Latin vs. Spanish as 1st lang for K & 2nd?

[momishome]

Hi everyone --

I am determined to really start a foreign language with my daughters this upcoming school year. (We played around with Spanish this year, nothing serious, just a little vocabulary.)

My question -- should we do Spanish or Latin? I know that classical education experts always push Latin and I'd like to know why. I've heard it helps with English grammar, it helps train your mind to think harder, etc. -- but why would I want to do it first, before another language?

I posted this on another forum and received lots of pro-Spanish opinions. They also suggested I come here to get some pro-Latin arguments. SO .. anyone out there who is just SOLD on doing Latin first? Or have any of you had this dilemma yourself and chosen Latin? Why?

BTW, I'm very comfortable - not fluent, but comfortable - in Spanish. I don't really know any Latin outside of medical terminology.

[Laura Corin]

I think that doing a living language first makes sense - young children are much less self-conscious about learning languages and are more likely to pick up a natural accent. There's plenty of time for Latin later.

My sons started Mandarin at age 7 and 4 respectively, then one did Latin before adding in French, the other added French before starting Latin. Hobbes also does Greek for fun.

Laura

[matroyshka]

LOL - I don't think you'll get a lot of pro-Latin first on the bilingual board - most people here are trying to raise their kids bilinugal (or trilingual), meaning spoken fluency as well as written, usually from a very young age (which except for possibly a few exceptional individuals is next to impossible if started later). Latin is not a spoken langauge anymore, so conversational ability is not usually a goal, and an early start is not imperative the way it is with a modern, spoken language.

[Elisa]

We have been doing spoken Spanish and recently added Latin. I can recommend this book on the subject: The Bilingual Edge: Why When and How to Teach a Child a Second Language.

[Ester Maria]

Classical education experts push Latin... but rarely as a first foreign language, seriously. More like, they "push" Latin in sense of not only including it in the curriculum, but actually getting it ALL done (grammatically) and dealing with texts in the original, as opposed to simple dabbling in Latin (which is okay too, but not quite our approach).

I firmly believe that, while there is nothing wrong with starting Latin at an early age (I got my kids started in K, for example), kids cannot profit out of it that much as they can profit out of a modern foreign language at that age, and classics added in middle school. I also wrote here a few times about my own experiences and my daughters', and about how, regardless of the fact they started much younger than me, in the end, it really won't be that much of a difference anyway. If I had to do it all again, I might have even postponed Latin for fifth grade.

I'd start Spanish first then in your case, and then gently added in Latin when you feel they're reading (WITHOUT stopping Spanish when you add Latin).

[Rosie_0801]

The only reasons I'll start Latin as my kids' first foreign language is because we'll have already been doing two native languages, and also because Daddy is interested in learning Latin. It is not wise to ignore Daddy's interests because he has so few of them! I'm also starting them at Saturday school in grade one for a living foreign language, so Latin would have to come first in K, or later in grade one or two. Since Dad is enthused, we'll start in K with fun stuff. If it wasn't for dh, I probably wouldn't start Latin until grade three and that would only be to do fun stuff until they were ready for serious grammar in Logic stage (grade 5ish).

So start Spanish. Latin has been hanging around this long, what's a few more years? ;)

Rosie

[In The Great White North]

The main reason to start a living language first is the accent. Nobody much cares about your Latin accent but in a living language it is crucial. It is easier for people to learn new sounds when they are younger.

Yes, we do Latin; no, we don't speak it. They started with French and German.

[BeatleMania]

While I know that many will argue learning Spanish would be better because it is a living language, I disagree. Sure, Latin isn't spoken anymore except for science and the teachers who teach it, lol, but it could really help in the future when your kids can choose what language they want to take. What if they don't want to know Spanish, what if they want to learn Italian, or French? Latin would give them a really strong basis for other languages. Knowing Spanish could help if they switch languages, but Latin would make more sense.

I was forced into French and learned nothing because I didn't want to learn it.

Ask them what they would like to learn. If they don't know, make the choice based on other answers on here. Latin may be hard to speak, but to read would is basically is what they would be being taught.

[dmmetler]

Well, I planned to do Spanish, and have been working with it casually for several years, and my DD has had it in Parochial school, but she recently decided that she wants to learn Latin.

So, is it too insane to try to do at least a bit of both? (Song School Latin, and either Elementary Spanish or La Clase Divertida, depending on whether we can get the computer to feed to the TV or not)?

[Rosie_0801]

So, is it too insane to try to do at least a bit of both? (Song School Latin, and either Elementary Spanish or La Clase Divertida, depending on whether we can get the computer to feed to the TV or not)?

Some people around here do 5 languages, so no, you aren't insane. They might be though :tongue_smilie: I'm aiming for that here and think I'm insane. I'm not even thinking of aiming for native-like fluency in all of them though.

Rosie

[Laura Corin]

Well, I planned to do Spanish, and have been working with it casually for several years, and my DD has had it in Parochial school, but she recently decided that she wants to learn Latin.

So, is it too insane to try to do at least a bit of both? (Song School Latin, and either Elementary Spanish or La Clase Divertida, depending on whether we can get the computer to feed to the TV or not)?

If you feel she has a handle on Spanish, then by all means add in Latin. If not, I would wait. But multiple languages are no problem at all: my boys study three seriously and Hobbes has added in Greek for fun.

Laura

[Lisa in the UP of MI]

We just started Latin formally a few months ago. By fall we'll be doing both Latin and Spanish. The kids have had previous exposure to both languages.