ot - foreign languages

Am thinking about teaching DD a second language at the same time as she's
learning to read etc (yes this is a while off yet, just thinking ahead). I
know the basics in a few languages so I would pick one where I know correct
pronunciation etc, but it would be both uf us learning together. I figure
we just get some toddler books in the other language and use them at times
and slowly increase the difficulty as she gets older. Also got people
around who could speak to her in it.
Would this be confusing to her and interrupt normal learning development?
Has anyone tried anything similar?
Thanks

"Linda" wrote in message ...
Am thinking about teaching DD a second language at the same time as she's
learning to read etc (yes this is a while off yet, just thinking ahead).
I
know the basics in a few languages so I would pick one where I know
correct
pronunciation etc, but it would be both uf us learning together. I figure
we just get some toddler books in the other language and use them at times
and slowly increase the difficulty as she gets older. Also got people
around who could speak to her in it.
Would this be confusing to her and interrupt normal learning development?
Has anyone tried anything similar?
Thanks


All I can think of is a number of friends and rellies of mine where the
parents are from different cultures (3 German x Australian, 1 Chinese X
Australian, 1 Japanese X Australian and my cousins who are Australian but
who were raised in Mexico and learnt Spanish at the same time as English ...
and one of those cousins is married to a multilingual German guy).
There seem to be no probs with the kids switching languages to me (but I'm
an outsider).
My Chinese friend (also a primary teacher) speaks only Chinese to her kids
while her Aussie DH only speaks English to them ... same with my friends who
are German / Australian. The kids seem to have no problems switching
(although I was reliably told by a four year old that her guineapig "only
speaks German"
I also remember a card game involving my brother and I and our cousins when
holidaying in Oz ... they thought they could cheat by calling out the cars
we had in Spanish
As I say, I'm only looking in from the outside, but it seems successful for
the people I know who have he opportunity to learn more than one language
as children ... and from what I understand this is the best way to learn.
Sorry I'm not more help.
Amanda

Linda wrote:

Am thinking about teaching DD a second language at the same time as she's
learning to read etc [...]
Would this be confusing to her and interrupt normal learning development?
Has anyone tried anything similar?

If you really want to do this, do it BEFORE she
gets to be 6 months old. Babies are born with
the capability to hear ALL the sounds possible
in all languages. By 6 months, they start to
lose that ability (which is why Japanese people
have difficulty pronouncing "r" and why Americans
can't pronounce the German umlaut "oe", etc.).

Babies and toddlers are perfectly capable of
switching between languages and, while multilingual
environments do cause a slight delay in talking,
once the child starts to talk, the child catches
up quickly (and has more than one language, to
boot!).

My 3-year-old Pillbug, who is autistic and has
no speech yet, understands both Chinese and
English perfectly. My 15-month-old Rocky also
understands both. I speak only Chinese to them
and DH speaks only English to them.

-- Anita --

If you really want to do this, do it BEFORE she
gets to be 6 months old. Babies are born with
the capability to hear ALL the sounds possible
in all languages. By 6 months, they start to
lose that ability (which is why Japanese people
have difficulty pronouncing "r" and why Americans
can't pronounce the German umlaut "oe", etc.).

Well she's almost 8 months now - does that mean it's too late?


Babies and toddlers are perfectly capable of
switching between languages and, while multilingual
environments do cause a slight delay in talking,
once the child starts to talk, the child catches
up quickly (and has more than one language, to
boot!).

My 3-year-old Pillbug, who is autistic and has
no speech yet, understands both Chinese and
English perfectly. My 15-month-old Rocky also
understands both. I speak only Chinese to them
and DH speaks only English to them.

-- Anita --

Sounds great. Do you think it would work if I got some foreign dvds to play
to her now that would get her used to the sounds?

Linda wrote:

If you really want to do this, do it BEFORE she
gets to be 6 months old. Babies are born with
the capability to hear ALL the sounds possible
in all languages. By 6 months, they start to
lose that ability (which is why Japanese people
have difficulty pronouncing "r" and why Americans
can't pronounce the German umlaut "oe", etc.).

Well she's almost 8 months now - does that mean it's too late?

It's never too late! I just meant not to
wait until she can read or some other arbitrary
milestone down the road. It's good to start as
early as possible.

Do you think it would work if I got some foreign dvds to play
to her now that would get her used to the sounds?

That would be wonderful. Play something every
day so she hears it a lot. I think any children's
DVD in whatever language you choose would work
well. I've been meaning to get some Chinese
children's DVDs, but haven't yet...

-- Anita --

"Irrational Number" wrote in message
ink.net...
Linda wrote:

If you really want to do this, do it BEFORE she
gets to be 6 months old. Babies are born with
the capability to hear ALL the sounds possible
in all languages. By 6 months, they start to
lose that ability (which is why Japanese people
have difficulty pronouncing "r" and why Americans
can't pronounce the German umlaut "oe", etc.).

Well she's almost 8 months now - does that mean it's too late?

It's never too late! I just meant not to
wait until she can read or some other arbitrary
milestone down the road. It's good to start as
early as possible.

Do you think it would work if I got some foreign dvds to play to her
now that would get her used to the sounds?

That would be wonderful. Play something every
day so she hears it a lot. I think any children's
DVD in whatever language you choose would work
well. I've been meaning to get some Chinese
children's DVDs, but haven't yet...

-- Anita --

Thanks for your help - will get some ASAP

Linda wrote:
Am thinking about teaching DD a second language at the same time as she's
learning to read etc (yes this is a while off yet, just thinking ahead). I
know the basics in a few languages so I would pick one where I know correct
pronunciation etc, but it would be both uf us learning together. I figure
we just get some toddler books in the other language and use them at times
and slowly increase the difficulty as she gets older. Also got people
around who could speak to her in it.
Would this be confusing to her and interrupt normal learning development?
Has anyone tried anything similar?
Thanks

DH's native tongue is French and mine English, so DD is being raised
bilingual now. We have many friends who've done similar.

However my only concern with what you describe is that because you
don't know the language yet, you will make mistakes (of course, this is
normal!) and transfer those mistakes to DD so she won't learn
correctly. I don't know how much of a problem this is though. I avoid
speaking Spanish to DD for that reason - my spanish is tolerable, but
anything but perfect. Idon't want her to learn the incorrect way. She
has enough opportunities to hear it from native speakers all around us
though.

Linda wrote:
If you really want to do this, do it BEFORE she
gets to be 6 months old. Babies are born with
the capability to hear ALL the sounds possible
in all languages. By 6 months, they start to
lose that ability (which is why Japanese people
have difficulty pronouncing "r" and why Americans
can't pronounce the German umlaut "oe", etc.).

Well she's almost 8 months now - does that mean it's too late?

Not at all. The pronunciation thing is irrelevant in your case anyway,
since it won't be a language *you* learned in childhood and therefore
you won't be able to model perfect pronunciation to your daughter.


Sounds great. Do you think it would work if I got some foreign dvds to play
to her now that would get her used to the sounds?

No. I'm afraid there's research showing that this doesn't help children
learn different languages, so you might as well save your money.


All the best,

Sarah
--
http://www.goodenoughmummy.typepad.com

"That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be" - P. C. Hodgell

"Irrational Number" wrote in message
ink.net...
If you really want to do this, do it BEFORE she
gets to be 6 months old. Babies are born with
the capability to hear ALL the sounds possible
in all languages. By 6 months, they start to
lose that ability (which is why Japanese people
have difficulty pronouncing "r" and why Americans
can't pronounce the German umlaut "oe", etc.).

I think you'll find that this is the age of 6 YEARS not months!

http://ivc.uidaho.edu/flbrain/earlylang.htm

At least relatively recent (1997) research says so. Not that I can vouch for
it's voracity...

Also have a read of
http://www.brainconnection.com/topic...ritical-period,
which pretty much says there is no such thing as a "critical period" for
learning a new language. As you say, phonological acquisition declines with
age, but not from 6 months old!

From what we were learning about language development at uni I seem to
remember that 11 years old is around the "make-or-break" time for picking up
pronunciation and accents. I was 12 when I learned to speak English and my
pronunciation, while not absolutely perfect, allows me to pass for
Australian with Australians so it can't be that bad! And I was DEFINITELY
past 6 months old when I heard my first word in English. When we first met
my (now) husband noticed that my accent tended to wander a bit - all over
the English speaking world. He thought I might be South African but
definitely would not have picked me for East European.

My sister was 6 when she first started to learn English and she sounds as
ocker (ie. has a broad Aussie accent) as they come. I have friends who did
not speak a word of English until they went to school at the age of 5. They
may have been living in Australia, but were brought up on Polish programmes
on TV and Polish records, no Australian TV or music, so any exposure to
English would have been incidental in shops, etc, rather than anything that
gave them the opportunity to learn pronunciation. They all have perfect
Australian accents and perfect pronunciation.

So 6 months old is definitely NOT the age when you lose the ability to pick
up sounds.

Babies and toddlers are perfectly capable of
switching between languages and, while multilingual
environments do cause a slight delay in talking,
once the child starts to talk, the child catches
up quickly (and has more than one language, to
boot!).

A friend of my mother's used to speak German to her son, the father spoke
Polish to him. The son was able to switch smoothly between the two languages
(again, no English until he went to school, now has a pitch-perfect
Australian accent, but I think I've pushed this particular point far
enough!). One thing the son did do, was to absolutely refuse to speak German
to his father and Polish to his mother. So while the parents were
tri-lingual, the kid delineated between who was supposed to speak what and,
at least early on, would get annoyed if Dad tried to speak German to him and
he would announce (in Polish) "Daddy, that's not your language!"

Engram wrote:

"Irrational Number" wrote in message
ink.net...

If you really want to do this, do it BEFORE she
gets to be 6 months old. Babies are born with
the capability to hear ALL the sounds possible
in all languages. By 6 months, they start to
lose that ability (which is why Japanese people
have difficulty pronouncing "r" and why Americans
can't pronounce the German umlaut "oe", etc.).

I think you'll find that this is the age of 6 YEARS not months!

http://ivc.uidaho.edu/flbrain/earlylang.htm

At least relatively recent (1997) research says so. Not that I can vouch for
it's voracity...

Also have a read of
http://www.brainconnection.com/topic...ritical-period,
which pretty much says there is no such thing as a "critical period" for
learning a new language. As you say, phonological acquisition declines with
age, but not from 6 months old!

http://www.multilingualchildren.org/...irst_year.html

From what we were learning about language development at uni I seem to
remember that 11 years old is around the "make-or-break" time for picking up
pronunciation and accents.

I do agree with you... I learned South African English
at age 5, but switched to American English when we moved
to the U.S. at age 10. But, individual anecdotes aside,
enough research has shown that babies to start to fail
to distinguish non-native language sounds at around
6 months of age.

-- Anita --