Year 2 French/English 6yr old do you add 3rd language?

[brigitte]

Hi everyone,
I have a Year 2 French/ English bilingual who reads French level beginning CE1 and was wondering what other parents do when it comes to education and languages. Do you keep French as a second language? or do you add 3rd language ie Spanish or else?. She wants to learn Spanish but I'm not sure as I don't want any confusion especially with French Grammar etc.

Any advice welcome
Thank you
B.

As she is already bilingual in French and English, I would give her the option to learn Spanish in school. She will probably pick it up quickly given her bilingualism.

My dd is bilingual German and English and learns French in school (Y4), which she finds relatively easy. I am hoping she can do her German GSCE through German Saturday School and continue French or Spanish in secondary school.

Why not? If she's motivated to learn then I'd let her. Better a language she's interested in than one that she's not but might be simpler to keep separate linguistically.

If she's picking up French from you or your DH/DP or is at a bilingual school then any confusion will be picked up on and ironed out.

Children generally do not get confused when learning different languages, especially when they are clearly separated e.g. one parent - one language or different subjects in school. I honestly wouldn't worry about the confusion aspect.

Mmm I wouldn't agree that there was generally no confusion, but it's generally resolved very simply if adults are modelling the correct form consistently.

Language mixing is part of normal bilingual development and rather clever when you think about it. Applying a grammatical structure or rule for conjugation in one language to the other is very normal, as is just substituting a word that isn't known in one language but is in another. One could argue that monolingual children 'language mix' as well by applying the rule for forming the past tense of regular verbs to irregular ones. Folded, ironed, cooked...bringed? They're just applying what they know but it sorts itself out.

DD1 took up a third language in 6eme. I think much before that is too early, and would be better to use the time on reading/writing practice in English.

She didn't have to do it, but we felt that she wasn't actually learning a foreign language, as her two languages aren't foreign to her.

Thanks to all for taking the time to answer me it will help in making a decision later.
Have a very Happy Xmas!!

My Bilingual English/French Year 1 6 yo dd already does one hour a week of Dutch. This will increase over time. Best time to learn languages imho.

My bilingual German/English dd (8) has been doing French at school since she was 6. She only have a couple of lessons a week but she seems to be enjoying it, and I think the German helps her (pronounciation as well as some of the grammar). I would let your dd learn Spanish as young as possible - agree with Pantofin that this is the best time to learn languages.

And just thinking about your point about them getting confused....dd is learning to read and write in French at school, and in English at home. She understands that the letters are pronounced differently and just learns them individually.

DD1 is trilingual, and is learning german on top 1 hours per day at school since she is 3.
At 6, she mixes a bit her 3 main languages (replacing some grammatical forms, or swapping words) but never German.

Try spanish, if she doesn't like it, stop and put her back on french.
Your DC might be really bored to go back to the beginning if she is already bilingual.
Does your school provide a more advance level where your DD won't be the only 6 yo stuck with teenagers?

Usually IME they like learning new languages when they are young, it fades out later on.

My dd (aged 7) is learning two languages at school (submersion as opposed to immersion method). In addition, she speaks English with us at home.

The school recommends introducing language number two (or in this case three) only when basic (but fairly fluent) speaking, reading and writing in language no.1 has been properly established.

If your daughter wants to try it, then I can't see any reason why you'd not do it. Our daughter grew up trilingually up to 4 years old (2 languages at home plus societal language). The closest bilingual school to us is in a 4th language, so we started her there. Now nearly 8, she can comfortably hold a conversation in all 4 languages, despite the obvious vocab gaps in some of them.