'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?

Yes, I do think it's a waste of time, no I don't think it should all be spent doing the 3rs, just most of it, and none of it should be wasted

I would be unimpressed if my 5yo was learning Lithuanian at school TBH. It is not a commonly spoken language and therefore not the most useful thing to be learning when at 5 they are like sponges and could easily be picking up a second language which may help them in later life.

I suggest you try booking a Lituanian interpreter for a court hearing - it's well nigh impossible.
"niche" languages are very handy to have - if you're working for a multinational corporation and you're the only person that speaks Bengali you're a lot more valuable than the 49th person that speaks French

good point nige

I had a court case with a Lithuanian victim recently - I searched the whole of the UK for a registered public service interpreter and could not find one. In the end we had to apply to the court to use an unregistered interpreter because I could not get one.

An NPRSI registered Lithuanian interpreter could make a very nice living thankyou very much doing languageline and interpreting just for the public sector.

Speaking Lithuanian would be a fantastic thing for me to have on my CV - the area where I live has a large Eastern European community, and I can imagine that being able to communicate with Lithuanian clients would be a massive advantage in a lot of jobs around here. I don't think learning a new language is ever a waste of time - even if it's some obscure tribal dialect that's spoken by about four people in the Amazon rainforest, the experience of learning a new language is still a good thing.

Just to answer the point that someone made about having 2/3 main languages rather than 5 "holiday" languages, there is no reason why you can't have all of that. Admittedly I pick up languages very easily but I have 2 main languages (French to a reasonable level of fluency and German), a secondary language (Spanish) and "holiday" levels in Finnish, Italian, Japanese. Your brain doesn't have a limit on how many levels it can learn - if a child is exposed to other languages early enough they hone the skill to pick them up easily

Why put a limit on your child's learning ?

Just to explain, the reason I prefer less languages in more detail for single-language speaking children is so that they have a better chance of becoming fluent at a 2nd language.

If they are fluent in 2 languages it will be much easier for them to pick up any number of languages they wish. So I believe it is less limiting to approach languages this way.

Being GCSE standard in lots of languages but not fluent in any but your birth kanguage is no real advantage in language learning terms IMO.

rather than delete, id debate.

i dont share the views of all my friends, that would be boring.

ask why she finds it so disgusting, what would be a good language and why and what her ds thinks.

imo to learn any language is a fantastic opportunity

Delete them. Almost every Lithuanian can speak English, some better than their English counterparts.

I have not met a single Lithuanian who can speak English. But, I have not met a single Lithuanian who lives in the UK.

I had 5 students from Lithuania in my Norwegian language classes though, and they were fast learners, despite the class being taught in English, mostly.

Over the past 3 years I've been an EAL teacher in East London. Lithuanian children tend to be very hardworking and as a result a good majority are high achievers. Sometimes their parents expect a little too much from their children, although I've met many a Lithuanian parent who believe us Brits are not expecting enough from ours.

I have never ever met a Lithuanian

I think that's a waste. They could learn a useful language in that time, like french, German, Spanish, russian, mandarin etc

Any foreign language is a skill so she (whoever she is) is a knob end.

Nige sorry but teaching 5YO Lithuanian has fuck all to do with them maybe becoming translators. My bf is Russian- came to the uk for Boarding school at 13 and didn't speak any english- yet at 18 her Russian wasnt good enough for her to work as a translator. It's not a case of a couple of years learning it at school. Everyone learns french for what- 8 years? Yet hardly any are at translator level. It's totally different.

the early years is when the language receptors in the brain are functioning extremely well - eg if a child doesn't learn to talk by 5 it is v difficult for them to catch up as the brain decides that this part of the brain is not required and shuts down - so on the flip side any language stimulation is going to fire these receptors - hence having additional languages - whatever language it is - is beneficial and can ease learning of languages in he future

but it's also a time where the child soaks up work like times tables like a sponge, and they don't bother with that any more so why lithuanian

bet she also posts about 'them' taking all the english peoples jobs yanbu to delete or even challenge her, if there is Lithunaian children in the school more then why not,

That's why really, when people have not learned to say "if there ARE Lithuanian children.." then there's obviously not enough time in the school day to teach people English let alone a minor second language.

Accuracy

Do you see the irony in your NN, as well as the fact you have just mocked another posters lack of literacy skills when you used the phrase "when people have not learned to say..."

Honestly, I see no problem in any child learning Lithuanian. In fact I think it would be far more useful than German or French as there is a far greater likelihood of children socialising with Lithuanian children in current times.

do you think it should be learnt?

I was just making the point that when people are not learning english properly it is a waste of time teaching them a minor second language, especially when that may slow down the process of immersion for those EAL pupils

For some children learning another language would be a ridiculous challenge when they are struggling to cope with English. I've found that actually most EAL pupils I have taught (at Primary level) are capable of acquiring more than one additional language.

I'm not talking about children who can't cope with English, I'm talking about English pupils who aren't taught properly at the moment, as is much evidenced all around us. They can cope with it but the schools can't cope with teaching them successfully it seems. Far better to give the EAL children total immersion and spend the time on quality English teaching.

Englihs/ whatever, I mean EFL pupils

also did you mean that it should be learnt?