Three languages - insane idea?

[Kinsa]

My eldest children are in level 5 of Hey, Andrew Greek and are about done with Latina Christiana II...

Would it be completely crazy to add in Hebrew? I have my eye on this: http://www.hebrewworld.com/html_folder/lih.html

[KAR120C]

My eldest children are in level 5 of Hey, Andrew Greek and are about done with Latina Christiana II...

Would it be completely crazy to add in Hebrew? I have my eye on this: http://www.hebrewworld.com/html_folder/lih.html
Sorry -- I can't resist, anytime someone asks if they're crazy... :D

We're doing three right now and it's a little nuts, but in a flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants way, not a drowning in quicksand way... DS has done Spanish for a few years and added Latin this year, and we've dabbled very lightly in Ukrainian (the grandparents) and decided about a month ago to drop that in favor of more formal study of Russian.

So far we're doing a lot of reading in Spanish and Latin and only handwriting in Russian (wanting to solidify the Cyrillic alphabet before jumping in headfirst).

So my advice (with the barest sliver of experience here to back it up) is if you add Hebrew, start small and add to it in tiny bits. In our case if DS never gets past the alphabet I can at least say the practice has helped his handwriting. ;)

[Kinsa]

Thanks, Erica. :)

I don't even know if we would get very in-depth with it or not. I was just thinking of maybe trying it out and seeing how it goes.

<sigh> There just aren't enough hours in the day to do everything that I want to do! <LOL>

[Mama Lynx]

But I think it's a fine idea ;-)

We've done a few years of Latin, here. We're about to add Greek, and plan to do Spanish (or German) as well.

Sheesh, I can spell "you're." Really.

[Closeacademy]

I don't think it is crazy at all. In fact, the Bluedorns in their book Teaching the Trivum recommend doing just as you are planning. Personally, we have dabbled in Spanish since my oldest was 3, we've done the Greek Alphabet, are doing Minimus Latin right now and plan to pick up Greek again after we've gotten a couple of years of Latin under our belts.

Go for it!:)

[Tonia]

Well, I will be crazy with you :p - dd will be learning French (we live in Quebec, after all ;) ) and I want to do Latin and Greek, as well. But this will be in the distant future. . . . so I'll wait and see if you are crazy to attempt it first!

[claire at home]

Only in America is it insane! We lived in the Middle East for three years while DH was finishing grad school and our good friends there (the mother was Czech, the father from South Africa) spoke at least three! The mother spoke to the children in Czech, the father in English and they all went to school in Hebrew.
We are doing Hebrew with now with our oldest and plan to start Latin and I hope they will move on to French or Spanish in high shool. If DH has his way I'm sure Greek will be thrown in there somewhere too!
I say go for it! Children's minds are amazingly absorbent at this young age. If they hate it, you can always stop.

claire

[pixelroper]

If your children like languages- not crazy.
If you are good with languages- not crazy.

For me- dd(8) loves languages- me...I'm a little crazy.
she is doing LCII, Elementary Greek I, Powerglide Spanish Elem. and a little French. I'm the not so hot at language one thus a little crazy (already was though), you'll know if it is too much. I find it is a time balance issue.

[LindaOz]

I was looking at some of the timetables for the Charlotte Mason schools and, at one stage, the students were doing four languages: Latin, French, German and Italian. Go for it!

[Laura Corin]

So far my boys are doing two languages each (Calvin - Mandarin and Latin; Hobbes - Mandarin and Greek, and yes, he chose to learn a third script). Hobbes will add Latin in a couple of years and both will add French in middle school.

I would say that it's better to learn one language well than to dabble in many (which is the reason we haven't started French yet) but if you have the time I think it's great.

Laura

[ELaurie]

are you primarily interested in modern Hebrew or Biblical Hebrew?

Do you have any knowledge of Hebrew yourself?

(I'm plannning something similar, and yes, it's crazy : )

[Verena]

My eldest children are in level 5 of Hey, Andrew Greek and are about done with Latina Christiana II...

Would it be completely crazy to add in Hebrew? I have my eye on this: http://www.hebrewworld.com/html_folder/lih.html


It's just.. more work :D

Back when I was in school, I learned 3 languages (Engl., Latin, French)- so it can be done.

[Friederike in Persia]

my children have 4, but be aware that Hebrew is a semitic language and not that easy. I've dabbled some with it and whereas it's a lot easier than Arabic, it's still a totally different language family.
What about an indo-germanian one, like French, German, Spanish,....?

[CleoQc]

Well, DS is doing English (ESL), Latin and Greek. Plus French, of course, his main language. We're thinking about adding Spanish but he wants Mandarin.

We used to live on a very multi cultural street, and DS looked dumb compared to those kids! At the time, DS was only speaking French. The other kids had 3 or 4 languages under their belt. We're talking 6yos here...And they were fluent in those languages!

[Heather in Canada]

Dd is in Henle Unit 1 (started latin in grade 2), we've done 3 years of French, although we've presently fallen off the wagon, planning to get back on, she's always spoken some German, since her father is German and her grandparents speak no English (she plays with Rosetta Stone German), and next year, I'm going to start with Greek.
This is the age to do it. Little kids pick up languages so much easier.

I can't comment on the Hebrew; I understand it's harder. But the Bluedorns say it can be done!

[Sasha]

I don't think it's crazy at all. All three of my kids (ages 8, 6, and 4) are learning Russian and German, while the oldest is also learning Latin. For awhile she was working on Greek but she chose to drop it for awhile.

[Rosie_0801]

In Sweden, even the deaf kids come out trilingual at the very least. You're not crazy :)
Rosie

[autumndivona]

Not crazy at all. We are doing Latin, so we have a basis for the Romance Languages, French and Italian (this third language to be started in the middle or toward the end of our 1st grade year).

[sagira]

I am originally from another country, where we speak Papiamento as our main language. I speak that to my ds, but increasingly English as we "officially" hs. In our little school, I'll be teaching Spanish (which I speak) and Latin. This would be three languages already. I don't know if we will be adding Italian or French to the mix in the middle grades. As you can see, we are sticking to the Romance languages.

More power to you!

Carolyn

[Cadam]

If I recall you have a very LCC style so I don't think a third language is a problem. Just remember to go deep, not wide. My oldest will only do English, Latin and a modern language but my younger ones (I hope) will do English, Latin, Biblical Greek or Hebrew and one of their choice.

[momof3gifts]

For those who are doing a bunch of languages how much time do you devote to them? Do you study them 5x/week? My son is doing Henle Latin --he is going into his 3rd year of Latin. He started to add Greek in last year but we just couldn't keep it going. We'd like to add it again but I don't want it to drop off again. We will add Spanish in high school.

I'd love to hear how it all works in your households. I can't even imagine adding Hebrew but like one of the above posters I am not good at languages.

[sailmom]

I don't think it's crazy either. We do Latin, Greek and Farsi (with the assistance of my dear Persian sister-in-law!)

[matroyshka]

We're probably the odd ones out in that none of the languages we're learning is ancient, but my kids have been learning German and Spanish since pre-K and 1st, and they just took a class in Mandarin Chinese (not sure if they'll continue with the latter, but I just think they might, since they were picking it up pretty quickly, and thought it was a lot of fun!)

I think languages, once you get the hang of a second, each incremental language is easier. JMHO.

[Renai]

Looks like we're all in good company- of one another! We hs bilingually in English and Spanish, and learning German and Japanese. So, matroyshka, you're not the only one not learning an ancient language.

[KAR120C]

For those who are doing a bunch of languages how much time do you devote to them? Do you study them 5x/week?
And again (as above) we've only just stuck our toes in with the third language.... But we do hit each of them 5x/week, as much as possible. I aim for 30 minutes each per day, so it does add a bunch of time to our day, but I try to make sure it's different kinds of work, so it's not like an extra 90 minutes of straight writing, for instance....

Our Latin is Lingua Latina, and the 30 minutes is mainly reading (and re-reading, and re-reading... and listening to the CD), with a little bit of writing answers to questions in the exercises. Spanish we're doing more listening (Pimsleur) and only a little reading, so that's either on CD in the car or on his MP3 player. Russian is currently only copywork (cursive, to learn the letters), and it's currently taking the place of his English copywork, although that won't be true once we start up full time again in September.

It is a little nuts ;) But language is a high priority in our house, and worth the effort.

[Saille]

I'll be a fly on the wall. Everybody at my house is doing Latin right now, but I'm buying Song School Greek as soon as it comes out, and will add it to my oldest's studies next year. We'll eventually add a third language, but I vacillate between Mandarin and Spanish.

(My oldest would happily take up Mandarin, as all the good dinosaur finds lately are in the Liaoning Province in China.) :)

[Laura Corin]

For those who are doing a bunch of languages how much time do you devote to them?

Our main language is Mandarin. Hobbes probably does half an hour a day, plus a class once a week, and (up to now) daily casual practice. Calvin has had two hours of classes a week, with half an hour of practice every remaining week day. I'm not sure how that will change in Scotland.

Calvin does about 2 1/2 hours of Latin a week, up from 1 1/2 hours until recently. Hobbes does half an hour of Greek a week, but we are increasing that to one hour in the autumn. When he is nine, he will start on 1 1/2 hours of Latin a week, and I hope that Greek might fade out. If not, I'll keep it going at one hour a week.

In January (or whenever we are settled into our new house) we will start French with both. My current thought is to do half an hour a day with each (Galore Park French), with no homework, but I don't know if that will work.

Laura

[camibami]

We'll be adding Latin and Korean to our Spanish next year. I would like to drop Spanish, frankly, but my oldest enjoys it, so...

I speak Korean, and we are moving to Korea next spring, so the main focus will be on it. Next Latin, for the root word possibilities- spoken Latin is not my focus/concern at all. I expect once *in* Korea we will focus more on Spanish/Latin since I plan to enroll them in art, gymnastics and swimming taught in Korean, and they will be picking it up pretty quickly on their own at that point.

I do feel like its crazy, though, so no help there!

[momof3gifts]

And again (as above) we've only just stuck our toes in with the third language.... But we do hit each of them 5x/week, as much as possible. I aim for 30 minutes each per day, so it does add a bunch of time to our day, but I try to make sure it's different kinds of work, so it's not like an extra 90 minutes of straight writing, for instance....
It is a little nuts ;) But language is a high priority in our house, and worth the effort.

I always figured we'd need about 30 min. per language per day and that does seem like a huge chunk. Do you do less science or something? I don't want that to sound like a judgement at all. Science topics are so naturally interesting that sometimes I wonder if my kids learn enough from their general reading, being in the world and watching discovery channel etc.

I may try to add another language sooner than I thought. Everyone here is inspiring me. :001_smile:

[KAR120C]

I always figured we'd need about 30 min. per language per day and that does seem like a huge chunk. Do you do less science or something? I don't want that to sound like a judgement at all. Science topics are so naturally interesting that sometimes I wonder if my kids learn enough from their general reading, being in the world and watching discovery channel etc.

I may try to add another language sooner than I thought. Everyone here is inspiring me. :001_smile:
We don't actually cut back on anything else... in fact we do excessive amounts of science too... but we do school year-round, which helps us keep up.

One thing that I do is to let the language work double as something else where appropriate. If he's writing a lot for language, he isn't doing a ton of other writing at the same time (penmanship or spelling or composition). Same with grammar -- we use foreign language grammar as an occasion to discuss English grammar, so our formal study of English grammar outside of that has been light, so far.

Also some of the language work can take place in otherwise-unused time, like Pimsleur can be done in the car, or anywhere there's a CD player while he's doing something else (putting away laundry...), and reading Latin along with the CD can be done in the car or on the bus with headphones.

So my "basic" day (tweaked for whatever else is going on) has one hour science, one hour math, one hour history and one hour literature/comp, and then I have two hours of language on the schedule, figuring that the time will actually get scattered throughout the day and come out around 30 minutes per language with a little extra cushion in there for changing gears... and then we have about two hours a day for "other" -- flute practice, reading time, phys. ed, chores..... So that comes out to eight hours total but includes absolutely everything (like what would be considered "homework" if he were in PS).... So just a little nuts... ;)

[oceandaughter]

Four here:
Italian (still searching for a curriculum, currently using Learn Italian in your Car for Kids)
Latin (Lively Latin)
Welsh (free Learn Welsh Podcast, we LOVE it!)
American Sign Language (I know a bit of this so I just use it in real life with them, plus Signing Time and Instant Immersion ASL, but I will eventually after the first of the year use A Basic Course in ASL)

Most of this is with my older son. My younger son doesn't do Latin. But my younger does listen to Italian and Welsh with us and he is the main one who loves Signing time (he says the ST lady sings better than me, should I be jealous? :lol:)

Boom, boom! Ain't it great to be crazy?

[nmoira]

but we do school year-round, which helps us keep up.We're only doing two languages right now, but DD wants to add a third soon. I'm not sure we could do it if we weren't schooling year round. We still keep days short, but about two hours of our three hour day are devoted to history (one hour read-aloud) and languages. A third language will add another half hour to our day.

[momof3gifts]

We don't actually cut back on anything else... in fact we do excessive amounts of science too... but we do school year-round, which helps us keep up.

One thing that I do is to let the language work double as something else where appropriate. If he's writing a lot for language, he isn't doing a ton of other writing at the same time (penmanship or spelling or composition). Same with grammar -- we use foreign language grammar as an occasion to discuss English grammar, so our formal study of English grammar outside of that has been light, so far.

Also some of the language work can take place in otherwise-unused time, like Pimsleur can be done in the car, or anywhere there's a CD player while he's doing something else (putting away laundry...), and reading Latin along with the CD can be done in the car or on the bus with headphones.

So my "basic" day (tweaked for whatever else is going on) has one hour science, one hour math, one hour history and one hour literature/comp, and then I have two hours of language on the schedule, figuring that the time will actually get scattered throughout the day and come out around 30 minutes per language with a little extra cushion in there for changing gears... and then we have about two hours a day for "other" -- flute practice, reading time, phys. ed, chores..... So that comes out to eight hours total but includes absolutely everything (like what would be considered "homework" if he were in PS).... So just a little nuts... ;)
That does sound busy but still pretty doable. I will have to think on it. I would prefer to keep our day down to about 5-6 hrs that feel like direct learning. I want them to still have time to explore etc. i haven't been able to move to year round school-- I need to get my dh behind me. Then maybe it would work. Do you have shorter days in the summer? Do alternate some days?

Thanks for sharing how it works in your family.

[Anne/Ankara]

We've studied Latin, Turkish and French, so you're in good company! Go for it. You may find that after learning one language, the others come more easily, at least that was true for us.

[KAR120C]

That does sound busy but still pretty doable. I will have to think on it. I would prefer to keep our day down to about 5-6 hrs that feel like direct learning. I want them to still have time to explore etc. i haven't been able to move to year round school-- I need to get my dh behind me. Then maybe it would work. Do you have shorter days in the summer? Do alternate some days?

Thanks for sharing how it works in your family.
Definitely shorter in the summer, and there's usually at least a half day in each week (year round) that is just dropped altogether... either outside stuff or field trip, or something. So that basic day would go for about four days a week and the fifth is more hit-or-miss...

DS and I both do much better with a structured day, so we've put our flexibility in the planning end -- he chooses a lot of what we do. That way when it comes to day-to-day work, it is pretty directed, but it's almost all stuff he's chosen himself. Almost. ;) In the language area, Spanish is my requirement and Latin and Russian he asked for.

[Mama Lynx]

My current plan for my rising 7th grader: he's been doing Latin every day. Ideally I'd like to continue that, having him do Latin for 30-45 minutes a day or so. Our Elementary Greek lessons are short, usually about 15 minutes a day. On top of that we plan to add Spanish, for about 30 minutes a day.

If this proves to be too much, I'll probably alternate the days we do Latin and Spanish. For instance perhaps on the Spanish lesson days, he can review our chapter in Lingua Latina, and on the Latin lesson days he can read over the Spanish chapter.

[Peela]

I was looking at some of the timetables for the Charlotte Mason schools and, at one stage, the students were doing four languages: Latin, French, German and Italian. Go for it!

I have been reading this too....and Latin would be to the point they could translate Caesar's Gallic Wars or something like that (remembering Latin was needed to get into university back in CM's time). French would be to the point of being quite fluent, understandably, with France just across the channel. The German and Italian however would be more just learning some phrases/vocab so that they could "get by" if they travelled, so more "exposure' I think. That's the impression I got, anyway.

I am doing two languages, Latin and French, and what I am realising is that by doing two, I am diluting how far we can get in each, per year. In other words, by splitting the weekly time we have for languages to two languages, we move more slowly with both than if we were to just study one in that same daily time. I love languages, but I wouldn't do a third (and I have seriously considered Greek and we did play with the alphabet) for the simple reason I would rather do two well than 3 less well- but my kids are 12 and 14 and our time is feeling very precious. I may think differently if they were still much younger.

[momof3gifts]

I have been reading this too....and Latin would be to the point they could translate Caesar's Gallic Wars or something like that (remembering Latin was needed to get into university back in CM's time). French would be to the point of being quite fluent, understandably, with France just across the channel. The German and Italian however would be more just learning some phrases/vocab so that they could "get by" if they travelled, so more "exposure' I think. That's the impression I got, anyway.

I am doing two languages, Latin and French, and what I am realising is that by doing two, I am diluting how far we can get in each, per year. In other words, by splitting the weekly time we have for languages to two languages, we move more slowly with both than if we were to just study one in that same daily time. I love languages, but I wouldn't do a third (and I have seriously considered Greek and we did play with the alphabet) for the simple reason I would rather do two well than 3 less well- but my kids are 12 and 14 and our time is feeling very precious. I may think differently if they were still much younger.

:iagree: That was a fear I had as well--the diluting the current languages. It is good to think about where we want to end up and how long it will take us to get there. Thanks for the perspective on the multiple languages.

[laylamcb]

Of course I've never done it, but I'm planning to (Latin, Ancient Greek, French, and any other language that they choose to pursue themselves), so I'm going to say that it's a GREAT idea! ;)

The other day this is what my 4yo sang:

La mer bleue, le sable chaud, et les batteaux qui flottent on the water, c'est beau! Me gusta la playa!

Hmmmm.... Ah well, it'll all come out right in the end! :001_smile: