Learning 3 languages...

[cbachinger]

When i marry and have kids, i really want to teach them three languages.

English - universal and my mother tongue.
German - my dads language.
The language of my future spouse; which i believe will be asian, as i have a bigger attraction to them more than to western women and i want to live and work in Asia for a while.

What are your views on this and when is it appropriate to introduce these languages? A good friend of mine suggested that i am demanding and i agreed but demanding for good reasons. I will obviously want to learn when to give way if there are learnng difficulties.

Two languages are fairly easy. Dad speaks his language and mom speaks her language and when mom and dad speak together, they speak in english. But in practice it doesnt seem effective and when i want to take my kids to english school, they may not know enough english.

What is your advice?

 

[Kaytee]

Kids who grow up from the start learning 3 languages most likly wil have no trouble learning them all.
I have heard that it is common to mix up the words, say half German half English, but it equals out

 

[TammyZed]

Kids who grow up from the start learning 3 languages most likly wil have no trouble learning them all.
I have heard that it is common to mix up the words, say half German half English, but it equals out

I heard that too. Young children have an easier time picking up languages, so it shouldn't cause too many problems, and it will definitely come in handy later in life.

 

[Shari Nielsen]

I agree w/ the earlier the better. Plus the three languages are so different from each other that the kids shouldn't have too much trouble differentiating between them or mixing them up.

I wish my parents taught me more than one language. They only used other languages to speak between them so we couldn't understand what they were saying!

 

[musicmom]

I agree, wouldn't it be nice if they taught children at least spanish through school? They would pick up on it so much easier.

 

[jgomez65]

Comming from a bilingual family, I'd suggest you talk to your kids in the foreign language a much as possible. English, they'll pick it up on their own, just by watching TV, or interacting with other children. All my kids are bilingual (English/Spanish) however they mostly choose to speak English unless they are talking to somone who speaks Spanish only. (my 16 yrs old boy speaks "Tarzan Spanish" but at least he can communicate in that language)
I did not said a word in English to my daughter until she was 3 years old, however by them she was already speaking English fluently, which she learned on her own, just by watching TV and hearing her brothers speak it. Of the three, she is the most fluent in Spanish.

 

[HappyMomma]

My father side has Austrian and I studied German in highschool so it's a language that is dear to me. I try to use some German with my daughter when I have opportunities and I've taught her to count in German.

She also learns a bit of Spanish in school.

 

[hwnorth]

Studies have shown that a child will start to learn while still in the womb.

As well, once 3 languages are learned, they have proven that learning any number of languages is much easier.

My daughter was exposed to 7 languages from before she was born to about age 3 ( about the time that finding that much material is a lot harder.)
English is my spoken language, yet my daughter is in French immersion, and has abilities in Spanish and Mandarin.

The more you can expose your child to... the better off they will be. How bad can it be to educate a child ?

 

[HappyMomma]

I love the Baby Einstein's Language Nursery DVD.

 

[FooserX]

Studies have shown that a child will start to learn while still in the womb.

what kinda study is this?

 

[Good Wolf]

I've heard the same thing. I thought it was a pretty accepted theory.

It is however a fact that the younger you are the easier it is to learn and that includes languages. I don't think it is demanding as long you don't force feed it to them. Casual lessons should be enough for them to obsorb it, and speaking it fluently yourself will get them doing so as well.

 

[jtee]

I work with a French guy and his 4 year old daughter speaks 3 languages (at 4 year old level). She only started learning English with the past 12-15 months and is nearly as good as a native speaking 3 year old. She intuitively understands context, and can flip between languages without hesitation. She can talk to me and English, and turn to her dad and ask him a question in French without even thinking about it. Very very cool to see 4 year do effortlessly.

 

[etceterae]

I'm (naturally? Is that the word? I grew up speaking two languages...)bilingual and studying Spanish, my third language. I'm having a perfectly fine time, though admittedly learning a new language when you're 12 and going forth on that can be rather difficult. So teach them early, but make sure that when you talk to them, everything you say is in one language, not Spanglish, Chinglish, or Frejapanois. Then they WILL get confused =]

 

[Shari Nielsen]

It would be great if they started the kids (those in public schools) w/ a foreign language class as early as first grade and kept it going into high school rather than starting in high school.

What do other countries that teach their kids English at an early age do? Anyone know?

 

[Geoff L]

We (boy 4yrs and girl 7 yrs) live in a Mandarin environment (Taipei, Taiwan). They are fluent in Mandarin and close to fluent in English. But this is because I spend a lot of time with them and rarely speak to them in Mandarin. Their mother only speaks Mandarin to them and when we are all together over dinner or such I try to keep things in English.
What I would like to add is that it isn't as easy as it sounds unless you already have an exsisting environment which is based on a second or third language as this kind of langauge aquisition is through natural assimilation. If there are grandparents or other family members who spend enough time with the children then this is quite easy. As the single source of English it takes discipline (especially as I can express myself pretty much as easily in Mandarin as English) and a great deal of time. As well as creating enough opportunities for them to be exposed to a variety language through other sources: movies, books, podcasts, friends who also speak the additional language, travel and now a tutor for my daughter 3hrs a week.

 

[jtee]

Thanks Geoff.

 

[Geoff L]

You're welcome.
I forgot to add a reply to Shari's post. English language learning is a major subject here, as it is in all of East Asia (Taiwan, China, Korea, Japan) and is one of the 3 main subjects for elementary aged students (the others being Chinese and Math). My daughter studies English in her school twice a week. The cirriculmn is well thought out, has a CD. But it doesn't come close to giving students any real language ability unless they are especially talented in language studies. A problem which vexes the education programs in all of East Asia.

 

[ZionsRodeVos]

I started teaching my first child, Willem, 3 languages. English, Spanish, and German. I stopped teaching him German before he turned 2 because I believed he was learning Spanish slower than English and because since I don't speak German fluent and didn't think I could find enough resources to supplement my lack of knowledge in the language. But up until that time he knew words in each of the languages.

My 4 children know Spanish and English but it has been an effort on my part to speak mostly Spanish with them and then to get them to want to reply in Spanish.

When Willem was 4 he lived in the Dominican Republic for a few months and that gave his Spanish a much needed boost. He is 12 and a half now and uses his Spanish with students at school because he doesn't think his teachers can know what he is talking about that way. Willem knows both languages the best out of my children.

 

[Geoff L]

Hi Robert, Yes, I think your experience mirrors mine and what I see in other biracial families in Taiwan. That unless an extra effort is made in the areas I mention above the acquisition of a 2nd language is difficult if only from a single source within the family.

 

[gerrr]

Like Geoff said. We're raising an English/Japanese speaking child and we have many friends in the same boat whose kids have had varying degrees of success. It's not as easy as it sounds and it takes discipline. The key is that the child must be regularly be in an environment where they HAVE to speak the less common langauge. It's about necessity. I can think of a few examples where the children speak Japanese all day and Japanese exclusively with one parent. The other native-English speaking parent speaks a lot of English with them but can also speak Japanese and often does. The kids can understand a lot of English but they don't speak it and are not 'bilingual'. That's a pattern that we could easily fall into but we're determined to have an English-only house. Hopefully that will do it.