Reply to Talk to Me About Regret

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[quote=Anonymous]I would like to heartily agree with 00:38.

I consider myself close to bilingual in Spanish and I learned it mostly as an adult. (We did start Spanish in 5th grade at my school but it was not immersion, only 3x per week). My son is learning Spanish both at school and at home speaking to my native speaker husband. At five, he is now a more fluid speaker than I will ever be in Spanish. The language just trips off his tongue. But this is due to enormous effort on our part. We only speak Spanish as a family, he has only had Spanish speaking caregivers, and he has never gone to a daycare or preschool in English. Books and TV are in Spanish (although sometimes we slip a bit there). While I have a much larger vocabulary in Spanish than my son and a greater capacity to think in complex ways, he is already a more fluid speaker (as a native Speaker) than I will ever be. Learning language very early really does make you a much better speaker, but only if there is the effort to reinforce and develop that language beyond what the school offers alone.

Worrying about potential job markets does not make sense at this point. However, I am committed to my son being bilingual for other reasons. Most importantly, I want him to have the capacity to understand different ways of thinking and different types of behavior. Language is a window into other cultures. When you learn another language, you learn another way of being, expressing, and communicating. In my opinion, this opportunity enables you to be a more flexible person, one who is open to diverse people and experiences. This is what I want for my son.

Many people will not care about this aspect of language learning. But I believe that our country would be a better place if more people here in the US did value these things. [/quote]

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