Latin or Root Words - Will it harm French?

[Lieutenant Stranger]

My children take French lessons from a native speaker. They've been off for a few months, but are about to start back up. There is some paper work involved, but most of it is speaking.

 

I'm looking at having the kids start studying either Latin or root words. Does anyone know if learning one of the two would confuse them while learning French, or would it actually be a help?

 

Thank you!

[MiMi 4under3]

IMO, it helps.

 

Oldest DD is studying French and Latin, plus Greek and Latin roots.  

She frequently remarks how similar certain words or roots are - or that she remembers a french vocab word because of a root she studied earlier.

[Lieutenant Stranger]

Oh, good! I've noticed similarities between Spanish and French, and I was wondering if Latin might help. 

[attaboygirl]

We're doing both Latin and French, having added Latin in February after 1.5 years of French, and my dd is actually getting better at French since adding Latin. In short, I agree with MiMi - Latin reinforces French. 

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

It can only help.  French is a Latin based language, all the roots will carry over to French words as well.  If you do a root study, you can do like I'm planning, where you pick derivative words from both languages to illustrate the root. 

 

Ex:  RE means again, so an English example would be redo (do again), a French example could be "revoir," to see again.

 

 

[sagira]

I agree with the others. Ds is going to go over Latin and Greek roots next year in 6th while studying Spanish and beginning Latin.