Getting confused -why study other languages?

[Mandarinmom]

I always thought that it is great and useful to know a few languages. And I always had a plan to teach my daughter a few languages. Now I am confused. My plan was to study at least Spanish, French, Russian (my heritage language), Italian, and Latin. Now Math 5th grade and other courses 4th grade taking longer and longer. She wants to be a doctor, and her main interests are literature, writing, drawing, and science. Very little time available for Art, almost nothing for music. So, I am totally confused now regarding languages studies. Russian have to be, it is a heritage as English, not bilingual though. Do we really need Spanish and French. We do like studying languages, but there is not enough time.
How to manage? Do you advise to take an extra effort for languages? My personal education is already buried totally, and her hands are full.
Lena

[regentrude]

I find that to do languages well is really time consuming. We raise the kids bilingual English/German and teach ONE additional foreign language. I find that it takes an hour a day to make progress in French. So, multiple languages will always be a time issue. YOU need to make sure how much time you want to devote to it - it is a matter of personal priorities.
Languages are useful and fun, and so are calculus, medieval history, philosophy, astrophysics. You need to pick and choose.

[Aquinas Academy]

You have a lot of languages on your list! I think you need to prioritise the languages, because in reality it's unlikely you'll be able to do them all. My eldest (14) is currently studying four languages. She spends at least three hours on languages each day (not including English). It is a lot of work. She loves languages, as do I, but neither of us could imagine doing another language right now. Like you said, there is only so much time. So I'd start with the languages you consider most important and then see how it goes. It sounds like your DD is in 4th or 5th grade, she still has many years left to learn more languages.

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

I agree with above. That's a LOT!

If it helps, my plan is to spend elementary school dealing with our two family languages (French and English), to be sure of fluency in both. Then we'll move on to just doing one or two subjects in French (like just lit and composition or smoething). In middle school, MAYBE add Latin for a taste, using a program that teaches "applicaable" Latin like Latin Road for 2 years. Finally, we'll probably do Spanish in HS because we hope to be living in CA by then and Id like some conversational abilities.

But my kid is only 4, LOL. So I have no idea how that will go!

[Mandarinmom]

Thank you ladies for comments. I probably did not state is clear - it's not like I planned to teach all the languages at once. I got lost in thoughts - why at all to study the foreign languages that she probably will never use. Just for fun? And spend so much time for it? I used to think that it is great and learned myself, and forgot all, never used any. For self-confidence? That was it mostly for me - for self-confidence. I was extremely shy and tried to hold on on any accomplishment to be in better piece with myself.

[Nan in Mass]

My son is 16 and is working on French, a bit of Latin and a very little bit of Japanese. He has said several times that he would rather have a little bit of more languages, enough to get around when traveling, than a lot of a few languages. If he had his way, rather than learning to write in French and speak grammatically, he would learn a bit of German and a bit of Spanish and a bit more Japanese. He has traveled some, so he has some basis for his opinion. I suspect my other two sons would say the same thing. I think it depends on your goals. My children want to be able to travel and talk to people. If they wanted to be able to work in another language, they would need to be literate in that language. Well LOL I suppose it depends what sort of work. My oldest had three years of high school Spanish and then worked with Guatamelans. He turned his school Spanish into more useful conversational Spanish. He certainly didn't need to be either grammatical or literate to be understood and to understand, under those circumstances. But for many jobs, you would need to be literate. Rosie, for example, wants her children to be fluent enough in several languages to get a United Nations job, a very cool goal.
-Nan

[SneguochkaL]

Hi, we have plans for few languages too:) My daughter who is 8 wants to speak 5 languages + Latin and Greek. I used to read and speak to her in Japanese. I asked her if she wants to drop any languages out of main 5 but she doesn't want. My oldest wants to be a linguist/scientist. She likes to chat with people and be able to communicate in different languages is important. I think she will be able to improve her "particular" languages by receiving a certificate of technical translator for Japanese or German additionally to her major when she goes to college:)

Few years ago I read some research papers regarding studying a foreign language in an early age. So, the research showed that if a child was exposed to a foreign language by the age of 8 he would be able to speak that language without any accent at all.

[cloudswinger]

I always thought that it is great and useful to know a few languages. And I always had a plan to teach my daughter a few languages. Now I am confused. My plan was to study at least Spanish, French, Russian (my heritage language), Italian, and Latin. Now Math 5th grade and other courses 4th grade taking longer and longer. She wants to be a doctor, and her main interests are literature, writing, drawing, and science. Very little time available for Art, almost nothing for music. So, I am totally confused now regarding languages studies. Russian have to be, it is a heritage as English, not bilingual though. Do we really need Spanish and French. We do like studying languages, but there is not enough time.
How to manage? Do you advise to take an extra effort for languages? My personal education is already buried totally, and her hands are full.
Lena


If she does want to be a doctor, Latin is a tremendous help. A lot of the biological sciences use Latin based names/words. Spanish, French and Italian are Romance languages, there's a lot of crossover in them and with Latin also. In fact, it might almost be confusing sometimes, being similar but not the same.

My theory on learning foreign language is that as we get older, certain sounds become hard to make/hear. So I think that exposure to the widest variety of languages would make a person more able to communicate with a wider variety of people. And this means different families of languages, because for example the Romance languages have a lot of similar sounds with each other. But the tonal languages have a range of different sounds from the Romance languages or even the Indo-European languages. And some of the African languages have yet more different sounds with the clicks they make.

[SuperDad]

I remember my first years of homeschooling. I had grand plans to raise my children with "at least" 5 languages. Then I actually started homeschooling. Boy, did I have to readjust my expectations! :D

I agree with OP that Latin is a great choice for an aspiring doctor. In addition to that, one modern foreign language (a Romance language would be a very logical choice, of course, and so would Russian) could be added. Then see how things go. If you can add more, GREAT! If not, your child will have already learned two foreign languages... which in my books is a great accomplishment!

FWIW, or if you care, here's how it works in my house... the kids are raised trilingual, English, Hebrew and French (I speak all three fluently, and my wife speaks English fluently and French semi-fluently). They study Latin in the lower years, and a modern language of their choice in the upper years. I feel extremely lucky to be able to immerse my kids in such a language-rich environment. But, alas, all families are different. Latin + one modern language is more than adequate.

[EllaMinnowPea]

Latin is a great choice for an aspiring doctor. In addition to that, one modern foreign language (a Romance language would be a very logical choice, of course, and so would Russian) could be added. Then see how things go. If you can add more, GREAT! If not, your child will have already learned two foreign languages... which in my books is a great accomplishment!e.

:iagree: