Language

[Antoinette]

okay so from my name you can perhaps tell but i am French, i was born in a small french town near St. Tropes.. i moved to Australia when i was 7 so unfortunately my french skills are not amazing but they are okay.. i would like my children to speak French so that they can recognize there heritage but when is the right age to start introducing French to there vocab?? because my Son is only 14mnths so he is only speaking a few words in english so far and i don't want to confuse him by introducing another language into the mix to early.. suggestions?

[singledad]

My daugher is three years old, and speaks two languages at the level a three year old should be able to speak one. Because my wife's native language was different from mine, we decided that each of us would speak our native language to her, so she heard both right from birth.

Yes, she does get confused sometimes, but we made a point of, when she mixes them up, asking her "what is that in English/Afrikaans?" If she doesn't know, we teach her. If she knows, it is a remider to use the language that matches the rest of the sentence. It is a good idea to have a definite rule about when/where which language is used. It helps them to understand that they are separate, and should be used separately. My wife and I were consistent about which of us used which language. Since my wife passed away, I've started splitting it in time frames - English before lunch, Afrikaans after. She's already adjusted to this new routine.

Lost of kids here are brought up bilingual, even tri-lingual. If you pay enough attention, by the time they go to school, they are not only fluent in both, but they are able to distringuish between them, and use then seperately. I think childrens' brains are way more capable than we give them credit for.

[Jeremy+3]

Our children all speak two languages, Cymraeg and English, my wife is cymry and I'm English, they have all always had equal skill in both languages. My cymraeg is awful, so when the kids don't want me to know something they don't speak English, little gits.

[Antoinette]

now i feel like i will be late starting him on this.. when i was with his father he was always quite persistent that he didn't need to learn french and that when he was older we would ask him but now that I'm not with David i realize that he is wrong. i will start with both languages from today just the basics of french.. i like what you said about different times for different languages. i think i will do that, i will speak only French in the morning and only English at night so it is easier for him to differentiate, and that will make it easier to teach Alegra when she comes along.. and when they are older i want to take them to France to meet there grandparents and my family and they don't speak english very well so it will be nice for them to be able to communicate with there family

thank you so much

x

[bssage]

I'm searching for french/english cartoons for you. We have Dora the Explora and Deago here which is bilingual Spanish/English. Even Chloe My DD can count to 100 in Spanish and knows many words/phrases. I think learning several languages is required schooling in some countries. And I think it a great idea.

[Antoinette]

thats a good idea, i might go on ebay and amazon and see if i can find any cartoons for him.. i didn't even think of trying that

[singledad]

French cartoons for your son = awesome! Its amazing how quickly a child picks up vocabulary from watching cartoons.

[xox.ilu.xox]

I cant remember if Caillou is a french cartoon or not......

[bssage]

I did a search of french cartoons. The thing is I dont know french. So I cant read the descriptions. So rather then linking you up with a bunch of hairy armpit bikini shows. I think I'll let you go it alone.

[Antoinette]

haha thats okay, i had a look and found some..yeah makes it harder when you don't actually speak french LOL it is actually quite close to english.. most of the important words are the same but pronounced rather than spelt lol...