'Am I wrong to be disgusted that my 5yo is learning Lithuanian?'

[scentednappyhag]

This is a status on my Facebook newsfeed this morning.
She goes on to say there's nothing wrong with learning French or Spanish, but she's 'notimpressed.com'.

AIBU to delete this person on the grounds that their inner arsehole is hanging out?

scented when you say the 5 y.o. is learning Lithuanian is this an actual lesson or is it a case of the class learning the odd word in association with a topic they are doing in class.

My dc came home having learnt the word Welcome in around 15 languages. Their favourite was in an African language (can't remember which) because it sounded like Crappy.

My DC's had to learn Zulu for an hour a day when we knew we were only in South Africa temporarily. Admittedly, it's not the most useful of languages when you live in Berkshire, but it's didn't do them any harm and it's a fun party
Trick
Ube nosuku oluhle!.

It is almost never a "waste of time" learning another language at that age - no matter what it is. No matter if it's a minority language spoken by half a dozen people in the jungles of Upper Volta. It does amazing things to a child's brain.

Having two, three or even four languages is actually the NATURAL state for a child's brain to be in. We are weird in this country because the majority of us only know one.

I love the title of this article, which explains it better: Well, do you want a better brain or not?"

It's the best thing to do for your kids and if you have the opportunity - take it. You've no idea what a gift it is.

OP, I dare you to put that article on her wall!

It's not a case of whether it's a waste of time, it's a qustion 'would there have been a better use of his time.

Sounds brilliant, redsky.

At my secondary school (so aged at least 11) we'd write the date in the top corner of the blackboard. For French lessons we added the date in French under it. Then we got ambitious and added German, Spanish and Latin (you had to learn one other language, nobody did all 4). Got a bit silly after that as everyone competed to find out the date in the language of everywhere they'd ever been on holiday, so we could fill up a whole side of the board. Sadly, most days the teacher wiped nearly all of it off :(

Would've been dead chuffed if any of mine were doing the date in Lithuanian at the age of 5, mind you.

If my dd was learning a language like Lithuanian just by mixing with children in the playground then I would be thrilled. If it was being taught as a lesson ( doubt it), then not so much.

What does that mean TroLoLoLo?

I learned Russian in school, and I loved it. It's a brilliant language to be moody in!
I wish I could remember more.

is she being taught Lithuanian at school or is she picking it up from exposure to native speakers?

Big difference.

Probably not the most useful language to be taught. But, if she has friends who speak it and she is picking up phrases, why not?

I think that learning Lithuanian is harmless. It shows children that there are other cultures around the world and that not everyone speaks English. Lithuanian does seem a strange choice of language but prehaps the school has its reasons. Maybe a Lithuanian speaker has offered to teach the children.

My son joined an Urdu club at the age of five. The orignal idea was to teach a few urdu words to non pakistani children. Unfortunately the pakistani parents protested and insisted that it was racism that their children were not allowed to join the urdu club. The level of language teaching went up about 20 milion times in difficulty. The lady teaching the urdu club attempted to teach my son urdu phonics. My poor son got very confused because urdu blends from right to left and English ofcourse reads from left to right. To make matter worse my son had yet got to grips with reaing in his native language. In frustation my son said "Urdu is a backwards language!" and the school was convinced my son was being racist. However none of the Pakistanis in the room were offended.

Thankfully one of the pakistani parents stopped my son from getting in trouble by explaining that she felt exactly the same when she went to the college to learn how to read in English. I feel that my son learnt a lot. To him Urdu was backwards because they blend from right to left, but to an Urdu speaker English is backwards because they blend the other way.

Learning different languages give an insight into how other people live and think. I feel it develops empathy. My son has some understanding how an EAL child feels and this has definately helped with friendships.

I fail to see how learning a second language at such a young age can ever be detrimental. On the face of it, Lithuanian may seem likecan odd choice, but there will be a reason? Maybe it is widely spoken in the child's school or community? Maybe the school has a tutor volunteering their services for free/needs to practise?

Whatever the reason, grasping the concept of a foreign language will not hurt. I also imagine that understanding the structure and vocabulary of Lithuanian will give the children a good grounding to build other Russian/German languages of the same root in later life. The old 'Eastern Block' countries will be far more significant to our children's generation than ours.

I learnt French at 4. It has stayed with me despite never living in a francophone country, and I have picked up other Romantic languages very easily - Spanish, Italian and Latin.

I don't believe for a second that this school is so well funded that it is randomly teaching minority languages for no reason.

As others have said, learning any language is useful for the brain development of children. I think it would be such a shame if we only restrict ourselves to 'useful' languages! Sounds like a great opportunity.

The use of the word 'disgusted' is rather bizarre in this context...

And 'notimpressed.com' is cause for deletion in itself!

I wouldn't be disgusted, but I would be puzzled. Lithuanian - it's a bit random, isn't it?

I remember back in the 1980s, there was a big fuss over a tabloid story about a woman who had complained that her child's primary class had been learning "Pakistani [sic] nursery rhymes". This taken as a sign that the country was going to the dogs by the more foaming-at-the-mouth type of commentator.

I couldn't ignore that, I would have to tackle it.

"leaving aside your 'notimpressed.com' comment, why is it so bad that your DC learn a second language?"

Also, they cover French, Germna and Spanish at most secondary schools so it's good that they offer a different language altogether at primary level.

It sounds an unusual choice, but 'disgusted' seems an odd reaction .

I agree with others that learning a language is never a waste of time. If time is a concern, there are other far more pointless time-wasting activities done in primary schools that could be cut out.

I learned Latin at school (though not at age 5!) which some would say was pointless (though I've never come across anyone 'disgusted' by it!) but I enjoyed it very much and it's been indirectly useful in terms of understanding the grammar and structure of other languages (including English, which we were never taught particularly well!)

I would much rather my DD be taught a language other than lithuanian. It depends why they are learning it - it could be taught, it could be a high percentage of children in the class from lithuania. If we move to France I expect my child to be in a minority mucking in learning French. I would not want her to be in a minority of english speakers in her class though in the UK.

We have two schoos near us to choose from for infants etc, one is 70 - 90% eastern european, i did not want my DD in that school.

The other is about 50/50 mixed - so a nice mix of french/spanish/italian/asian/polish/lithuanian - to 50% english speaking.

i love that she gets the " variety" of alot of europeans in her class, but with a strong core of 1st language english speakers.

Your friend did not put it very tactfully, and it's rather tasteless to mention it on a public forum like Facebook, but she does have a point: it's not a commonly spoken language and for whose benefit is she learning it? Spanish or Mandarin - yes, much more useful. Even French.

The child is probably just being taught a few of the basics such as 'hello' etc rather then having proper lessons.

Five year olds in the UK don't usually get formal language classes, so a few words of anything is a bonus imo.

As far as I know though, it isn't usual for children to be taught any foreign language at that age. Primary schools don't usually have specialist language teachers (do they?) it may not be a choice between Lithuanian and French/Mandarin/Spanish/whatever, but between doing a little bit of Lithuanian or nothing at all. Maybe they have a teacher or TA who happens to speak Lithuanian?

I guess we need to know more about what the situation is to judge, but I am not really understanding the 'disgusted' reaction over what's probably no more than a 5 year old picking up a few words of another language. If they're spending hours a day on it and neglecting other subjects, I could understand, but I doubt that's the case.

If a school is ethnically mixed, it is often not just English and one other group. If there are Lithuanian children, it becomes more likely that there will be, for example, Pakistani children. So that then means that children from ethnic minorities will end up having less opportunity to learn widely spoken and useful languages for travel and business because they are learning Lithuanian or similar, than children in schools that are not ethically mixed who are learning Spanish or similar. This seems unfair.

Having said that, they probably only did 2 phrases in Lithuanian and it is all a big fuss over nothing. DD did a few phrases in Russian. It doesn't mean the school isn't still teaching Spanish.

Ephiny, all our local primary schools teach French or Spanish, even the schools where most children have a language other than English as their first language. Is this not happening in primary schools nationally?

DS is 14 and now the government rule is they HAVE to do a language. This is either French or Spanish. DS hates both . I think you either have an aptitude for this type of subject or you don't.

It's Spanish/French now, who knows maybe Lithuanian will be the way to go by the time your ones are 14?

It depends on the context a bit. If the teacher is Lithuanian or there's a large Lithuanian community where you live and this is being thrown in to expose the children to another language then I think it's a great idea. If they're being systematically taught it in place of Mandarin/Spanish/Arabic then I'd be annoyed.

I'd prefer my DC to learn a more widely useful language at school but I'd much rather they learned Lithuanian/Tagalog/other obscure language than no second language at all.

My friends travel for his job. Their kids will live in loads of countries. At the moment they are in eastern europe yet they have chosen to educate their 3 yo at the local nursery to become bilingual with a not v. useful second language as the evidence is overwhelming that early language acquisition influences the ability to learn other languages later.

It has also been fascinating to watch the way a child learns a language. I took her shopping with me - she couldn't tell me what the translation of apple was in local language but when I shoed her an apple she named it. Same with colours (i.e. can't tell you the word for green but can use the appropriate word when faced with a colour...)

I'm a bit sad whenever anyone says learning anything is useless. I'm terrible and languages though.