Mumsnet Talk

I lived in Madrid a couple of years ago and whilst I was there gained learned a bit of Spanish, enough to hold a (very slow paced) conversation. Since I've been home I've not really spoken any Spanish although I'd like to.

DD is 14 weeks old and I want her to have at least a basic grasp of another language as we may move to Spain again and, besides, it's a great skill to have. I know it's early but I want to get started.

I'm not confident enough in my own correct use of, e.g. past tenses so do not just want to chat away to her in case I'm teaching her the wrong thing. So I have a number of questions;

1) Does anyone know of or where I could find a spanish speaking baby group in Medway, Kent?
2) Can you recommend some baby books
3) I have sesame street in Spanish, are there any other good programmes I should get?

Never too early!

I know nothing about Spanish resources but could you ask around locally fit any Spanish students or au pairs who might come and do a few hours a week playing in Spanish which would help both of you?

Books and TV will only give your DD passive knowledge, you need interaction to really succeed in acquiring a language.

La Jolie Ronde is nationwide and does French and Spanish.

Don't know about specifically spanish progs, but a lot of Disney stuff comes with a Spanish soundtrack as standard - check the back of the box. This includes most of Handy Manny and Little Einsteins, plus some of the films. This is obviously much cheaper than buying Spanish-language DVDs.

Incidentally, I think that, if you are "teaching" a language in this way (rather than going for bilingualism) then spanish is a very good choice. Lots of people choose French but forget that French is a genuinely hard language (if you think it's not, you're not speaking it right!) whereas Spanish is comparatively very regular and straightforward.

Happy to be disagreed with but that's my impression.

dora and diego both on Nick Jr shout/gritan VERY LOUDLY/en voz alta in both languages

I agree with MIFLAW re: the appropriateness of Spanish vs. French, but I'd say 14 weeks is far too young to be taught a language and rather suspect your efforts will come to nothing. Language is about communication, and a toddler who has no one to communicate with in whatever language they're "learning" will simply not use it, and may even demand to watch TV in English when she's a bit older.

The Spanish speaking playgroup is a good idea, but you'd have to take her every day for several hours per day to maintain any kind of learning.

A good age to start teaching a language is around 4 or 5 years. If you move to Spain before then, she'll pick the language up by virtue of being surrounded by people who speak it, and it will happen much quicker because there will be a reason for it.

Tinsie has a point - if you were going for bilingualism I would say start right away but if you are teaching a second language then, by definition, your child needs a first language to relate it to.

But I don't suppose starting now will do any harm and if it makes you happy then go for it.

agree with the above. When you see the experience of parents with bilingual children (many on this board), you realise that teaching a language to a child is easier than teaching to an adult, but still, it requires a lot of effort. If I were you, I would communicate with my baby in just one language, and introduce the other one when they have a concept of "learning languages"; maybe age 4 or 5. It would be different if you were Spanish yourself, in which case I would be saying "only speak Spanish to your child".

The Spanish mums in different areas tend to organise playgroups for their children, but even there, we find the children who are already in English childcare, tend to communicate in English amongst themselves. They speak Spanish back to the mums though, especially "other" mums (not their own). I think they believe the "other" mums don't speak English, and therefore they make the effort.

Good luck with it, whatever you decide to do!

What I am hoping for her to achieve at an early stage is a vocabulary I suppose since it is simply remembering a range of words rather than the understanding of how the language works which I found most difficult as an adult. This is another reason why I wanted to attend a group with her - so that I could speak Spanish there too and hence be able to interact with her at home in Spanish.

Thanks for the suggestions, even those telling me it's a futile exercise! All will be considered.

I disagree about French and Spanish, I think it depends. French, I think has perhaps more difficult pronunciation for Brits than Spanish but Spanish grammar is more complex (more redundant pronouns etc for example) than French. Spanish is often considered an "easy" language, which IMO is a misconception.

Lexis and grammar, and meaning, are inextricably bound together. Just by learning vocabulary you acquire grammar because words don't just appear in isolation, even in books or on the TV.

Having some Spanish playtime even using simple phrases will attenuate her ear and give her the building blocks for later. She will at some point outstrip you but then you can replace you with a Spanish speaker for that playtime. You will find your Spanish improves with repetition and a baby doesn't require spontaneous interaction so you can prepare your simple phrases ahead of time but to really progress, and to develop both a good accent and natural fluency, you need to really get hold of a speaker with native competency <didn't say a native speaker in honour of MIFLAW>

This idea of artificial learning and deconstructing grammar to understand how it works is a moot point when they are young. They don't need to learn adjectives, they instinctively get that

C'est un ballon bleu.
C'est un ballon rouge
C'est un ballon jaune

describe the same thing in different colours. They also understand that you can substitute un ballon for une voiture AND that you can say c'est un ballon, il est rouge. For that I need one verb, 3 pronouns, 2 nouns and 3 colours but the learning which goes on is so much more than learning 8 words.

Apologies for demoing in French btw but no hablo español (except that useful phrase).

Yes fraktal that's more along the lines of how I thought things would go. Thankyou for your post, even the French bits!

The golden rule when you're not a native speaker yourself (and not even a fluent speaker from the sounds of it) is that you should never speak to the child in the foreign/second language, otherwise they'll end up learning all the mistakes that you make in pronounciation, intonation, grammar etc. Which sort of defies the whole exercise....

It's fine to speak to your child in bad/accented English if you live in England (Spanish if you live in Spain, French if you live in France) because they will also interact with several native speakers daily, but if you live in England and you're trying to teach your child Spanish in a non-Spanish-speaking household environment, you should be weary of unwittingly teaching them the "pigeon" version and thus doing more harm than good.

fully agree with tinsie. Still fuming at my husband for speaking Spanish to my son and hence teaching him words with the wrong gender. Years later, I am still correcting both of them!

Fraktal I don't mean you should teach them grammar specifically, just that I disagree with the assertion that Spanish is a "regular and straightforward" language and French much more complex and therefore a less suitable language to teach a child.

tinsie I don't necessarily agree with that, since I learnt Spanish from native speakers they (and native speakers I have since spoken to) assure me my accent and intonation are good. And I would likely be classed as a fluent speaker it's my own confidence which holds me back!

Well, it's you who said you can only hold a slow paced conversation and you're not confident in your use of grammar. That doesn't sound like fluency to me, but what do I know? Maybe your intonation is indeed spot on

I would say if you're going to do it only say things you are 100% sure are correct. Just makes a valid point that mistakes learnt early on are incredibly difficult to put right later.

There is a big difference aiming for bilingualism and wanting early exposure to a foreign language. The way I see it is if your DD were to learn Spanish in primary would you be capable of teaching what she would learn there and do you know your limits? If you're going to be worse than a nonspecialist primary teacher who is giving Spanish lessons I wouldn't and if you don't know where your limits are I wouldn't but I see no problem introducing a few phrases or concepts for fun - colours, favourite toys, numbers etc - but embedded in natural interactions which encourage productive skills later.

I would be capable of teaching her what she needs to know certainly for A* at gcse (since I achieved this myself last year) and possibly to A level.

I am a teacher which I think is of benefit here too.

I just think it would be of benefit to her to be exposed early so that she learns words and phrases and later can learn the grammatical reasons behind them, as she will with English. But maybe you are right that this is only true if I'm a native speaker.

Well language teaching is shifting towards a corpus and interaction based approach with grammatical reinforcement so even with adult leaders I say almost the same that I do to DS, the difference there is we explore the general rule that's come out of what they've been doing at the end.

The principle danger with non native competency is that you deviate from The Plan but as long as you stick with it and recognise that after the age of 2 or so she will need more interaction than you can give her it's no different to taking her to a tots language class.

To be honest, I think trying to teach a child a language in which you aren't fluent and when the child isn't surrounded by the language is a rough road.

I taught ESL and DH and I both speak good German, (him good, me fluently). We decided not to try and teach the kids Germans because it was just too artificial since neither of us are native speakers. I read the occasional picture book in German, but have never tried more than that as I really didn't see how they would learn anything substantial from it. Some words, bad accents and incorrect grammar.

I think if you want children to learn a language early, the best way is to immerse them. Get a Spanish au-pair and have them talk to your kid in Spanish.

I disagree Andi. I spent 4 years living in Valencia as a child 30 years ago, so my Spanish is REALLY rusty. This hasn't stopped me teaching my nieces (4 and 6) some Spanish. Enough so that they were mistaken for locals on their last holiday to Valencia! (Chuffed much?)

I think you are probably underestimating yourself OP. And at 14 weeks your daughter is far too young to be worrying about her grammar.!

Incidentally, I am also in Medway (Hoo) so if ever you want to meet up for a coffee and practise your Spanish with someone even rustier than you just give me a shout!

Hello,

I think you should be very careful. If you make mistakes when you speak Spanish your child will learn the mistakes. And because you are her mum, and she loves you and she think your are perfect, you cannot make any mistakes, it will be very hard to correct these mistakes later for anybody even if it is a teacher. It is the same with everything, if you teach something to your children do it properly, because the teacher won't able to correct the mistakes in the school, or if they can correct the mistakes it will be very hard for them. And it will be a bit hard for your child when she first discover that mummy is not as perfect in everything as she think even on the things that "mummy" would like from me to learn from her.
If you would like to start this early I think TV and computer works very well. (e.g.: on youtube you can find lots of Spanish nursery rhymes).

What about the Muzzy DVDs? You can probably pick some up on ebay