learning a foreign language is hard

[Anonymous]

you expect too much. my kids (11 and 8) have 8 hours of french per week. they are top students in their classes and their knowledge still seems pretty basic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. I have watched Korean dramas (with subtitles) and listened to k-pop music for 20 plus years. I also watched a ton of Japanese animation movies or cartoon (with subtitles) growing up. I can only speak greetings and basic phrases in Korean & Japanese. Does TV or music really work? Or it has to be simple TV or music designed for toddler?

My son is learning Mandarin.

It takes months of full-time intense study to be able to have a basic Korean conversation, I assume Mandarin is similar.

There are Chinese dramas on line. I liked Evernight and Meteor Garden but both have romance in them.

[Anonymous]

Are you seriously asking why your 7 yo has not advanced in Mandarin in TWO MONTHS? With once per week lessons?

My kids are in an immersion school, and the benchmark for the ENTIRE year of K was 50 words. Your expectations are wildly inappropriate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:you expect too much. my kids (11 and 8) have 8 hours of french per week. they are top students in their classes and their knowledge still seems pretty basic.

+1, my 6 yo is in french immersion school and only understands/speaks very basic terms, and he had high grades in every subject. He's 7...chill out!!!

[Anonymous]

Yes, why are you surprised? You need a really intensive or immersive environment to learn quickly. With lackadaisical application, possibly poor instruction and a home environment that doesn't speak fluently, it's going to be uphill work for Mandarin, a language that relies so much on accentuation.

DH and I are bilingual due to our heritage, but neither of us learned our third native languages - Asian ones, and too hard in the circumstances I described. We regret it, but we're not about to learn now in middle age. Our kids chose Latin and Spanish as their 3rd language, respectively.

[Anonymous]

OP here. I think my expectation is out of reach. I think it is more of his learning attitude/habit that frustrate me more than his progress. Benchmark for 50 words a year is really low to me for K. He has high grades in every subject and thus I expect that he will learn fast in foreign language.

Mandarin is one of the most difficult languages to learn, and he is doing 4 hours a week (2 hours for online 1:1 and 2 hours for in person). It is just painful to sit with him to learn, but he is not focused and not wanting to practice. I hope it is not a waste of time, money and energy in the long run.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I think my expectation is out of reach. I think it is more of his learning attitude/habit that frustrate me more than his progress. Benchmark for 50 words a year is really low to me for K. He has high grades in every subject and thus I expect that he will learn fast in foreign language.

Mandarin is one of the most difficult languages to learn, and he is doing 4 hours a week (2 hours for online 1:1 and 2 hours for in person). It is just painful to sit with him to learn, but he is not focused and not wanting to practice. I hope it is not a waste of time, money and energy in the long run.

He will never be fluent unless he’s immersed in it clown

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I think my expectation is out of reach. I think it is more of his learning attitude/habit that frustrate me more than his progress. Benchmark for 50 words a year is really low to me for K. He has high grades in every subject and thus I expect that he will learn fast in foreign language.

Mandarin is one of the most difficult languages to learn, and he is doing 4 hours a week (2 hours for online 1:1 and 2 hours for in person). It is just painful to sit with him to learn, but he is not focused and not wanting to practice. I hope it is not a waste of time, money and energy in the long run.

LOL. Your poor son. Good luck to him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I think my expectation is out of reach. I think it is more of his learning attitude/habit that frustrate me more than his progress. Benchmark for 50 words a year is really low to me for K. He has high grades in every subject and thus I expect that he will learn fast in foreign language.

Mandarin is one of the most difficult languages to learn, and he is doing 4 hours a week (2 hours for online 1:1 and 2 hours for in person). It is just painful to sit with him to learn, but he is not focused and not wanting to practice. I hope it is not a waste of time, money and energy in the long run.

A word in your ear, from one Tiger Parent to another. You're setting up your son for a rebellious anti-academic phase later on if you expect so much drudgework so early and only see the negative. Learning a language in these conditions is unpleasant and the ratio of effort to achievement is not on the kid's side. Please make sure you assess the long-term effort you will ask of your son and Marie Kondo his life so he has some joy in all his activities. You can try and make the process more pleasant by making sure he has an encouraging teacher, goes along well with his peers, has some Mandarin exposure that's more fun, like perhaps playdates with fluent speakers, or activities with fluent families (there are some in the area), or cartoons in Mandarin. And above all, know your son and praise his efforts, not his achievements. This is how I've gotten my kids to agree to pretty demanding sustained efforts well into their teens. Kids in American live in a society that rewards rebellion and disrespect. If you want compliance, you've got to make it worth their while.

[Anonymous]

You are ridiculous pushing your young child like that

[Anonymous]

I had a Croatian boyfriend who learned Italian watching TV growing up-- they only got a Italian television stations. He never took one Italian language class, and was admitted to and graduated from Medical school in Italy, which was fully conducted in Italian. There was a big cohort of other Croatians who had done the same. So I guess TV can work, but I also think certain brains are just able to learn languages more easily than others

[Anonymous]

If no one speaks it at home or extended family ( and tv, radio, etc always on) it will be incredibly hard to be fluent.

[Anonymous]

If he is Chinese or there's some other cultural/family significance to knowing Mandarin, I would send him to weekend Mandarin school. I assume they have that? I'm sending my 6 year old kid to Korean school starting this year. It's every Saturday for 3 hours.

[Anonymous]

It takes a while- my son was overseas in a 50/50 immersion program- maybe 15-20 hours a week of exposure to the other language- and he didn't speak a word until about 6 months in. Once a week lessons are really hard to learn much of anything. Same son has a third language class once a week at the school and after a year, can only count and say greetings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If no one speaks it at home or extended family ( and tv, radio, etc always on) it will be incredibly hard to be fluent.

True