Another foreign language question…which one?

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  • February 12, 2010 at 1:07 pm
    RobinP
    Participant

    All the talk about foreign languages has gotten me to thinking.  I have two boys ages 6 1/2 and almost 6.  (My now 19yo did Latin in high school.)  I’m wondering which language to choose for them.  We returned home two weeks ago with my almost 6yo from China, so right now he’s speaking Chinese almost exclusively, but he’ll lose that in short order (I hope.)  I really don’t want to do Chinese for our language…I really don’t.  I really dislilke the sound of the language and it’s hard for me to wrap my tongue around many of the sounds.  We have two very special guys in France who were exchange students so I would love to do French.  I also had that in high school and loved it, but it wouldn’t be very practical around here.  Spanish would be the most practical because there are a lot of Mexican folks here.  I also know that just “learning” a foreign language does NOT mean you can actually TALK to those people!  It was so funny to see people who were “fluent” in French try to talk to our French boys and they couldn’t understand a word that person was saying!  LOL!!

      So how do you decide?  And I love the looks of Easy French/Spanish.  I know someone said it was kind of silly but I have young boys and I love that it’s Christian based.  Thoughts?

    February 12, 2010 at 1:44 pm
    Michelle Kelly
    Participant

    Robin, We have started our kids (ages 7, 9 and 10) with Latin for Children.  What finally helped us make the decision is how Latin will help with vocabulary in English as well as for the Latin based languages of French, Spanish and Italian.   When our 10 yo reaches middle school my plan is to allow her to choose the next language.

    🙂

    February 12, 2010 at 2:24 pm
    Bookworm
    Participant

    In our home, we begin with Spanish, add Latin at about age 10 and French in high school.  You are right, fluency is a real issue.  You aren’t going to get real fluency without conversation.  Real conversation.  But that doesn’t mean that learning what you can at home is worthless.  Just that you need to have realistic expectations.

    That said, my second ds is absolutely passionate about substituting Swahili for French when he begins ninth grade next year.  So the hunt is on here for a high school level Swahili course.  Anyone know of one?  LOL

    February 12, 2010 at 4:59 pm
    RobinP
    Participant

    Haha!  Well I can’t help you there!  Does he have specific plans for Swahili?  No telling how God would use that.

    Oh yes, I agree that there is not great value in learning what we can at home.  If I want to be the most practical, we’ll start with Spanish…not that it would be my choice.  I have terrible memories of high school Spanish.  ALL we did was memorize dialogs.  UGH!  Latin is very important, I think.  My 19yo is a physics major so he wanted to learn Latin to help him in his science studies.  So we’ll see…

    February 27, 2010 at 3:30 am
    mrskatie
    Participant

    Edit: Never mind. I found what I was looking for on another post 😉

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