had Chinese for 3 1/2 years, so they are more solid than I am. I know more Spanish but it is from high school (many years ago - let's not count exactly how many!). I hope it works out with them. I am already noticing that ds can pick up accents well and can roll his 'r's for Spanish. Hopefully we can keep it going. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ester Maria Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 The less you make it an issue, the less of an issue it will be. :) Studying multiple foreign languages at the same time is more of a rule than an exception in most of the world. Kids are fine. Occasional awkward situations occur with having troubles to recall the right word or such, but no big problems for most kids. Continue to do what you are doing for each language according to your plan, they will be fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joan in GE Posted February 15, 2012 Share Posted February 15, 2012 Could I just give an anecdote? One friend here who is trilingual with no problem, has a sister who has a lot of problems with it...(I think they are English, French, and Greek or something like that). They grew up with family language opportunities, but the sister, as an adult, according to my friend, can't speak any of the three perfectly. So it seems there are some children who just can't do it, for whatever reason... Joan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tokyomarie Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 Could I just give an anecdote? One friend here who is trilingual with no problem, has a sister who has a lot of problems with it...(I think they are English, French, and Greek or something like that). They grew up with family language opportunities, but the sister, as an adult, according to my friend, can't speak any of the three perfectly. So it seems there are some children who just can't do it, for whatever reason... Joan There is a good chance that the sister has auditory processing difficulties, is dyslexic, or both. My oldest, who is not dyslexic, has zero difficulties with language learning. She was a very balanced bilingual as a child and added language study in two other languages at age 15 with zero difficulty. My middle child was initially evaluated for learning disabilities when she was 9.5yo because, despite appearing bright enough overall and having the same language opportunities as her sister, she was having difficulties with both receptive and expressive language. Her testing showed that she was a very balanced bilingual, but her verbal scores were 30+ points below her non-verbal IQ scores. She has auditory processing disorder and is likely dyslexic. Targeted language therapy and a stronger afterschooling curriculum in English than was necessary for her sister helped her to get on better footing with her language development & by high school graduation her verbal scores on ACT/SAT testing were very high. She homeschooled in English from gr. 6-12; we allowed her Japanese language to grow weaker because we knew she needed good English skills to function in an American university. My son is dyslexic and was severely speech delayed as a toddler. Despite living in Japan for his first 5.5yrs, he never picked up more than a handful of Japanese words. He is very bright but, even now, has difficulty learning Japanese, the language he heard daily for those first 5 years of his life. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joan in GE Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 There is a good chance that the sister has auditory processing difficulties, is dyslexic, or both. That makes sense. Your examples do make me wonder about one of my children, who was evaluated here, but I'm not sure if it was really a good evaluation. The pediatrician thought it was just because he was homeschooled. Then the 'logopedist' seemed to just evaluate for whether he had a serious learning disability that affected his studies and said he just needed a theater type class. What is the name of the type of specialist that evaluates for auditory processing difficulties? Thanks, Joan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EllaMinnowPea Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 That's because they are :) I found the same as Laura. The more practice I had, the easier it got. Rosie Me too. I grew up with English and French and later added Spanish, German, and Russian. Just keep working at it and it will get better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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