Foreign language

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At that age? No, unless it's also a language spoken daily within the family.

Not true. People speak 3-4 languages in my country and we only have one official language. The 2nd biggest language is like Chinese to us. We hardly ever hear it when out and about, but we all learned it.
It's also somewhat cultural to learn 3-5 languages. Language teachers are abundant and so are free classes.
I learned six foreign languages simply as part of my education.
It takes three lessons a week, some awesome teachers, doing the homework, memorizing and using the words. TV has also been a lot of help.

OP here. Thanks for this. I am somewhat confused by the responses saying No, unless it's just chiming into say MCPS isn't going to help with this at all (fair enough!). Are people actually trying to say my 5 year old can't learn a language?

DP here. As a bilingual speaker, I want to add that:
1) languages learned at ages 5-7 and then not used again can be forgotten (have seen this in many many people who immigrated to the US around that age, who even stopped responding to their parents unless their parents put in a lot of efforts, they spent summer abroad in their home country etc)
2) I "learned" French at age 4. Which meant I learned a few words and a few songs. I later learned French "for real" in school and even more as an adult (I have an online French tutor I talk to almost every weekend.) Did "learning" it at age 4 help? Maybe, in a super minimal way.

So maybe what PPs are trying to say is that your child probably won't learn or retain much unless it's reinforced at home or you have a special circumstance (family abroad that visit often, spending time in another country, nanny who speaks foreign language etc.)

Ohhh, yes, absolutely. That is one of my main concerns.

I actually did learn Spanish and French and they’re just rusty at this point (especially spoken— I read/write okay), so I get it. But maybe it’s an opportunity to brush up and work on language as a family…..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At that age? No, unless it's also a language spoken daily within the family.

Not true. People speak 3-4 languages in my country and we only have one official language. The 2nd biggest language is like Chinese to us. We hardly ever hear it when out and about, but we all learned it.
It's also somewhat cultural to learn 3-5 languages. Language teachers are abundant and so are free classes.
I learned six foreign languages simply as part of my education.
It takes three lessons a week, some awesome teachers, doing the homework, memorizing and using the words. TV has also been a lot of help.

OP here. Thanks for this. I am somewhat confused by the responses saying No, unless it's just chiming into say MCPS isn't going to help with this at all (fair enough!). Are people actually trying to say my 5 year old can't learn a language?

DP here. As a bilingual speaker, I want to add that:
1) languages learned at ages 5-7 and then not used again can be forgotten (have seen this in many many people who immigrated to the US around that age, who even stopped responding to their parents unless their parents put in a lot of efforts, they spent summer abroad in their home country etc)
2) I "learned" French at age 4. Which meant I learned a few words and a few songs. I later learned French "for real" in school and even more as an adult (I have an online French tutor I talk to almost every weekend.) Did "learning" it at age 4 help? Maybe, in a super minimal way.

So maybe what PPs are trying to say is that your child probably won't learn or retain much unless it's reinforced at home or you have a special circumstance (family abroad that visit often, spending time in another country, nanny who speaks foreign language etc.)

Ohhh, yes, absolutely. That is one of my main concerns.

I actually did learn Spanish and French and they’re just rusty at this point (especially spoken— I read/write okay), so I get it. But maybe it’s an opportunity to brush up and work on language as a family…..

I mean, if you want to pursue it as a family, then that could work. But it may be a bit more effort than you anticipate. I've been working with my kids on my native language for years and... it's been a struggle. I don't regret it and will keep doing it (if anything I blame myself for not doing a better job.) This is something that gets done on top of everything else and for many (most?) kids it's not "fun."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS is doing tutoring in Spanish. It’s not same as immersion, but it gives something at least in terms of pronunciation and language familiarity.

Appreciate the suggestions in this thread.

Also want to ask: where did you find a good tutor?

We’re doing kids club Spanish online. There are several tutors to choose from. It is possible to reserve classes with different tutors and ds ended up clicking well with one of the tutors, so I have been reserving the classes with her. It depends on the language and age of child, but online works for us. I prefer it to in person.

[Anonymous]

I speak a foreign language pretty fluently and another one proficiently. One of them is a "useful" critical language and the other is a "useless" one. My advice is: learn the foreign language that you will actually be motivated to learn. My useless language has actually opened a lot of doors for me because I was motivated (through cultural/artistic connections to the language) to learn it really well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At that age? No, unless it's also a language spoken daily within the family.

Not true. People speak 3-4 languages in my country and we only have one official language. The 2nd biggest language is like Chinese to us. We hardly ever hear it when out and about, but we all learned it.
It's also somewhat cultural to learn 3-5 languages. Language teachers are abundant and so are free classes.
I learned six foreign languages simply as part of my education.
It takes three lessons a week, some awesome teachers, doing the homework, memorizing and using the words. TV has also been a lot of help.

Are you OP? Are you living in "your country"? Not relevant. sorry.

I thought Pp’s response was extremely relevant. I appreciate them sharing their experience with language learning. Our country tends to do a lousy job teaching foreign language, so I think it’s great to hear about how it can be done better.

And that changes your circumstances and options absolutely 0%