Supporting a linguist / wordsmith child

[growingrowinggone]

Please help me if you have any knowledge or experience.

I have a child of 8 years old who loves languages, appears to be pretty good at them (remember words, structuring sentences). She goes online and finds cartoony videos on the languages she wants to learn and just gets on with it.

The only thing is I can speak only one language and was never amazing at languages. I got an A for GCSE but my word I tried my hardest and Ieft it there at 16!

I have no idea how to support her. I am not poor, but I also have 3 other children so I don't have unlimited money.

Please help me with thoughts on how to support such a mind as hers? I thinking about getting her a weekly talking partner online in another country so it's cheaper than UK prices. I can't afford the immersive type holiday clubs. Is Duolingo (and other offerings) any good?

Any help would be great. I feel so bad that she doesn't have a bilingual parent, it's like she was meant to have one and got me!!!

Hello, I have one of these dc:) We have Duolingo, they can access a variety of different tv shows in other languages on YouTube and they learn a language out of school. We were lucky to find this as a group learning option though, as we can’t afford one to one tuition. Lots of areas have French clubs, Spanish clubs etc primarily for children of native speakers. Secondary school offers more opportunities!
Depending on where you live obviously, you might find a larger private/public school offers community access to resources.
Quite honestly I found it best at that age just to let them get on with their own investigations and provide books etc. You can buy other language versions of stories they will know like fairy tales etc. CGP etc do good study guides.

Try Italki which is an online language teaching tool. You can get access to different teachers from all over the world who charge different prices so you are bound to find a tutor who suits your budget ,
They even offer trials at cheap prices to give the learner the opportunity to try different tutors,
My dd has started French conversation lessons and we pay £10 for thirty five minutes with a native French speaker
At your dd’s age I would just get her to watch cartoons / programmes in the language she is interested in
Continue to encourage her
Learning another language is just wonderful

Thank you so much,

Yes, more of those cartoons that she loves so much.

i also think I should start learning one of the languages to support her....

My DD got keen on learning French aged about 6-7 after a holiday, so we found her a children's French language group, which she loved from the start, and still does now aged 14. It's just half an hour per week, and it switched to online after Covid which she was still happy with and is really convenient as she just logs on herself.

It is much less expensive than music lessons, and the teacher is a native French speaker so DD now has a lovely southern French accent, which surprises her school teachers!

DD is still very keen on languages and has chosen both languages offered at her school as GCSE options and has been learning a third language on Duolingo. She's considering studying languages at A-level and possibly university.

Your DD might enjoy the challenges on the UK Linguistics Olympiad: www.uklo.org/

Oh thank you so much!

What a lovely journey you and your daughter have been on!

Have a look at the Linguistics Olympiad once she gets to secondary school. Some schools take part in it but there are some resources online to download too.

Also, a very simple suggestion but using subtitles in the other language (or alternatively putting the audio in the other language with English subtitles) on e.g. Netflix for things you watch together could make it a shared experience.

I was that child !
I'm 58 now and my dad started teaching me Italian from an early age, about 8 or 9 I was.
He was neither a teacher nor Italian - in fact, he left school at 14. But he was very clever, a book worm and self - taught.
From there, we studied Spanish. We weren't rich (typical working class) and holidayed in Benidorm, where we explored the language together and its similarities to Italian.
I would say his interest in Romance languages and showing me how they're connected was the most valuable thing he did - when I went to Grammar school, Latin, French and Italian just came easy.
I did O level Spanish in one year, and 3 A level languages and a further language for my degree.
Obviously 50 years ago, we didn't have Duolingo, but I remember comics and books in other languages.
Overall, I would say his interest and involvement was most valuable ( I'm one of 4 and the others weren't interested, so he probably enjoyed having a side - kick).
The best memories ❤️