Two languages: how much time?

[Noreen Claire]

DS10 has been using Little Latin Readers for the last two years (3rd & 4th), averaging 15 minutes/day, 4 days/week. We will continue with the last 3 books next year, and I expect we will spend closer to 20-30 minutes/day, 4 days/week as the books get harder. We will be adding Portuguese in the fall for 5th grade, using Bom Dia textbook and workbook with my SIL as our tutor (her parents are immigrants and she's fluent). 

The WTM (4th ed.) options for two languages are: [quickly] 1hr/day EACH, 3-4 days per week or [slowly] 1hr/day EACH, 2 days per week.

If you have done two languages (modern + Latin or whatever), how much time did you spend on it and do you think it was enough/not enough to learn them both? Did you do both each day, alternate, or something else? Any other advice for learning two languages at once?

[RootAnn]

With dd#1, she did Latin 30-45 minutes 4 days/week. I wove in Spanish using Getting Started with Spanish (and eventually, Duolingo) 15-30 minutes/day 3 days per week. I tried a light Latin year when I went heavier on the Spanish, but it didn't work. (Latin suffered & recovery was painful for both of us.) In 8th, I went with online teachers for both Latin & Spanish, so 30-45 minutes of each five days per week (plus some cramming on weekends for Spanish if there was a test coming up). Latin was not outsourced again, but she begged to drop it after 9th grade since it was so similar to Spanish and she was confusing them on tests.

She added German in 11th & Russian in 12th, so three languages this year. They have to be done daily, even if only 15 minutes of grammar or vocab drill. Another idea is 15 minutes of immersion (watching the news in that language, or a favorite cartoon, or whatever). You can alternate heavy/light with A/B weeks.
A week - 45 minutes of Language 1 + 15 min of Language 2 on M/W/F, 45 min of Language 2 + 15 min on Language 1 on T/Th.
B week - 45 minutes of Language 2 + 15 min of Language 1 on M/W/F, 45 min of Language 1 + 15 min on Language 2 on T/Th.

One thing I've learned is that you can't do it all. In order to fit in another language in a serious way, you are really giving up one 'slot' in your day. DD made decisions to not do certain things in order to fit in more language study. She would have added another language sooner (and possibly a 4th) had I let her drop my minimum requirements for high school. There are definitely trade-offs.

I recommend not picking a second foreign language from the same 'family' even though you gain a lot of time with similarities. It is too easy to confuse them. DD added German because it was enough different from Latin/Spanish. She wasn't ready for a different alphabet yet. If you ever decide to go crazy and add a third language, you can do whatever. DD decided she was ready for another alphabet and now she can 'read' the letters just as if they were English (even if she isn't quite sure how to pronounce them or what they mean). Some kids can really start to see patterns in how to learn a language -- and that is a great linguistic skill. Some kids then want to go into Linguistics as a major in college. Others just want to add more languages. Or both.

Good luck!

[Noreen Claire]

7 minutes ago, RootAnn said:

You can alternate heavy/light with A/B weeks.
A week - 45 minutes of Language 1 + 15 min of Language 2 on M/W/F, 45 min of Language 2 + 15 min on Language 1 on T/Th.
B week - 45 minutes of Language 2 + 15 min of Language 1 on M/W/F, 45 min of Language 1 + 15 min on Language 2 on T/Th.

This is brilliant! Thank you!