Children and Languages

How Many Languages Do You Speak?

If you grew up like I did, you probably were not introduced to a foreign language until the middle school years when you around 12.  Sadly, the prime language learning time in our development was much younger.  So most of us, just settle to be monolingual.   Later we may have taken a foreign language in high school, but speaking for myself- I was far away from being bilingual.  In fact, I took 4 years of Latin…go figure!

What languages were available when you were in school (American or otherwise)?  In middle school (called Junior High back in those olden days) we had two mandatory choices.  We could take Spanish or French.   I opted for French, but not sure why.   Perhaps it was because most of my friends signed up for Spanish and I wanted to be different, perhaps viewed as more sophisticated.  Not sure.  Then in High School, we had the usual choices, and of course Latin and I think there was German available.   Later they added a Japanese elective.  I don’t know exactly how the language choices were determined.  My guess is that because we lived in North America—they speak Spanish down South and places in Canada speak French…other than that I don’t know.   Why did they offer Latin?   Why did I take it? Hmmm

What languages are relevant today?

More than 300 distinct languages other than English are now spoken in the United States. According to the U. S. Census Bureau's 2009 Statistical Abstract, those with the most native speakers in this country are Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, French, Vietnamese, German, and Korean (all with numbers of speakers in the millions), followed by Russian, Arabic, and Italian.

Other languages with large numbers of speakers (in no particular order) include Portuguese, French Creole, Yiddish, Greek, Polish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Navajo, Laotian, Thai, Hmong, Hindi, Urdu, and Serbo-Croatian.

What languages do you speak or desire to speak?

I have managed to finally learn Spanish, and can converse in French if I practice.   I would love to be fluent in several languages such as Chinese, Italian and I think it would very cool to be able to speak Mayan “Utz kin” to you!  Learning another language, as an adult can be daunting… the challenge is that we all have different learning styles; so there is not a one size fits all.  Personally, I did not really like the Rosetta Stone programs, but I love Michel Thomas… I have learned and strengthened language skills with his program.  I also use Pimsileur as a back up and for practice, but have settle on the Thomas method.

But those of you with young children with young developing brains… start now exposing them to languages.  I know a family in which the Dad is a native French speaker and the Mother among other languages speaks English.  To encourage their children to be multi-lingual Mom speaks English to the children, while Dad speaks French.   The children have come to recognize Mom’s language and Dad’s Language… even correcting them if parents accidently spoke in the wrong language.   Pretty amazing.

So you are monolingual—now what?

Exposure is the key… find opportunities for reading (looking at) foreign languages or watch or listen to media in other languages.  You probably won’t understand anything, but that’s OK.   Start by making it at least vaguely familiar.   Find children’s books in other languages—for fun, see if you can find books that are in multiple languages… curious children, may try to decipher the new language.  The idea here is to make other language use to feel normal… then let curiosity lead them.

Now in Chinese

Where do you find books in multiple languages?

Lunchpail Books is one example of site that offers fun books, that are not only easy to read, but are currently available in English, French, Italian, Spanish and Chinese.  Maybe this is one way to expose your beginner reader children’s books in multiple languages.