Latin or modern languages for 4Y olds?

[Manoxlon]

I would like my kids to learn an additional language and I'm struggling with whether it should be Latin or a "more useful" (whatever that means) modern language such as Mandarin or Spanish. I am leaning towards Latin for the intellectual rigour and the potential ease with which the kids can pick a Latin-derived language of their choice to learn in their teens. The obvious argument against Latin is that it's dead and nobody speaks it, so ultimately what's the point.

It's important to be current and abreast of contemporary trends in skill sets in the European business context. At the age of 4?

I work with others every day, Fabritius, and am pretty up to date on language and communication issues in the workplace.

If you want your DC to get anywhere with a language age 4, it should be a language that is at some level useful - whether on holiday, with an au pair, with non-english speaking relatives, whatever. They will need to hear and use it a lot. Otherwise it will be very hard for them to get beyond the basics, let alone develop a genuine feel for the language.

I'm still struggling to get my 5 year old to speak English properly and say 'brought' instead of 'brung', 'went' instead of 'goed' I feel quite a failure that I haven't considered introducing Latin when she was four

Okay I lie. She's bilingual English/German at home and learns Welsh at school. My point is that I wonder how well all these pluri-lingual children on MN actually speak all their languages. I know several children in RL who speak several languages badly.

Latin? Nah.

My husband is bilingual, and his niece and nephew trilingual - but that's because of the family make-up, so they do use them.

I guess its different of they dont have anyone to talk to them in the language at home. Although I do believe that an early exposure to language does help in later language acquisition. I agree with Chomsky on that.

DH has had chats on holiday with locals in languages he doesn't know because he says you can follow what they are saying and he is very confident in speaking a foreign language (not worried about looming like a twit saying the wrong thing).

I'd teach them a language that they will be able to use this year, so they will have the chance to play with children who are native speakers of that language, ideally travel to a place where that language is spoken all around them, watch TV programmes and read books in that language.

It doesn't really what the language is. I grew up bilingual and the most important skill that gave me wasn't actually the ability to speak a second language but an understanding of what different languages are -that you sound more foolish if you don't make an effort with the accent, that you will have to move your mouth (and sometimes face and body) in different ways to speak, that you don't translate word by word, but concept by concept, that you better off leaving reading and writing to the very end because it can get confusing when you are trying to learn to speak, and that speaking a different language is perfectly normal.

Volunteering is tremendous, Bobochic, but I don't believe it gives a person the kind of strategic overview necessary in business these days.

If I remember rightly, countess's son was looking at Danish too. It's awkward when you put your foot in it, isn't it, boho?

Anyway, agreeing with the idea that 4 is too young for a non-spoken language. Latin is really easy, unless you're doing medieval/Church Latin, which is a bit less regular, because we don't really think about spoken idioms the way you have to with a modern language.

I'd just go with the MFL with the nicest cartoons on youtube, but I'm shallow. I basically want to spend my time watching Russian-language Winne-the-Pooh because it's cute.

If you can get someone to talk to them in that language for a few hours per week, they will pick enough of it.

Hahaha! Will non Latin speaking op be the one to do this? Or will four year old have a regular Latin tutor? It's pretentious bollocks.

My son mostly picked up English from CBeebies, as we spoke Portuguese at home, from an early age.

Granolamuncher, if your point is true (and I've no doubt it may be) then doesn't infantile repetition, etc, put children off all kinds of learning, like phonics, the alphabet, the days of the week, saying thank you, etc etc. Maybe it does. But you get my point?
Dd will sing all kinds of things to me in French, and, to be honest, as I'm not a French speaker (I have French GCSE and an ex French husband -that's all) I don't have a clue half the time what she is singing about. But her bilingual CM, who presumably does, is choosing to expose her to the language by using songs and stuff - surely that's ok? I hate to think that we're somehow putting her off French for life! (Not least because we'd love to buy a holiday place there some day

Lovelydiscusfish, it sounds like your dd enjoys French, has good opportunities to use it, and will likely be well disposed to learning it rigorously and thoroughly when she reaches secondary school.

Unfortunately, many children are exposed to bitesize amounts of French on only a weekly, not daily, basis at toddler "clubs" and at primary school where they learn to colour in the same drawing of an ice cream cone with the word "glace" underneath it in Reception, then again in Year 1 and year after year. They might also be told the words for the contents of their pencil case but they don't learn them because they don't have to because this is supposed to be "fun".

When they start French for real in Year 7, these children are bored by it and have no idea what learning a language is really about. Teachers would often prefer to teach children at that age who never had French at primary level: it's new and exciting for them, they're receptive and they're readier to learn vocab properly for a test, not half heartedly for "fun".

Children lucky enough to have real fun on holidays, at home, in a bilingual school etc with other children speaking a foreign language, they will pick it up. On the other hand, "fun" enforced in gobbets once a week is no way to teach a language. It does put children off.

I really can't see the point in teaching a 4 year old latin tbh.

Our secondary school offers latin from Year 9 onwards (GSCE lessons) - it's aimed at dc who are already highly academic and as an extension programme, which seems like a good idea to me - there are still some uses in learning latin.

But for a 4 year old, choose a language that will be useful. I'm in Wales so my dc already learn Welsh as a second language and even coming from an English speaking household, it's amazing how quickly they pick it up.

If she's bilingual by secondary school in Spanish, for instance, there will still be 'time' for her to learn Latin to an acceptable degree, if she wants.

singing songs and playing games for half an hour day is not proven to help a child learn a language. Unfortunately it can actually put children off, particularly if they get to play more interesting games in their native language

Completely disagree with this.

My dc are 5 and 7 and their grasp of Welsh is still basic - simple phrases like Good afternoon, my name is, likes and dislikes, colours, numbers, animals and so on. But they know a huge amount of Welsh songs which they've learnt in school and it's so, so beneficial with teaching them the pronunciation and just for general 'immersion'.

My dc a couple of weeks ago came home with a printed song to learn about a bird, to a well known tune. So we went through it to learn it and they started pointing out - 'Oh look that means bird - that word is black - that word is happy' and so on.

It was only a two verse ditty but they managed to translate most of it based on the words they did know, which has helped their overall comprehension.

SummerNights Your experience rather confirms my points above. You're in Wales. I dare say quite a few of your dc's teachers speak Welsh well and are indeed able to teach "a huge amount of Welsh songs".

The problem which secondary school MFL teachers encounter in England is that many children have not had that level of exposure to a foreign language at primary level but falsely believe they have nevertheless been learning one through weekly half hour "fun activities" type lesson for the last 5 years or so. These children can have formed the view that French is boring and unchallenging.

That's why MFL teachers I know want to see it banned in primary schools. Either teach it properly, they say, or leave it to us when they're 11. Don't put them off languages at a young age. It's such a pity to do that.

Granola You have described my daughter's experience of primary French to a T - as well as her response. Worse still, it went on through year 8, because we have a middle school system. Your point about it dragging frustratingly on and killing the freshness and enthusiasm is spot on.

Poor teaching of MFL, which turns pupils off, is fairly widespread in the UK.

I only have started hiring a tutor for my daughter for 1 hour a week after nearly 2 years French after school club and 2 years Italian she can say Bonjour and count 1-20 in Italian. I am worried its might be too late as she is nearly 8. I will learn the lesson for my second child and planning to start from 6 years old, might be singing, talking at first 6 months then start learning to write and read a little. I dont need them to be super good or havent thought of A-level or gcse yet more than have them can talk and communicate a little and read simple instruction why travelling

I think it is actually extremely difficult to immerse kids in a foreign language artificially if that makes sense. My DCs are bilingual English French because we speak English at home but they have always attended a French school (because we lived in France). When we moved to Germany they also spoke German and were in the German mother tongue section of their French school to my astonishment. Once we left Germany they quickly lost their German and in spite of my good intentions I found it extremely difficult to keep it up (though my daughter is now studying German and is effortlessly good at it). In my experience small DCs speak foreign languages because they find it useful to do so - to speak to someone they want to speak to (family, friends, childminder) or who they have to speak to (in my children's case teachers at school) once that requirement is removed they can't see the point. Keep the language up until they are a bit older and they might start to see the usefulness or even cleverness in speaking it, but at primary age they are essentially quite lazy so even if we'd had a German friend if the DCs had known that friend spoke English or French they would have used that language instead. Not sure what my point is really - I suppose that if a language club is fun then DCs might be motivated to learn, but actually bilingualism (or plurilingualism) is much harder than it looks and I can't see how it would work at all with Latin (or what would even be the point).

LilianG - completely agree and it's exactly what research shows. I recently went to a session on multilingualism in children, with a panel of various language specialists and researchers.
You summarised what I learned there perfectly - little children are pragmatic and would only learn (use) non-dominant language if there is a particular communication need -ie someone who they can't speak to w/o using that extra language. Once that need disappears, so would the language.

Later on, from about 10 (maybe younger for some kids) - they can consiously decide that they want to learn another language. And with some effort, they can get to be quite goodie they keep it up.

So people at the session were also asking the same question: 'our young kids minds is so open for languages now, shouldn't we start teaching him Chinese (or some other difficult language) as they would learn it easily now'

And the answer was - 'sure, you can, but not with one weekly session. You'll need a native speaker who would have regular ongoing contact with the child. You should find Chinese, etc. playgroups, and get books and cartoons, and create a language environment around the kids...'

I am raising two bi-lingual Dds, and maintaining a non-dominant second language is daily work.

Learning few MFL songs with a language teacher at 4 is next to useless, unless you create some other reason for your child to speak that language.

Latin at 4,... is there really a reason to comment on that... Lol

I agree wholeheartedly with the last two posts.

Yes, undoubtedly, learning other languages from the age of 2 (or whatever) does lovely things to the brain and makes us all dead clever forever etc etc.....but show me a child who started French at 3, and a child who started French at 11....give them to me at 13.

There will be no difference. (unless I cut their brains up apparently) In terms of the language they use, and the language they hold passively, there will be no difference.

I get very angry at the money grabbing organizations setting themselves up to feed (yet again) on parental insecurities, I live in a very small Italian town with 4 language schools (that I know of) I personally won't take any students under the age of 10. Waste of time for me and money for their parents.

Obviously, if we are talking about children who "want" to go to language class and play with language, fine. Let them do it. No harm done. But never expect that at 14 your child will be using that language any better than someone who has had a good teacher from the age of 11.

Living in a bilingual situation (as many of us do) is of course different. But I still have to sift through pseudo-friendship-offers (from Mums of course ) who invite dd round and then whinge that she spoke in Italian to the other kid. No shit Sherlock.

Well, we could argue about it all day!

In my country, everyone has to learn foreign language, as early as preschool(sing songs, playing games etc) then another language is desirable so I had to learn English and Japanese. Do we ever use it, not really until I came here for my studying and settling down here.

My children are bilingual, we speak our native language only among us, I follow the rule and ask them to as its so tempting to speak in English as they expose to 10 hours of English daily and I have to admit even their thinking is in English. My daughter although can read my native language books however writing isnt as good.

We go to France very often(easy, fast, quick trip and we have sone relatives here), I would like my children to speak French a little(not for an aim of gcse or anything at all(actually I am hoping if there is still foreign language required for gcse then I am hoping they will pick some other language). Once the kids are 10-11, I am hopping to leave them with my relatives in France for couple of weeks during holiday so they have more chance to practise. I still think its much easier and fun to learn language from young age(loads of singings, games etc)

What I would say to ThenLater is it depends how the language has been acquired. If at age 3 the child has been immersed in the language - spoken to by a parent, watching tv, nursery rhymes, reading, then gradually doing grammar, vocabulary, may be even literature etc (I was studying Moliere plays in French Lit at age 12, started learning at age 2) there is a high chance that by age 13 that child would know more of the language and be able to apply it and write/ read at a much higher standard than someone who starts out at 11.

Also surprised about the resistance of learning a difficult language at age 4 (Latin/ Mandarin take your pick). In my home country at that age kids are learning English + French + 1 Asian language (Mandarin or Hindi among a few other options- which they hardly will ever use since English is the official language and if they speak an ancestral language at home it is a dialect not the standard version taught in schools ). And that's in mainstream state-funded schools. Everybody does it. I mean they learn it the way kids learn English here- reading, writing, grammar, vocab the whole lot. And by age 10 they are fluent in all 3. Seriously. And I struggle to see how this is harmful...?!?!

Yep, indeed. The idea is to get a tutor along with books+ dvds. And eventually most probably either me or dh learning to support her.