Any suggestions for books teaching french/spanish for a five year old?

[galwaygal]

Hi, I am not sure if this is the right place to put this question.

I am looking for books for my dd to use to learn french (and later spanish).

She is 5 years old and is already bi-lingual in English and Irish, she reads both in English and Irish and loves learning languages.

I bought a cheap learn french book and cd from the supermarket recently and she loves it. She is keen to learn more, but I am not sure what there is available. We live in Ireland and there are limited resourses here.

Any suggestions for language learning books / cd'd or DVD'd for a young child would be great. I hope you can help.

[galwaygal]

Obviously that was meant to read cd's or DVD's, my typing got ahead of me.

[ArthuriaAugustaDArcy]

Former univ. languages teacher here. Your DD is obviously bilingual because of where you live (and presumably has at least one parent whose mother tongue is English?) That's the natural way to learn languages. If you want her to learn a third or fourth, you need to take her to that particular country for a reasonably prolonged stay (though even a week in France among French people would be more worthwhile than a year of French for Five-Year-Olds or a book/CD/DVD would be).

Even if you ignore every word of the above, please, please don't be tempted to buy the Muzzy thing. It's the biggest rip-off, designed only to appeal to parents with lots of money and an excess of ambition for their genius child.

All children can become bi/tri/multi-lingual given exposure to the language(s). There's a girl at my daughter's school who speaks three languages to native-speaker standard: English (because it's where she lives and goes to school), French (because her mother is French) and German (because her father is German). It's just what they do.

[galwaygal]

Arthuria - thank you for your help. I am not really trying to get her to learn another language, she is just facinated by languages and I am going along with it. Both her father and I are English but she started last September in an Irish School teaching through Irish. She has picked up a love of languages and loves reading in both English and Irish (I have very limited Irish, so most of the time I am being corrected with pronounciation from her!) My french is just as limited and so I am not much of an encouragement for her.

Being the age she is, she is picking up language very quickly and easily. For example, in less than two hours of using the CD-rom, she was able to count up to 10 in french and say hello, how are you. (and retained this information still a week later). Yesterday she was using the cd to learn a french song and was following the words on screen with her finger, so trying to read it while singing. This she does all by herself as she loves it. I would just like to provide her with other supplies of opportunity for her to enjoy discovering languages.

I think the kind of thing I was looking for was the equivalent of Dora or Seseme Street in French? But with reading too. OR French songs with their words on screen. Anything to satify her interest in languages and how they construct and spell!

[Lizcat]

My DD has been learning French since she was 2.5 years old and I have had 3 french au pairs and we have travelled extensive in France. My au pairs have always used you tube to access the equivalent of French Cebeebies for DD to watch.
DD is now at a school that has a strong emphasis in languages (by accident) and also does mandarin chinese the school emphasis on vocab. at this age numbers, fruit, veg etc and a small amount of phrases hello, how are you etc.

[PaulineCampbellJones]

I had a really cool book with stickers which I will try and find the name of. I learnt basic Spanish and Norwegian from it when I was about the same age as your DD. I went on to read Hispanic languages at university so I caught the bug early! Also if you have Sky or cable they have French and Spanish channels with cartoons/ kids tv where your DD will be able to absorb some words.

[PaulineCampbellJones]

Book //here

[MmeLindt]

One thing I would be wary of is whether she is actually understanding what she is reading and reciting. I used to teach English as a foreign language to children and found that they often were bought CDs that they learned by rote but did not actually comprehend.

I can remember singing "Happy Birthday" to one of the children in DD's kindergarten, then asking the 3 - 5yo children what it meant and they had no idea.

The programme I used combined CDs with weekly classes to explain the vocabulary that the children were learning, using games, roleplay etc.

[galwaygal]

Lizcat - thank you, would you be able to tell me the channel name for the french cebeebies?

Pauline - thank you for the encouragement, could you re-post the link as it does not seem to be working for me, and the book sounds good.

MmeLindt - Thank you for your warning. I am however confident that my dd is fully understanding what she is reading and saying in Irish, and appears to be understanding the couple of phrases in French so far. I am not sure of the terminology, but if I have it right, her decoding skills are very good. She is able to switch between English and Irish easily and hold conversations in both. She reads almost effortlessly English and Irish, books aimed at 7 year olds and can talk clearly about the story and context. So I have no concerns about her comprehension level with it. More my concern is if I can keep up with her!!!!!

[PaulineCampbellJones]

Hi, think it's an Usbourne book too called first 1000 words in ... My mam said that she kept finding stickers round the house for years afterwards though!

[Greenwing]

I loved learning languages and wanted my children to have the chance too. It is expensive but I can highly recommend the Rosetta Stone CD Roms which we use. My youngest son began it aged 8 and it is so simple to use that you could use it younger than that. It is great for learning to speak with a good accent.
See www.rosettastone.co.uk/personal for info.
Au revoir!

[teej]

my dcs both love salut serge as a fun thing rather than an intensive langage course. interestingly, dd's french teacher in reception played an episode in class just this week - and dd was delighted to be singing along because she already knew it. hth!

[NickOfTime]

mine loved 'first fun with french' dvd.

do you have la jolie ronde? they all enjoyed the classes from very little.

you could also look at blooming 'muzzy' too. i can't bear it (i think it's really dated) but the dc's seem to think it's great... (they found it covered in dust yesterday to great excitement)