Classical Languages

[lulalu]

I would love to hear how/why/what you all do with classical languages in your homeschool. Reading what others do helps me think through my ideas. 

I want to start a classical language as a way to work on grammar, and translation (thinking, logic skills). DS is 8 and will be in 3rd next year. I think this will be a good time to have a gentle start. I would like to be done by 8th grade and then have high school be optional. I think this will be a great way to talk through and study grammar in relation to English. And a great way to train the brain doing translations, reading, and writing. My goals are not speaking or listening skills. 

We already have a living language we have learned (but are always learning more). However, we approach languages with immersion. My goal in living languages, at least our currently, is hearing, understanding, speaking, and naturally aquiring the thoughts in the grammar. We don't focus on translations at all, and I don't explain grammar in relation to English. Usually when ds needs more work on understanding a part of the language we explain in the language using what he already knows to build further knowledge. We also hire native speakers as tutors and give him several hour a time several days a week. 

DS is interested in Greek and Hebrew so he can read the Bible. But being that he is only 8, I know his thoughts could change. And I really do know how long it takes to be able to read the Bible in Koine Greek! I think I would be fine doing Greek and not Latin. The alphabet doesn't scare us, we really could handle that. But does Greek offer the same benefits as Latin? I know most study Latin, but who has done Greek? Is it worth the work at the elementary ages? 

What Greek programs are the best for working on grammar, translations, writing, and so forth? How long each week do you spend? 

Or is Latin really the best route? It also gives a lot of vocabulary for English. But could an indepth study of roots be enough for that? 

I would also like to add a Romance language in late middle school through high school, so again maybe Latin is best now. But I also want to follow what ds wants. Interest and desire is half the battle right? 

Anyone work on a classical langauge and immersion in a living language at the same time? Any issues? Advice? 

 

Anyways, I am stuck in bed. I would love to hear others experiences and thoughts. Keep my mind on something other than this awful virus please! 

[8filltheheart]

I personally think that Latin at 8 is a waste of time.  Lots of people disagree with me, but that is my experience.  11 (5th or 6th grade-ish) is on the early end of where I prefer to start.  My 4th grader wanted to do Latin this yr and I told her no.  I will let her start next yr.  She is similar to her older language loving sister and is advanced. (She is functioning on about a 6th grade level.)  Their siblings waited until 7th.  

Starting out Latin "slowly" in my experience just means dragging out what can be mastered quickly when they are older (and dragging it out makes them start to dread it.)  My kids have mastered Wheelock's level Latin in 3 yrs.

I'm sure all the advocates of starting young will give you glowing reports on why you should start early! 🙂 

Edited April 14, 2020 by 8FillTheHeart

[LostintheCosmos]

My goals are different from yours (I want our language study to improve our use of language and enable us to read classical literature, and am less interested in the "brain-training" or logic side of things, which I even think is actually a little bogus), so take this with that in mind, but here's a bit about what we do.

We study both Latin and Greek - all my kids get some exposure to Latin from birth because we use it in liturgy and family prayers. We do a lot of our studies family-style, so the littler kids get some exposure to grammar in the primary years, but I haven't found that they are really ready for the abstraction that formal grammar study involves until about age 10. I am not there yet, but my highly aspirational goal is for all our language arts (grammar, composition, etc) to be fully integrated across all three languages. Part of what I'm hoping to achieve there is a deeper sense of the actual meaning and function of different grammatical structures - my own grammar-translation style education in Latin resulted in the idea that there is an equality between certain Latin structures and certain English phrases: eg, you always and automatically translate the future less vivid "should/would" or "ne + subjective" as "lest" even though no one says either in English much these days - this is not the skilled and sensitive use of language I am going for. I'm using a lot of Montessori-style language works across all three languages to help with this, because that approach helps us focus on the function of grammatical structures rather than merely their identification, classification, and conversion into some allegedly equivalent English. 

I took an immersion Koine Greek course last summer, and that experience sold me on the value of that approach for classical languages. It's not really possible to duplicate at home, of course, but even if your goals do not include being able to speak the language, I think there is a good argument for including an aural/oral component to your studies: you can just get a lot more exposure to and practice with the language in the same amount of time. There is an interesting presentation by the former president of SALVI here that talks about the valuable bits of both a grammar-translation and an active approach to Latin. Accentuation (important for vocabulary, not just pronunciation) is also much, much easier to get the hang of when you hear the language used. There are many Latin audio resources out there now, and a slowly growing number of Greek ones, too. 

For Greek, we use the Italian edition of Athenaze, the textbook and audio from the course I took last summer, and some vintage materials. I've never looked at MP's Greek stuff, but would imagine they are good for a traditional grammar-translation approach. For Latin, we use LLPSI with various supplements, including lots of extra reading material. 

Edited April 14, 2020 by LostCove

[Slache]

Latin has more resources. I chose Greek so my children could read the Bible as it was written. We started in first because I wanted to begin New Testament vocabulary acquisition young. This was my goal:

1st: Hey Andrew 1 & Greek Alphabet Code Cracker
2nd: Elementary Greek 1
3rd:  Elementary Greek 2
4th:  Elementary Greek 3, GSWL
5th: Greek 101 (TGC), KGWL
6th: Athenaze I, Oxford Latin I
7th: Athenaze I/II, Oxford Latin II
8th: Athenaze II, Oxford Latin III

He began disliking Greek and I was not okay with that so we switched back to Hey Andrew. Hey Andrew and EG are Koine whereas Athenaze is ancient. Here is where we are now and my new goal:

1st: Hey Andrew 1 & Greek Alphabet Code Cracker
2nd: Elementary Greek 1
3rd:  Hey Andrew 3/4 (we are here)
4th:  Hey Andrew 4/5, GSWL
5th: Greek TBD, KGWL
6th: Athenaze I, Oxford Latin I
7th: Athenaze I/II, Oxford Latin II
8th: Athenaze II, Oxford Latin III

All of my children speak Spanish and one is studying Japanese. I plan to use Old Western Culture to cover Greek and Latin Texts in high school. Check out Dobson's (not that Dobson, the other one) Greek and Hebrew texts.

Edited April 14, 2020 by Slache

[Lori D.]

I have heard the following about learning foreign languages:
- for fluency (conversation) in modern languages --> immersion is most effective
- for formal learning (read/write/grammar/speak) of any language --> the brain is most "plastic" -- receptive AND best remembers long-term -- when exposed at ages 11-14

Not that I have much foreign language background but I note that, amazingly:
- the Latin and Greek root word study we did in the mid/later elementary grades helped both DSs a lot with vocabulary later on
- the Spanish I learned in middle/high school, coupled with the 1 year of French from college, with NO upkeep since, still enables me to decipher WRITTEN sentences/phrases in Spanish, French and Italian (a language I have no exposure to) a good 50-65% of the time -- and enough that I can pick out words and get about 25% of Latin phrases (a language I never studied) 

My main contribution will be to say that: it really depends on what your goal or purpose is AND your student's interest/ability, as to which foreign language to study. 

My goal originally was for us to do Latin (because, hey, it was in WTM, lol). But we had such huge struggles just with English LA topics with DS#2 with mild LDs, that I had to chuck that idea fairly early on in order to focus on English LA. I settled for spending several years of us working on Latin & Greek roots (we used English from the Roots Up v. 1 & v. 2) to aid with vocabulary, and that was good. Not my original goal, but by being flexible, we were able to shift to a new goal, and be successful.

I also discovered early on that DSs were NOT interested in learning other languages (along with the fact that they really did not like to do *anything* that was "school"-related, lol). At a certain point, I realized I just could not flog that foreign language horse up the hill, and that it was more important to me that we get foundational English LA and Math skills nailed. So I waited until high school, and in their senior years, each DS did 2 semesters of dual-enrolled foreign language -- DS#1 = Spanish; DS#2 = ASL. And I checked off the foreign language requirement box, and I shed a tear for not being able to do foreign languages throughout homeschooling the way I thought we would. But my now-adult DSs are smart, and if they really want to learn a language, then they know how to self-learn from homeschooling.

"Flex and bend," and, "you can't control other people" -- probably 2 of the bigger life lessons I learned while homeschooling. 😉 

Hopefully you will get more useful feedback from other posters about which classical language and why and when and what to use. 😉  BEST of luck! Warmly, Lori D.

[Hadley]

I have nothing erudite to add.  All of the previous posters impress the heck out of me!

I am decently able to read in Spanish, and have worked through four years of Latin (or rather pulled him through) with my son.

I recently decided to dabble in Koine Greek.   I ended up in a shivering ball under my desk.  Really.  It wasn’t pretty.

I recommend starting with Latin.  I also agree that the time I spent in teaching Latin vocabulary and grammar chants to my elementary students really didn’t have much return...

[Slache]

3 minutes ago, Hadley said:

 I ended up in a shivering ball under my desk.  Really.  It wasn’t pretty.

I totally blame the alphabet. I always tell people to spend a long time (for us a year) on the Greek (/Asian/Hebrew/etc.) alphabet. Until it is second nature every exercise is exhausting.

We used copywork and games to reinforce the alphabet, diphthongs, breathing marks, and punctuation until I couldn't handle it anymore. But they were in 1st grade and thought themselves very impressive so they thrived on the practice.

[Sarah0000]

I started Song School Latin with my oldest at six. He was interested in the concept of building words and the relationship between Latin and English/Spanish words after reading Building Language by MCT. If it wasn't for the incremental, direct, grammatical way SSL approaches language we would not have bothered.

He's 8yo now and doing SSL2 at about quarter pace now because we added Spanish grammar/translation. Since we're also doing a lot of immersion style stuff for Spanish, it has been helpful to break the grammar down in Latin instead of Spanish or English since one new thing is introduced at a time. For a kid who enjoys a minute breakdown of how things work, I absolutely see the benefit of a grammatical approach to foreign language in the early ages. Regarding Latin specifically, I plan to have him finish SSL2 leisurely then just let him have Minimus for a couple years until we figure out what our goals are in that area. 

So far, my kids all start sounding/spelling/writing at 2.5, reading chapter books at 3.5, etc. Other than the early reading, I don't believe they are particularly advanced in language (middle might be, too young to tell), but that could be influencing our experience.

[lulalu]

16 hours ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

I personally think that Latin at 8 is a waste of time.  Lots of people disagree with me, but that is my experience.  11 (5th or 6th grade-ish) is on the early end of where I prefer to start.  My 4th grader wanted to do Latin this yr and I told her no.  I will let her start next yr.  She is similar to her older language loving sister and is advanced. (She is functioning on about a 6th grade level.)  Their siblings waited until 7th.  

Starting out Latin "slowly" in my experience just means dragging out what can be mastered quickly when they are older (and dragging it out makes them start to dread it.)  My kids have mastered Wheelock's level Latin in 3 yrs.

I'm sure all the advocates of starting young will give you glowing reports on why you should start early! 🙂 

Do you use Latin as your main grammar instruction? 

Or do your kids have a good grasp of grammar before starting? 

 

I am trying to think through the value of using classical languages as the main method of grammar, or getting solid on grammar before starting. 

[lulalu]

14 hours ago, LostCove said:

My goals are different from yours (I want our language study to improve our use of language and enable us to read classical literature, and am less interested in the "brain-training" or logic side of things, which I even think is actually a little bogus), so take this with that in mind, but here's a bit about what we do.

 

I took an immersion Koine Greek course last summer, and that experience sold me on the value of that approach for classical languages. It's not really possible to duplicate at home, of course, but even if your goals do not include being able to speak the language, I think there is a good argument for including an aural/oral component to your studies: you can just get a lot more exposure to and practice with the language in the same amount of time. There is an interesting presentation by the former president of SALVI here that talks about the valuable bits of both a grammar-translation and an active approach to Latin. Accentuation (important for vocabulary, not just pronunciation) is also much, much easier to get the hang of when you hear the language used. There are many Latin audio resources out there now, and a slowly growing number of Greek ones, too. 

 

Yes, I want our English usage to be improved by studying a classical language. We live in Asia, and are not learning any Latin based languages as our living language currently. So my goals with a classical language are to work on our English and thinking. Grammar, vocabulary, translation all for the benefit of our English, writing, grammar. 

 

From your experiences what would you say are the differences you see in your children using montessori language arts with classical languages vs. your grammar-translation background? 

 

I do think every language learned needs to include an oral/aural part.  But my goals are different than a living language. With a living language it is important to me to understand all kinds of speakers (fast talkers, slang, mubbles). My goals may be very different just because we live overseas. But listening and understanding are big goals that include much more time than reading and writing. And being able to speak the sounds well so other understand, internalize the grammar and think in the language. Thinking really is a sign that all the other things have meshed. I was so excited the first time ds said he had dreamed in his 2nd language! But I don't think dreaming or thinking in a classical language is needed. 

[lulalu]

6 hours ago, Slache said:

I totally blame the alphabet. I always tell people to spend a long time (for us a year) on the Greek (/Asian/Hebrew/etc.) alphabet. Until it is second nature every exercise is exhausting.

We used copywork and games to reinforce the alphabet, diphthongs, breathing marks, and punctuation until I couldn't handle it anymore. But they were in 1st grade and thought themselves very impressive so they thrived on the practice.

DH and I have a few non Latin based alphabets under our belts. DS has one right now. 

For us, I don't think it will be a stopping point. At least it is read left to right! Arabic was so hard on my brain! 

But I do know stopping and taking time to work through the alphabet is needed. If we go through Greek we probably will spend 3rd learning the alphabet for half the year. Unless more time is needed. 

[8filltheheart]

4 hours ago, lulalu said:

Do you use Latin as your main grammar instruction? 

Or do your kids have a good grasp of grammar before starting? 

 

I am trying to think through the value of using classical languages as the main method of grammar, or getting solid on grammar before starting. 

I teach my children grammar through analyzying copywork with them.  I progress through concepts at their ability to master them.  (If you want to see an example of how I teach grammar, I posted about it here:

For example, my current 4th grader has mastered the basic parts of speech, prepositional phrases, subordinating conjunctions, etc.

In order to progress beyond simple Latin, students need to be able to master complex grammar concepts.  It is why starting when they are young leads to dragging Latin out vs easily progressing.  The grammar becomes more complex than English grammar.  By waiting a few yrs, students don't have to stall but can progress at a pace that maintains interest bc they can start reading Latin poetry and prose.  

FWIW, the only grammar we have encountered that is as complex as Latin is Russian.  

[lulalu]

Thanks 8! 

[LostintheCosmos]

On 4/15/2020 at 3:23 AM, lulalu said:

Yes, I want our English usage to be improved by studying a classical language. We live in Asia, and are not learning any Latin based languages as our living language currently. So my goals with a classical language are to work on our English and thinking. Grammar, vocabulary, translation all for the benefit of our English, writing, grammar. 

 

From your experiences what would you say are the differences you see in your children using montessori language arts with classical languages vs. your grammar-translation background? 

 

I do think every language learned needs to include an oral/aural part.  But my goals are different than a living language. With a living language it is important to me to understand all kinds of speakers (fast talkers, slang, mubbles). My goals may be very different just because we live overseas. But listening and understanding are big goals that include much more time than reading and writing. And being able to speak the sounds well so other understand, internalize the grammar and think in the language. Thinking really is a sign that all the other things have meshed. I was so excited the first time ds said he had dreamed in his 2nd language! But I don't think dreaming or thinking in a classical language is needed. 

 

Well, I'd love to tell you that my approach is yielding brilliant, linguistically-gifted students, but honesty compels me to report that my experimental subjects are still too young to yield definitive results. 🙂 What I will say is that I think it's interesting that there is, relatively speaking, a lot of discussion around how to teach math (conceptual vs. procedural, the student's movement from concrete experiences to abstract representation, etc), but very little conversation like that around language arts, particularly grammar. I see the concrete work with the Montessori materials as somewhat parallel to having your students use base-ten blocks to add multiple digit numbers before teaching them an algorithm. 

[lulalu]

Yes! I think there needs to be lots more talk about the hows and whys of teaching in the area of language arts. 

I really think with classical language learning there is simply this idea that it is essential to a classical education without really diving into the how. The why gets talked about often, but usually only for Latin. Hard to find stuff for Greek. 

[8filltheheart]

18 minutes ago, lulalu said:

Yes! I think there needs to be lots more talk about the hows and whys of teaching in the area of language arts. 

I really think with classical language learning there is simply this idea that it is essential to a classical education without really diving into the how. The why gets talked about often, but usually only for Latin. Hard to find stuff for Greek. 

LOL!  This really made me laugh.  You are probably just a decade too late in joining the forums! Discussions about whether or not classical languages are essential to a classical education (which actually goes back to discussions defining what a classical education even entails) and how to teach Latin were fairly common. Greek, though, has never been a common discussion.

[lulalu]

9 hours ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

LOL!  This really made me laugh.  You are probably just a decade too late in joining the forums! Discussions about whether or not classical languages are essential to a classical education (which actually goes back to discussions defining what a classical education even entails) and how to teach Latin were fairly common. Greek, though, has never been a common discussion.

Yes, I have looked a lot of these old posts up before. 

There just doesn't seem to be as much talking through ideas on the forum anymore. I became a mom later in life. And so I identify so much more with moms my age, and not so much with those with young children starting out homeschooling. I know there are many out there that want to talk ideas, but maybe we now just have too many places to talk (FB)? Or maybe there is just too many blogs, books, and info to sort through? 

[8filltheheart]

If you ask question about how vs. "what should I use" or "what is the easiest to use" (questions which are not really discussion worthy), you will get lots of interesting discussion.  You might want to consider your thread title wording in order to get more people to read the thread.  I don't click on most threads simply b/c I assume the conversation is superficial just like the question being asked.  I only click on them when I am bored and wasting time.  😉

Note this is not a commentary on your thread title for this thread.  Classical languages was enough to pique my interest enough to click on it.  🙂 But, if you want a discussion about varying methodologies in teaching Latin or Greek, you might want to start a thread with that in the title.  I suspect your responses would be far greater and more interesting bc there would likely be a discussion on the pros and cons of various approaches.   

Same with approaches to teaching English grammar, writing, etc as well.

[cintinative]

My BTDT experience is that by doing many years of Latin (two years of Song School, two years Latin for Children, and two years Latin Alive for my oldest) is that we ran into burnout.

Song School was really fun. And I had this idea that doing the primer level Latin would make high school Latin easy. That just wasn't the case. I was told that after doing Latin for Children Primers A through C that my youngest could skip Latin Alive 1. I decided to put him in Latin Alive 1 anyway and hope it would be a breeze for him. It was not.  He still struggled with the pacing of Latin Alive.

The positives are there of course--it really reinforced our grammar studies and helped with vocabulary, etc. And ultimately I do think that studying Latin was a worthwhile enterprise. But if I had it to do over I would have condensed our study to three years or something like that, and probably used a different curriculum. 

The tough thing is this is very YMMV because you might have a kid who loves it and pursues it with vigor. Niether of my kids developed a love for Latin.

My oldest did do well on the National Latin Exam (he got a perfect score this year) but he hates Latin. It's pretty ironic.  

I would never discourage someone from studying an ancient language especially if their child has interest, but I would possibly discourage people from too many years of primer level/elementary level Latin.

Edited April 18, 2020 by cintinative

[lulalu]

13 hours ago, cintinative said:

 

I would never discourage someone from studying an ancient language especially if their child has interest, but I would possibly discourage people from too many years of primer level/elementary level Latin.

Yes, my hesitation is that 8 year olds don't always know what they really want. DS does sometimes gives up if it gets tough in anything. And I don't want to add too much work at too young an age. Being we already have a 2nd language we are doing school in, it might be too much for 3rd. 

[cintinative]

11 minutes ago, lulalu said:

Yes, my hesitation is that 8 year olds don't always know what they really want. DS does sometimes gives up if it gets tough in anything. And I don't want to add too much work at too young an age. Being we already have a 2nd language we are doing school in, it might be too much for 3rd. 

 

I can tell you that the author of Latin Alive recommends that you not start a Latin Primer until 3rd grade at the earliest. Part of that has to do with the English grammar. You start into the first primer with the assumption that the child has understood or is learning how to identify the subject, the verb, the direct object, etc.  There are people who will say that you don't need English grammar if you study Latin--that is another thread.  For us, though, it was necessary to have grammar before and during Latin studies.  That might have something to do with how CAP approaches it versus Memoria Press, Oxford, etc.  

I don't have experience even doing two languages, let alone three, so I will leave that for another person to comment on.  If I were in your shoes though, I would only add another language if they showed a real interest. Since your son is interested in Greek, I would pursue that slowly.  As a Christian, I can see many long term benefits of studying Greek.  

[Violet Crown]

On 4/14/2020 at 12:34 PM, LostCove said:

For Greek, we use the Italian edition of Athenaze, the textbook and audio from the course I took last summer, and some vintage materials. I've never looked at MP's Greek stuff, but would imagine they are good for a traditional grammar-translation approach. For Latin, we use LLPSI with various supplements, including lots of extra reading material. 

I'd love to hear what vintage materials you've found useful for Greek. Middle Girl started with Hey, Andrew! guided by dh's two years of college Greek, moved on to Athenaze, got bogged down, we hired a tutor (starving grad student), and eventually she took an intensive 3-years-in-one-summer course that completely brainwashed her into desperately wanting to be a classics major (it helped that the first half of the course was basically review for her).

Wee Girl is finishing up Hey, Andrew! and has really liked it; her Latin is pretty good so the inflections haven't been an issue for her. But Athenaze wasn't great in Middle Girl's opinion, and Wee Girl is too young for a tutor (middle school). Really what we want is something like Artes Latinae (structural linguistic approach), but for Greek. But we'll take anything at all that could at least be an occasional alternative to Athenaze and the adventures of Dicaeopolis.

ETA: How is the Italian edition different from the American (which is what I presume we have)?

Edited April 18, 2020 by Violet Crown

[8filltheheart]

46 minutes ago, lulalu said:

Yes, my hesitation is that 8 year olds don't always know what they really want. DS does sometimes gives up if it gets tough in anything. And I don't want to add too much work at too young an age. Being we already have a 2nd language we are doing school in, it might be too much for 3rd. 

3 of my older kids have studied 2 languages, 1 3. My experience is that it really takes strong internal interest to maintain it long-term.  My 3 that studied 2....1 dropped all languages, 2 dropped 1 (one dropped French and continued with Latin even in college, one dropped Latin after Latin 3 in 10th and continued with German and plans on pursuing a German minor.) My dd who studied French, Russian, and Latin (loves, loves languages) dropped Latin after 10th grade after 6 yrs (4 high school crs starting in 7th) bc she couldn't manage all 3 on top of all her other courses. She is a college jr majoring in Russian and French. She has forgotten a lot of Latin. If I ask her a basic question, she might or might not know the answer without looking it up. 

She says maintaining a language takes a lot of effort. French she can go a couple of semesters without taking a class and be ok. Russian, otoh, if she even misses 1 semester she loses a lot.

Edited April 18, 2020 by 8FillTheHeart

[lulalu]

3 minutes ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

3 of my older kids have studied 2 languages, 1 3. My experience is that it really takes strong internal interest to maintain it long-term.  My 3 that studied 2....1 dropped all languages, 2 dropped 1 (one dropped French and continued with Latin even in college, one dropped Latin and continued with German and plans on pursuing a German minor.) My dd who studied French, Russian, and Latin (loves, loves languages) dropped Latin after 6 yrs (4 high school crs...all NLE golds) bc she couldn't manage all 3 on top of all her other courses. She is a college jr majoring in Russian and French. She has forgotten a lot of Latin. If I ask her a basic question, she might or might not know the answer without looking it up. 

She says maintaining a language takes a lot of effort. French she can go a couple of semesters without taking a class and be ok. Russian, otoh, if she even misses 1 semester she loses a lot.

DS's 2nd language is the local language where we live. So it is not an option to drop it in our family. It is important to dh and me that he grow and remain fluent for as long as we live here, even though we have a healthy amount of English speakers we regularly see. But if we move from here remaining fluent isn't a high priority. The benefits to his growing brain are enough to us without needing to remain fluent. 

DS doesn't remember any of the language where we lived until he was 4. Like nothing. But we didn't work hard with him at that point. I didn't want him in daycare. 

And language learning does take time. I think ds is looking at Greek (we have studied Ancient Greece this year) as a way to have a language other children don't. As most kids around the world learn English he doesn't have a *secret* language like some of his other friends living here. As well as I think he wants one that doesn't have the same pressure that a living language has. DH is always talking root words and ds just eats that up. But he also has loved learning about Greece. 

But he also is a perfectionist...... 

So I really am stuck on just working on word roots, or going full on learning. Word roots would be much easier I think. But full on language learning gives a venue for grammar too. 

[8filltheheart]

Our ds was 10 when we moved back stateside. He was 100% fluent in Brazilian Portuguese. Locals had no idea he was American. He would sleepwalk in Portuguese so we know he was dreaming in Portuguese. He completely lost it. Other than the accent, which he transferred easily to high school Spanish, it essentially fell out of his head. The younger kids? Saw zero benefit of ever knowing it.

Edited April 18, 2020 by 8FillTheHeart

[Zoo Keeper]

1 hour ago, lulalu said:

Yes, my hesitation is that 8 year olds don't always know what they really want. DS does sometimes gives up if it gets tough in anything. And I don't want to add too much work at too young an age. Being we already have a 2nd language we are doing school in, it might be too much for 3rd. 

 

15 hours ago, cintinative said:

My BTDT experience is that by doing many years of Latin (two years of Song School, two years Latin for Children, and two years Latin Alive for my oldest) is that we ran into burnout.

Song School was really fun. And I had this idea that doing the primer level Latin would make high school Latin easy. That just wasn't the case. I was told that after doing Latin for Children Primers A through C that my youngest could skip Latin Alive 1. I decided to put him in Latin Alive 1 anyway and hope it would be a breeze for him. It was not.  He still struggled with the pacing of Latin Alive.

The positives are there of course--it really reinforced our grammar studies and helped with vocabulary, etc. And ultimately I do think that studying Latin was a worthwhile enterprise. But if I had it to do over I would have condensed our study to three years or something like that, and probably used a different curriculum. 

The tough thing is this is very YMMV because you might have a kid who loves it and pursues it with vigor. Niether of my kids developed a love for Latin.

My oldest did do well on the National Latin Exam (he got a perfect score this year) but he hates Latin. It's pretty ironic.  

I would never discourage someone from studying an ancient language especially if their child has interest, but I would possibly discourage people from too many years of primer level/elementary level Latin.

I had to quote Cin ^ because my experience mirrors this as well.  Around 11 years ago, I had a little boy who thought it would be cool to lean the language that Julius Caesar spoke. 🙂  Sent happy little flutters through my homeschool mother's heart. So we found Song School Latin and he loved it.  Really truly loved it.  His younger brother tagged along just because he could.  Progressed to Latin for Children A the next year.  He still loved it, and younger brother tagged along. We also added in Minimus for fun, because I just couldn't help myself.  *I* like languages.  We took the scenic route through LfC A and LfC B, adding in other vintage Latin (Latin Book One, by Scott and Horn) because we could.  We also started Greek very slowly (using Code Cracker and then Elementary Greek).  Language lover son still enjoyed it all very much. Younger one tagged along-- he didn't love it, but he didn't seem to hate it, he just did it.

Then algebra happened, and my language lover had absolutely no brain power left for 3 languages (English, with advanced grammar, writing, spelling, AND Latin, AND Greek) AND learning the abstract language of math.  We cut back his languages to just Latin (one program, Henle) for two years, and then he did two years of Greek to finish out high school. He still likes languages.  It has been a good path for him, and I don't regret all those years of wandering around Latin and Greek when he was younger, but in our case, many years of language study *did not* equal greater end result.  Learning Latin did make learning Greek easier, because he already knew how an inflected language worked.  The discipline of learning vocab, learning how to translate (great exercise in logic!) was very good.  But he never made it to AP Virgil, like I was hoping when he was 7.   😉 

And the younger son, who neither loved it nor hated it?  He *begged* to stop Latin by 8th grade.  Totally burned out.  He did two years of Spanish in high school and he was done, done, done, with any foreign language.  He did at least have the grace to say that Latin made Spanish easy.  🙂 

All that to say that I have delayed Latin for my younger kids till 4th grade (for the high motivated gifted child who easily understood English grammar and needed something to chew on) and then 7th or 8th grade (for the less motivated child who needed to be eased into a foreign language before high school). 

Child #5 hasn't started anything but English in 3rd grade.  But he already does know some of the LfC chants thanks to his sister. 🙂

 

Edited April 18, 2020 by Zoo Keeper

[Doodlebug]

I began my DS in Latin in 4th, and then we did a spot of it in 5th, and began again in earnest in 6th.  In hindsight, I should've waited.  I've come to think of it this way... Beginning Latin prior to a strong foundation in grammar -- identifying parts of speech, parsing, diagramming -- can only be an exercise in vocabulary.  Until students are using that vocabulary in a meaningful way (which requires grammar), it doesn't tend to stick nor does it maintain any special interest in the student.  This is why the early Latin programs seemed like busy work to me.  It was not meaningful work for a 4th grader.  

If I could go back and do it again, I would push Latin to 6th grade and go deep with English grammar in 4th and 5th.  There is a very natural point with grammar where you and your student will say, "OK.  We've got this.  What's next?"  I wish I'd known... because I believe that is the marker for beginning Latin.

When DS said to our Latin tutor, "I would love to study Greek!"  Her response: "Well why do you think you're studying Latin?"  Latin, as one might expect, launches so many language ships... it is the connective tissue, so to speak, of western languages.  Just my opinion as a homeschooling mom who loves Latin!

Edited April 18, 2020 by Doodlebug

[maize]

If your home language is English and the second language is the local language, maintaining functional bilingualism will not going to be too hard. 

My biggest considerations with adding a third language would be 1) the child's motivation level (sounds like this may be high), your motivation level, and what else you are willing to give up--not everything can be a high priority, so if learning ancient Greek (or any other language) moves up in the educational priority list something else is probably going to have to move down in priority.

[lulalu]

2 minutes ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

The younger kids? Saw zero benefit of ever knowing it.

Can you elaborate. 

Do they not recognize certain sounds? Can they recognize if they hear it? Do they have a good grasp of using English? In my interactions with TCKs (worked at an international school) I saw a lot of kids who learned languages had better usage of English (or other native langauge). 

I am always interested to hear others experiences! 

Thanks for talking these things through with me. 

 

2 minutes ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

Our ds was 10 when we moved back stateside. He was 100% fluent in Brazilian Portuguese. Locals had no idea he was American. He would sleepwalk in Portuguese so we know he was dreaming in Portuguese. He completely lost it. Other than the accent, which he transferred easily to high school Spanish, it essentially fell out of his head. The younger kids? Saw zero benefit of ever knowing it.

I have never lived out of the country, but in my AP Spanish class I saw this with several students (3 out of our class of about 12) who had lived in Brazil at some point in their life.  One of the auto companies here in town had some operations in Brazil at the time.  The ones who had lived there relatively recently still could make connections and sometimes get confused between Portuguese and Spanish.  None were still fluent in Portuguese. The ones who lived there when they were little remembered next to nothing.  The teacher would even comment on them vs their older siblings who were in her class in previous years.

[8filltheheart]

We moved back to the States in Nov 1999. 😉 The kids in question, the ones who lived in Brazil, are now 30, 28, 26, 24, and 21. The 30 yr was fluent. He spent his days running around with Brazilian kids who spoke 0 English. Like I said, people were surprised to learn he was American.

The younger kids could understand Portuguese but would speak it reluctantly.(We had a maid who spoke to them all of the time, they watched tv in Portuguese, and neighbor kids came over to play all the time, but the younger kids didn't enthusiastically speak it except when they had to.)

They had no "advantage" when learning Latin or Spanish. My 26 yr old struggled (and she was more williing to speak when we lived there than our 28 yos who is our Aspie). Our 28 yos remembers more high school Spanish than our 30 yos.  It really boils down to the individual.

My 21 yod has not struggled with accents, so maybe exposure when a baby has influenced that ability. 

Edited April 18, 2020 by 8FillTheHeart

[Matryoshka]

3 hours ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

Our ds was 10 when we moved back stateside. He was 100% fluent in Brazilian Portuguese. Locals had no idea he was American. He would sleepwalk in Portuguese so we know he was dreaming in Portuguese. He completely lost it. Other than the accent, which he transferred easily to high school Spanish, it essentially fell out of his head. The younger kids? Saw zero benefit of ever knowing it.

I learned German when I was younger, first at home with my mom (not immersion, with texts and songs) and then did two 6-week immersion summers with my relatives.  I spoke only German for the whole time the 2nd 6 weeks.  I was 11 at the time.  Then I sort of did a year of high school German (German 3) when I was 13, but the teacher was on a year's leave of absence, so really we just got assignments in books and babysat by a teacher who spoke not a word of English, so no speaking at all.  Then nothing till I was 17 - I picked up Spanish as my high school language, and did an immersion summer in Mexico.  We had a German exchange student my senior year, and I couldn't seem to speak a word to her - my conversational Spanish was pretty fluent at that point, but it seemed to have shoved the German right out of my head.  But then I did a gap year where I lived with that same exchange student.  I spent the summer with relatives before heading to her house.  When I got off the plane, I still couldn't say a word, but I could understand my cousin.  She spoke German, I spoke English.  But two weeks later?  I could speak.  By the time I got to the ex. student's house, I was fluent.  Her family asked her why she'd told them I couldn't speak any German.

So, I suspect the Portuguese is hiding somewhere in the back of your kids' brains. It's a shame it was never rekindled! 

[forty-two]

5 hours ago, Violet Crown said:

ETA: How is the Italian edition different from the American (which is what I presume we have)?

I compared the two forever ago - here's a linky: https://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/83103-comparison-of-the-us-and-italian-editions-of-athenaze/

The short answer is that the Italian version is designed to be as much like Lingua Latina as possible wrt providing a reading immersion experience.  It has a ton more readings, plus tries as much as possible to use sidebar pictures and diagrams (instead of glosses) to define words (and illustrate grammar concepts).

[LostintheCosmos]

7 hours ago, Violet Crown said:

I'd love to hear what vintage materials you've found useful for Greek. Middle Girl started with Hey, Andrew! guided by dh's two years of college Greek, moved on to Athenaze, got bogged down, we hired a tutor (starving grad student), and eventually she took an intensive 3-years-in-one-summer course that completely brainwashed her into desperately wanting to be a classics major (it helped that the first half of the course was basically review for her).

Wee Girl is finishing up Hey, Andrew! and has really liked it; her Latin is pretty good so the inflections haven't been an issue for her. But Athenaze wasn't great in Middle Girl's opinion, and Wee Girl is too young for a tutor (middle school). Really what we want is something like Artes Latinae (structural linguistic approach), but for Greek. But we'll take anything at all that could at least be an occasional alternative to Athenaze and the adventures of Dicaeopolis.

ETA: How is the Italian edition different from the American (which is what I presume we have)?

forty-two's linked comparison of the Athenazes above is very good - as she said, the gist is that it's formatted more like LLPSI and has more readings. Along those lines, a fellow named Seumus Macdonald is slowly working on creating a Lingua Gaeca Per Se Illustrata - another classics teacher has started to format it nicely like LLPSI here and he also has audio of it on youtube. 

I mostly use vintage materials to get us more reading practice - my kids have independent reading time daily in all the languages they are studying. There's a list of some Greek readers more or less along the lines of Rouse's A Greek Boy at Home here (if these interest you, I have a few more links saved somewhere I could dig up). The Greek Ollendorff is an interesting approach to the grammar, and someone has also helpfully made audio recordings of the whole thing which are available on archive.org. I also use the exercises in Yenni's Greek Grammar for extra grammar drill. 

Lulalu, if your son is interested in Greek, I don't see why you couldn't go ahead and start learning the alphabet. It doesn't require the abstract thinking that tackling the grammar will, but it capitalizes on his current interest and can only help with English derivatives and their spellings, and then you will have that done if/when you undertake more serious study of the language. 

[8filltheheart]

4 hours ago, Matryoshka said:

.

So, I suspect the Portuguese is hiding somewhere in the back of your kids' brains. It's a shame it was never rekindled! 

They have never had any interest.  You have no idea how frustrated my 21 yod gets with her oldest brother.  She laments his waste.  She tells him it is no fair that she has worked so hard to master languages and he had one mastered and squandered it.  She says if she had been older that she would have treasured it as a gift.

All goes back to the individual, internal motivation and desire.  Maintaining a language takes effort.  They have to want it.

[Violet Crown]

2 hours ago, LostCove said:

forty-two's linked comparison of the Athenazes above is very good - as she said, the gist is that it's formatted more like LLPSI and has more readings. Along those lines, a fellow named Seumus Macdonald is slowly working on creating a Lingua Gaeca Per Se Illustrata - another classics teacher has started to format it nicely like LLPSI here and he also has audio of it on youtube. 

I mostly use vintage materials to get us more reading practice - my kids have independent reading time daily in all the languages they are studying. There's a list of some Greek readers more or less along the lines of Rouse's A Greek Boy at Home here (if these interest you, I have a few more links saved somewhere I could dig up). The Greek Ollendorff is an interesting approach to the grammar, and someone has also helpfully made audio recordings of the whole thing which are available on archive.org. I also use the exercises in Yenni's Greek Grammar for extra grammar drill. 

Lulalu, if your son is interested in Greek, I don't see why you couldn't go ahead and start learning the alphabet. It doesn't require the abstract thinking that tackling the grammar will, but it capitalizes on his current interest and can only help with English derivatives and their spellings, and then you will have that done if/when you undertake more serious study of the language. 

 

4 hours ago, forty-two said:

I compared the two forever ago - here's a linky: https://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/83103-comparison-of-the-us-and-italian-editions-of-athenaze/

The short answer is that the Italian version is designed to be as much like Lingua Latina as possible wrt providing a reading immersion experience.  It has a ton more readings, plus tries as much as possible to use sidebar pictures and diagrams (instead of glosses) to define words (and illustrate grammar concepts).

Wow, thanks for the extensive info! I'm forwarding all this to Middle Girl for evaluation and will report back. (My own Greek consists of having learned to say "efcharisto!" when the waitress in Athens brought our food.)

[Matryoshka]

1 hour ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

They have never had any interest.  You have no idea how frustrated my 21 yod gets with her oldest brother.  She laments his waste.  She tells him it is no fair that she has worked so hard to master languages and he had one mastered and squandered it.  She says if she had been older that she would have treasured it as a gift.

All goes back to the individual, internal motivation and desire.  Maintaining a language takes effort.  They have to want it.

So, so, so true.  I am like your dd.  I tried so hard to impart this love to my kids - only one got it.  I did get the other two up to a fairly decent level - a lot more than what most Americans get, but there's no love.  They're just slowly now (at 19 and 21) realizing that they somewhat appreciate the knowledge now that they have it.  You are so right that they have to want it (or be immersed, in which case it just kinda happens).  But maintaining it outside of that environment takes wanting it. 

[maize]

1 hour ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

They have never had any interest.  You have no idea how frustrated my 21 yod gets with her oldest brother.  She laments his waste.  She tells him it is no fair that she has worked so hard to master languages and he had one mastered and squandered it.  She says if she had been older that she would have treasured it as a gift.

All goes back to the individual, internal motivation and desire.  Maintaining a language takes effort.  They have to want it.

I think it feels this way with anything a person is passionate about--so very hard to understand why others are not!
My love is growing things, I've always wished my husband and I could garden together--seems like such a nice thing to do! He has no interest 🙂

 

[Abraham]

I personally love learning languages - in addition to English, I'm fluent in Hebrew and Aramaic, competent in Latin, Spanish, and German, and can painfully muddle my way through a French text. I would say Latin is valuable primarily because it serves as a great gateway to the Romance languages - and I don't think anyone denies the usefulness of Spanish or French.