What is the perfect age for a kid to start learning another language?

Answer 1

At birth. When children are born, they are born with the ability to form any sound made by any human, regardless of the language. As they mature they lose what they don't use. Children can learn at any age as long as they are immersed in the language.

Answer 2

2

Answer 3

3

Answer 4

I'd start when the child is about two to three years old. At this age, they've had time to assimilate their primary language and their regional accent has taken hold so they are less likely to get the lanuages mixed up.

Learning from birth is only good if the child is in a household where two lanuages are being spoken. I know kids who have learnt another language very young and ended up with an accent that was a bit skewered resulting in a bit of teasing when they attended school.

Answer 5

The earlier the better. A child feels and hears all even in the womb. Being a bilingual special education teacher has given be the knowledge based on research that children should start at birth with the integration of another language. Research shows that the older the child/young adult/adult is, the more difficult it is to acquire another language.

Answer 6

Before they even learn to talk. I have a nephew who could not speak (native language) though he had reached the age that kids are expected to start producing audible words. His mom tried English and now the boy speaks English and it was easier for him to start pronouncing native language words.

Kids with less that 2 years grasp anything an everything that you teach them so you want to start then. I've seen Indian kids less than 3 or even 2 years speaking my native language (which is an african language by the way) English and their parents native language (one of the indian languages) without difficulty.

Answer 7

ages 3-10 is considered the 'sensitive period' for learning language (including a foreign language)...HOWEVER, exposure to the sounds that other languages make that English does not should begin at birth.

Playing tapes and videos are going to have little effect compared to real life interaction with another human. If you don't speak the language you want your child to learn...then you should become involved with people who do. Participate in play groups where the predoment language is Spanish is Korean (or whatever language)-you can talk to the other parents about your desire to teach your child that language and they may volunteer to sing songs and nursery rhymes to your baby in their native tongue.

Attend a Spanish (or whatever language) speaking church...you may not understand a word that is being said-but somebody there will speak English and introduce you and your child around.

When we have kids, we want them to learn Spanish-but neither one of us speaks it, so I am always going over ideas on how to expose children to the language I wish them to learn.

That's all I can think of...but your best bet is to learn the language with the child if you don't already speak it. Of course, your child will be speaking better than you eventually...LOL

Answer 8

I would say as soon as they're born they should be exposed to the language. Babies learn to speak a language through hearing it.

I knew a family who moved to Mexico. The parents had to learn to speak Spanish. While there, they had another baby girl. The baby has grown up hearing Spanish spoken in the household and she now can speak better Spanish than English despite being fully American.

Answer 9

Well first the kid should be quite fluent in his/her own mother tongue before venturing into learning another language but as always the early bird catches the worm because the brain's capacity to memorise is very high when a person is small but it reduces as the person gets older...

Answer 10

Birth.