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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Did you expect your child to become fluent with 1-2 hours of language instruction?

My kids are trilingual and “learn” Spanish at school (at a big 3). They can say a few words and understand a lot in Spanish because their other languages are also Latin languages, but they are not fluent in Spanish at all.

On the other hand, they are 100% fluent in mom’s language and almost fluent in dad’s. I only speak in my native language to them and they speak to grandparents in tht language too. My older girls often speak my native language among themselves too (maybe 50% of the time English and 50% of the time my native language). They never went to school to learn it and never took classes. We spend a lot of time in my home country and that helps[/quote]

The issue becomes whether or not they are literate in the other languages.  My nephew grew up in a Spain with German speaking parents. Naturally he speaks German well. However, my husband says that when the nephew writes to him in German, the nephew's grammar and spelling is awful. I struck the same thing learning French at university. The kids with French parents had great listening comprehension but the professor was aghast that they didn't know the difference between aller, allais, allait, allaient, and allé, which all sound much the same but have very different uses in written passages.

Think, the average 4 year old American kid can speak English very well. They can't read or write in English without instruction though.[/quote]

First of all, being able to write is not as important as being able to read/speak/understand. My kids are in elementary school (2nd and K). The 2nd grader is above grade level (and above all her classmates) in both reading and math. I am sure she can learn how to write in another language that she speaks perfectly just as I can write in English… it’s not hard once you start reading… [/quote]

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