Would you teach your children an additional language when they are young?

Answer 1

The birth language needs to be learned between 1--6. A second can be learned at the same time with positive benefits, but on has to be dominant. Yes, you can and should start a second language after 6, for bi-cultural and bilingual benefits. A third would be learned later on for professional purposes; but the choice of that second language is hard. If it's not naturally there in the family, or a natural choice it can be a hard decision.

I wanted to study ancient Greek in HS; there was no such course, and my life has been harmed by this for forty-five years.
So I've studied the science and application of language. I have some Spanish, less French and a little Hungarian; but I a a scientists of language with an ES certification and a great writer of prose, verse and poetry.
And I owe it all to thinking about language outside the box of colloquial half-understood street and class English.
I also mastered scientific classificatory or categorizing definitions, defining according to the 5-6 prioritized main working parts or anything. Instead of appearances.
It's made me what I am today--miles ahead of other thinkers, confident, honest, tolerant of other people--and an outcast in a sick society run by god-playing bosses and bigots thinking like seven-years-olds.
I wouldn't have missed a minute of it.

Answer 2

The human brain is a trcky little thing that requires the right time in order to use it the fullest. that being said langueage development is one of the most critical.

By age 3-4 the brain has developed alomost every sound a person will ever be able to make naturally (meaning authentically and without extra effort)

If the brain has never been given a sound, it will not include it in the catalog. This comes into play in many foriegn languages becuase the phonetics are so different and if a sound is not produced properly it may change the word being said. this is the same reason why many people who have learned English later in life have a mastery of usage but not pronounciation.

The way to ensure that the sound is included in the brain's storage for later is to expose your very young child to different labguages on a regular basis. That can be done through music, even television, and just being around native speakers. If you can speak any other languages by all means use them, even if it is not perfect, the child can work on grammar later, nobody learns proper grammar before they learn a language, especially when they are young and just learning how to use their language.

As an added benefit, recent brain research has shown that people who knew a second language (even if not fluent, but just vocabulary) had a better recovery of speech after brain injuries and strokes that affected the language area of the brain. Why? Becuase a second language is essentially stored in a different "folder" and not usually with the primary language. That has given the patients a better ability to recall vacbulary that otherwisw may have been completely lost.

Answer 3

Yes, I would, because it's so much easier for them to learn a new language when they are younger. When they get older and have to take a foreign language in high school, it's much harder for them to absorb the language in the manner that they can while they are still young.

Answer 4

yes... i can speak 5 languages, i learned 3 before school,
well i dont belong to European area. Most of people in may area can speak 2+ languages. & i also plan to do same with my kids, as i m fluent in one language & my husband is fluent in another language & we communicate in a third language., easy to teach 3 languages at home ;)

Answer 5

There's plenty of proof that kids who gain knowledge of multiple language have extra cognitive capabilities. But the opposite responder is proper- you cannot simply educate a youngster languages. There ought to be men and women round who use the ones languages with the youngster most commonly.

Answer 6

My wife and I both speak two languages ... from the day we met, both her native language and mine. When our children came, they were exposed to two languages, my wife's native language and mine. We have lots of cute stories like when the older girl was almost 2 and said she wanted eggs in my wife's language meant she wanted eggs the way my wife cooked them, or in my language, the way I cooked them. They took a little longer to be able to speak, but they spoke both languages quite well and without much vocabulary mixing.

Answer 7

Yes, I would. Do it with games and songs and make it fun.
It is going to be compulsory for all primary school children in England to learn a Modern Forign Language in 2010.

Answer 8

Yes, hopefully two. I want to live in Europe... but I'm not sure where. But when I am there, they have to learn the native language and they are of course going to learn English because that is my native language...

Answer 9

I wouldn't "teach" them one, but I speak to them in a different language from the language their father speaks to them in, which is different again from the language used at school, which in turn is a standard version of the dialect they speak with their friends. Works for us.

Answer 10

Definately. I would want my children to have an idea of the culture that their anscestors came from. Additionally, the ideal age to learn languages is before age 5, so I would want them to take advantage of that.