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I want my toddler to have a second language

29 replies

littlemartian · 05/03/2010 12:06

Hi all,

I'm new on here so please give me a bit of leeway if I don't know the jargon!

I have a 19 month old son who is just learning to talk (he knows look!, uh-oh, oh dear, and where is it?) and I really want him to have a second language. I learned very basic Italian from when I had an Italian boyfriend years ago and from that experience I realised that life can be really enriched by speaking a second language. My parents speak a niche Indian language and never bothered to pass it on to us and I really wish they had. I want to give my son this gift and the only way I can think is to send him to a French(/other language) school.

Are there any in North London? How can find out? Google searches so far have proved fruitless.

A friend of mine was sent to a the French Lycee school in South Kensington but that is way too far for me. I live in Highgate.

Oh and sadly my Italian is very bad now. I understand much more than I can actually speak anymore.

OP posts:
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BessieBoots · 05/03/2010 12:08

Just want to say go for it! My DCs speak fluent Welsh and English, it's great.

littlemartian · 05/03/2010 12:11

I really want to! I just don't know how to go about it! If only I had married someone with another language - argh!!! (wink)

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littlemartian · 05/03/2010 12:12

(got it!!!)

OP posts:
belgo · 05/03/2010 12:14

Move abroad

BessieBoots · 05/03/2010 12:14

Are those Muzzy courses any good I wonder?

I'd quite like my DCs to learn French, too (along with me). Apparently if you can speak more than one language as a child it's easier to pick up more later...

littlemartian · 05/03/2010 12:37

...and it actually gives you a different way of viewing certain things.. I realised this when I was learning Italian. The origins of the words used to talk about a certain thing often reflected the culture, something we don't really have in English. I can see how knowing other languages could make a child think more creatively.

There seem to be so many advantages.

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cranbury · 07/03/2010 19:26

Agree with Belgo move abroad or spend all school holidays abroad, or get a divorce and find a foreign speaking partner who only speaks that language to your child. Otherwise you are wasting your money IMO if you don't speak the language you are teaching him at his age.

TiggyD · 07/03/2010 23:58

Cranbury is very right. An hour lesson a week won't work. Italian inside the home and English outside the home would work as it's easier for a child to grasp which words go with which language.

littlemartian · 09/03/2010 22:08

I like the idea of English at home and French/Italian/Spanish at school. A friend of mine did all her lessons in French from age 5 and it fluent now (and picks up other languages very easily). Anyone know of any school like this in North London? She went to Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle in South Ken - too far for me...

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AnnaSergeyevna · 02/05/2010 22:03

There is a spanish nursery and french school in Kentish Town, which is not too far from Highgate.
Failing that get a nanny / au-pair who's english is not very good

MIFLAW · 11/05/2010 15:29

You do not have an ice cube's chance in hell with the lycee unless you put your child in the English-language stream which perhaps defeats the object. The French stream is very much focussed on French nationals. Do look into it though.

There are cases of people with really quite average foreign language capabilities bringing their children up as bilingual in that language. "Bringing up baby bilingual" is a key book on this one, though I find the woman who writes it a bit annoying, but it's certainly v encouraging to people in your situation. But obviously that would be for Italian in your case.

Happy to discuss further if useful. Also, try posting in the "language/bilingualism" section for mor focussed advice.

Sean

FrakkedUpTheElection · 11/05/2010 15:34

What about an au pair or nanny who speaks your target language?

Agree with MIFLAW re lycée. Even French nationals find it tough!

I don't rate Muzzy FWIW, bessie.

claricebean · 11/05/2010 15:41

We moved abroad in order to bring up our DC bilingually. It's a fairly drastic option but, as you say, so many advantages.

Melfish · 11/05/2010 15:45

Little Martian- do your parents live nearby? My mum is from the far east and although I learnt her language when I was little I have since forgotten it (she was told by my school to speak to me in English otherwise I'd get confused ) but she is now teaching my dd (aged 2) now and we get the odd Indonesian word being used by DD in conversation. I know it's not a European language, but any language is useful, no matter how obscure it is.

MIFLAW · 11/05/2010 16:53

Deffo agree with Melfish - practicality aside, the intellectual and developmental benefits of learning another language are the same regardless of the language.

So French or Italian may have more of a cachet among the mums at Monkey Music, but Cherokee or Bantu will be just as good in terms of the improved creativity and conceptualisation.

DomesticG0ddess · 13/05/2010 14:37

I REALLY want DS to learn another language too, preferably Italian as we have Italian friends with a DD exactly the same age. However, over the years DH and I have failed miserably to learn the language, despite several evening courses, due to generally being too damn busy. And we don't live in London anymore so there are no Italian kiddy things round here. I have seen a Muzzy DVD - it did not look very appealing. I wouldn't want him to go to a specific language school, but I would like him to have lessons. Agree with Melfish too - an ability to learn any other language at that age makes it easier for them to learn other languages as they get older.

MIFLAW · 17/05/2010 10:45

Have to add a word of warning that "teaching" your child another language at this age is entirely different to bringing him or her up bilingually and has entirely different issues around it. Nor are the benefits anywhere near as well reserached or documented, AFAIK.

yanyan · 17/05/2010 10:56

Just a thought maybe you can get together with other mums who would like to have their kids learn another language and hire someone to teach a group of you. At a young age I don't you needed someone of Phd standard to teach maybe just someone who speaks with a native tongue, and has a good higher education standard. French and Italian are popular. You can even go for more difficult ones like Chinese and Arabic. Children pick up things so easily the world is their oyster...

MIFLAW · 17/05/2010 11:28

"French and Italian are popular. You can even go for more difficult ones like Chinese and Arabic."

LOVING the idea that French is easy!

FrakkedUpTheElection · 17/05/2010 15:48

If French is easy then I hate to think how I would fare with Chinese. Arabic on the other hand I found a lot easier once I got past the inital gobbledegook phase.

French has more layers than the bloody onions they're so fond of.

[Have had a bad day dealing with snooty French administrators who keep saying 'oh well it doesn't actually say that, it says this which is oh-so-subtly different]

MIFLAW · 17/05/2010 16:55

Ah, French and bureaucracy - what a match made in heaven!

yanyan · 17/05/2010 17:27

Just to be a correct miss so and so...I did say popular languages French/italian not easy languages. Comparatively you are saying that Chinese or Arabic is on par with learning latin base European language...I think not! Small children have a fantastic compacity for learning languages I say just let them expand their horizons.

MIFLAW · 17/05/2010 17:41

I am saying that, alphabet aside, I would be interested to know the basis on which you say Arabic is more difficult than French.

And, again stripping out the writing system, I would be interested in hearing your thinking on Chinese too, actually. I mean, the tonal system might make it difficult for an adult learner whose phonemic system is already fixed - but that wouldn't necessarily apply to a child. So what particular difficulty are you thinking of?

French is a very complex and unpredictable language and not even that easy to pronounce, actually. (Like English in that respect.) It is a common misconception that it is easy because it is so widely taught.

Italian, on the other hand, actually IS pretty easy (I think) and so is Spanish.

FrakkedUpTheElection · 17/05/2010 19:16

The latin base argument only works if you're coming from another latin language and even then there are major 'faux ami' pitfalls.

I don't think for a child any one language is 'more difficult' than another. And I maintain that once you have a basic grasp of spoken Arabic it's no more difficult than any other language to build in and us more logical than some.

FrakkedUpTheElection · 17/05/2010 19:18

Or even build on.