Foreign Languages

[HomeScholar]

My DS just told me he wants to learn several foreign languages; he wants to learn 4 languages at the same time.:001_huh:

 

If you've seen my prior posts you'll know he's a learning addict and is a bit advanced but 4 at once!?! :confused:

 

He has only done the smallest amount of Latin so far (very basic stuff). He wanted to see if he likes it and so far it's a hit. Then he decided Greek looks interesting. And since his father speaks German, he has to have that too. As if that wasn't enough, he wants to toss in French, since his grandmother likes it and gave him some French books. He mentioned Spanish as a future option but has no interest now.

 

Now I really try to support his goals but :eek:. I only know English, and I can't even make the rolled R sounds so how am I going to do this? :crying:

 

HELP! :willy_nilly:

[Embassy]

:lol: Good for him. Find programs with lots of step-by-step exercises as well as audio instruction. We are doing multiple languages and I'm am learning along with my kids. You don't have to know how to trill your /r/ sound. There are many great Youtube videos that can teach your child how to do it.

 

We are only doing 3 foreign languages right now, but will go back to 4 next school year for my oldest. It is time consuming as a teacher/facilitator so you have to make sure you want to do it too:) Maybe you can try a year of getting his feet wet in the different languages and see if he wants to continue them all or if he wants to focus on a couple of them.

 

My oldest has requested to learn Italian and Japanese and ancient Hittite, but it is not possible for me to add more right now. You know your limits and your child's limits.

Edited March 1, 2012 by Wehomeschool

[Ester Maria]

In some European circles, what you are describing is pretty much the standard that parents ensure their children will know (outsourcing if needed and if the school does not offer it all): classical languages plus two to three modern foreign languages. :D So, nope, it is definitely not unheard of.

 

However...

 

Doing it on your own without some sort of system to it exposes you to a danger of ending up a Jack of all trades and a master of none - you may end up having 'tasted' bits of various languages, but not truly learned either. Which is why you need to decide what are your priorities, how are you going to incorporate it into your life and you have to commit to it as a long term project for it to work.

 

It basically takes 2-4 years of concentrated effort to cover morphosyntax of a language. Past that, what you do is essentially literature. In addition to that, you would need some kind of a regular spoken practice to continue with, some media exposure, etc. The grammar stage is the worst to go through, once you have more or less covered it and can express yourself properly, things are a LOT easier.

 

If you want to do this "properly", I suggest taking the grammar route for formal studies, overseen / guided by somebody proficient in the language (i.e. get a tutor for everything you cannot teach on your own, at least for the stage of learning grammar), and then continuing on your own with literature.

 

It is possible, but you will have to allot a lot of time in your schedule for this.

[redsquirrel]

I also have a language crazy kid. Here is the deal I made with him: one new language at a time. That means he has to complete an entire 'intro' level class and show proficiency before we can add a new language. I learned this the hard way. We tried starting Latin and Greek at the same time, but it led to not much getting done in either. It was a case of lots of smoke but no fire.

 

I decided for him that he would stay with Latin. I told him if he wants to study Spanish/French/Italian it will be much easier. This year, after completing Lively Latin 1 over a couple years, we have added Spanish 1. Things are going fine, but we feel the extra subject.

 

He has started begging for Greek again, but I think I am going to hold off for a little bit. He needs to get much better at Spanish before we can add in a third language. Again, he needs that basic proficiency. I speak passable Spanish, and he needs to be able to have a basic conversation with me before I will let him add in more. I am expecting it will take through at least next year.

 

If he wants to add in Greek, I think I am going to outsource. He wants to study Homeric Greek, not Biblical Greek, and he needs to be older for those particular resources.

 

I think it is better to slow it down a bit and foster some success. If you start too much at once things will fall apart. It's like saying you want to run a marathon when you have never run around the block. Better to set small, attainable goals.

[Corraleno]

Now I really try to support his goals but :eek:. I only know English, and I can't even make the rolled R sounds so how am I going to do this? :crying:

I'm going to suggest a completely different approach, at least for now: let him just play around with languages, for fun. If he eventually decides to pursue advanced fluency in any of these languages, he'll need a more formal program of study — but that doesn't mean he needs to study all four languages with a teacher and a textbook at 11. Here are some things he can do on his own:

 

(1) Learn about linguistics. The Teaching Co linguistics course by John McWhorter is excellent — really interesting and engaging for anyone with an interest in languages, and a lot of the info has surprisingly practical applications. (The other day DS was listening to Michel Thomas explain something about Spanish pronunciation, and he immediately said "Oh, that's because the Spanish 'd' is a [...insert technical phonetic term I don't remember...] whereas the English 'd' is a [... some other technical term...].") It's helped with Greek, too, because endings often depend on whether the stems are labial, dental, velar, liquid, nasal, etc., and he understands exactly that those are. He also "gets" grammar on a much deeper level than he did when he was just studying English grammar.

 

(2) Invent his own language! The Language Construction Kit is a really fun introduction to linguistics, because it teaches linguistics principles in the process of explaining how to invent your own language. Books like The World's Writing Systems and Languages of the World are really fun to browse, and show just how incredibly wild and varied human languages can be.

 

(3) Check your library for self-teaching programs like Pimsleur, Michel Thomas, Living Language, Mango, or Rosetta Stone. No, none of those programs will get you much beyond a beginner level (although Michel Thomas includes a surprising amount of grammar, especially in the Advanced courses — NB: in the US the Foundation course is called Total and the Advanced course is called Perfect). They will, however, give him a head start on vocab, some basic conversational fluency, and a decent accent.

 

(4) Assimil is a highly regarded language program produced in France (in many different languages), which combines a reading and grammar approach and can be totally self-teaching. It's cheap, too — you can get Assimil's French with Ease (4 audio CDs and a 590-page book) for $32. Their German program is also supposed to be very good (in fact, the only Assimil program I've read negative reviews about is the Arabic one). Assuming your 11 year old is a strong reader, he should be able to do these on his own, at his own pace, on his own time.

 

(5) Get exposure to LOTS of different languages. For $99, OnlineG3 (scroll to the bottom of the page) offers a 1-year school subscription (subscriptions run July-July) to Rosetta Stone that gives you access to all 25 languages. In addition to picking up vocabulary in German and French, he could play around with Hindi, Turkish, Tagalog, Irish Gaelic, and lots of other languages!

 

(6) Watch videos in French and German — especially movies he's already seen in English, so he knows the story line. Get books like Harry Potter or The Little Prince in French and German, along with audiobooks in those languages, and let him read the English and French or German versions side by side, or listen to the French/German audiobook while following along in the English one.

 

My DS has also developed a serious interest in linguistics and languages, and asked to add more languages to the Attic Greek class he takes through Lukeion. Rather than doing these as separate "school subjects," I just assembled a big stack of resources for him and told him to have at it! I count his Lukeion course as "school," but he works on the other languages on his own time. He's also started watching DVDs with the Spanish language track instead of the English one, to help tune his ear and get used to the language spoken at a natural speed. At some point in the future, he will probably focus on each of those languages in more depth, with formal classes or textbooks, but instead of starting from scratch he'll already have a good chunk of vocabulary, a basic understanding of grammar, a good ear, and a decent accent.

 

Jackie

[HomeScholar]

He insists on learning all together, but is willing to start with elementary courses so he will have a slower but fun approach. He if does all 4 though high school, he should be solid on them and able to take other languages in college if he so desires.

 

He's an excellent reader, loves spelling and vocabulary and is quick at memorization work, so with dedication he should be able to do it. I just never expected him to find language learning all that interesting. He's always been more interested in Math, Science and History.

 

I'll check into the linguistics course and I'm heading to look at G3 next. I was never a fan of Rosetta Stone myself, but he used it in the past for German (we had free access for a few months) and learned a bit.

[Ester Maria]

I recommend against Rosetta Stone (though I agree with the rest of Jackie's post, although I would personally use some of those approaches to supplement an old fashioned language study, rather than to substitute it, even at this age). I would never spend $100 on that package. There are very few programs I actively recommend against, but RS is one of them, if you are paying for it. I am not stingy when it comes to education, but RS is a special case.

 

No matter how you choose to go about it, though, I would not introduce all of the additional languages at once, but space them out a little, even for an accomplished and interested child.

[Roadrunner]

 

No matter how you choose to go about it, though, I would not introduce all of the additional languages at once, but space them out a little, even for an accomplished and interested child.

 

Can you tell us how you spaced it out?

We started French this year with 5 and 6 year olds. We are first teaching reading and grammar.... We plan to basically teach two more modern languages (neither of them Latin based and both with different alphabets) and Latin. If you were going to space this out, how would you go about it? I suspect you have done this successfully. :tongue_smilie:

[elegantlion]

We're trying to put at least two years between language starts. We started Latin in 5th, and we started Japanese last year. Due to a bad year a lot of academics got set aside, so we restarted Japanese this year, 8th. He's also interested in German and Russian. He agreed not to add another language until after we finish our Latin studies, which will be another 1 1/2 to 2 years.

 

If he's still interested at that stage I'll have him pick Russian or German. I'll probably have him hold on the 4th until college, unless he pushes it.

 

My issue is that I have only so many hours in the day. He's not quite at the point of completely self-learning languages, and high school required subjects will require a lot of time.

 

He's also interested in invented languages and we've dabbled with writing out own (we're still creating the alphabet).

[HomeScholar]

We have told him he has to prioritize Latin and German first as his primary languages, but we will support his desire to learn the others.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions for Greek or French that include grammar? With everything else he has going, he doesn't have time for an online class or to meet with a tutor. He needs something he can do as he has spare time. An elementary program is acceptable to get him started as he will be learning over several years. He prefers video but not Rosetta Stone. He hopes to go to France in HS so wants to start now.

[Corraleno]

Fluenz would work for French; it's video-based and it's something he could do independently. From what I've read, on both the Fluenz forum and other language-learning forums, the full program (1-5) seems to be equivalent to 2 yrs of HS or 2 semesters of college. It does include explicit grammar instruction, although the vocab is more travel-oriented (taxis, restaurants, etc.) than a standard HS program would be. It's also kind of expensive, although it's somewhat cheaper on Amazon (lots of reviews there, too). There's also Auralog/TellMeMore, although I find that difficult to navigate, esp. for a beginner. And there's French in Action, but that's probably not as independent as Fluenz.

 

For Greek, I'd recommend Galore Park's Classical Greek for Beginners. No video, but it's a good, grammar-based introduction that he could do by himself. It's cheap, and there's an answer key available. Athenaze is a much more extensive (and intensive) program, but I think it would be really hard to do it on his own. There is a workbook and TM, though, if he wants to give it a try.

 

Jackie

[Sebastian (a lady)]

My DS just told me he wants to learn several foreign languages; he wants to learn 4 languages at the same time.:001_huh:

 

If you've seen my prior posts you'll know he's a learning addict and is a bit advanced but 4 at once!?! :confused:

 

He has only done the smallest amount of Latin so far (very basic stuff). He wanted to see if he likes it and so far it's a hit. Then he decided Greek looks interesting. And since his father speaks German, he has to have that too. As if that wasn't enough, he wants to toss in French, since his grandmother likes it and gave him some French books. He mentioned Spanish as a future option but has no interest now.

 

Now I really try to support his goals but :eek:. I only know English, and I can't even make the rolled R sounds so how am I going to do this? :crying:

 

HELP! :willy_nilly:

 

He might enjoy some of the problem sets for the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad.

 

My experience is that it is quite possible to learn multiple languages. But even in countries where this is common, I don't think they tend to start to modern languages the same year. Usually a Latin and English come first (English as a foreign language) and then more languages are added in.

 

Once you get past the hump that other languages are different than your own and that grammar matters, language learning does get easier. But there are still issues of vocabulary and accent to master. Sometimes you can end up with heavy interference from one language into another. (I used to have Russian right after German in college and my accent really suffered. Much better to schedule my weaker language first and much much better when I could get them scheduled for different ends of the day. Block scheduling with one language Tu Th and the other MWF would have been even better, but wasn't an option.)