Foreign Language.. how did you pick?

We chose Spanish because I took it in high school, we have an adopted daughter who is hispanic (though we are adopting from Korea and I don’t plan to pursue Korean lang. unless our child wants to), books and material are very readily available at our library and local bookstores, we have many hispanic people in our area, it seems like the best choice for the future as far as jobs, and the culture of Spanish speaking countries intrigues us.   We have friends doing French and Latin so it really is a personal preference for each family, I don’t think you can really choose the “wrong” one!  A good free site for Spanish video lessons for kids is http://www.knowitall.org/instantreplay/content/LanguageIndex.cfm?offset=0

They also have video lessons for German and French.

Hi Misty!

I had a hard time picking too…   Here was my thoughts from it…  but keep in mind, what is best for us will be different than for you…

1st option considered…   French.  Pros: I’m in Canada, so it is our 2nd language – opens up job opportunities, etc here.  Lots of resources available – many of our DVD’s have French as a language, all our libraries have at least a few French books.  French is used in areas in our city.  And I know it a bit from school.  Grandson is going to a French Immersion school, so will know it too.  Cons: I grew to HATE it in school.  

2nd option considered…  German.  Pros: Husband is semi-fluent from living there for 7 years.  There is a German population here so there may be some use of it.  Cons: my kids half-siblings, who have a German mom might be upset that my kids are learning it, and they didn’t.  Very few resources freely available (have to go to downtown library to get German books.  I don’t know it at all.  No German DVD’s etc, and would probably need an international DVD player if we buy any.

3rd option considered…  ASL – I know some, and kids did learn some in a pre-school class.  Cons: different type of language, not many resources for the school-aged child.  (mostly for young kids or adults.)  

4th option considered… Spanish – Pros: very many Spanish people in our church, so might be able to get some practice / help teaching.  many of our DVD’s have Spanish.  Very common in the States so could be useful.  Cons: I don’t know it, no real ties to it.

Other options – I’ve been interested in Japanese… also Chinese is an option – however, the writing systems are different and complicated.  Not similar to the other languages mentioned.  Chinese in particular, exactly how a word is said makes it a differen word.  

So, looking at all that a couple of years ago… I talked to my husband and we decided to start with German with the understanding that he would teach them.  That said, he didn’t teach them much other than counting to 10… and so I’ve done other things to teach/learn together.   I was getting frustrated that maybe we weren’t getting anywhere, but now we seem to be getting somewhere.

My overall plan is we are starting with German.  When my son is in about Year 3 of the AO/other program that we are doing, we will add in either French or Spanish (probably French.)  At some point we will add in Latin, and that should be plenty for us unless one of the kids asks for something else too.

I’ll post a couple of links and what we are doing soon….

Hi Misty,

We have chosen French, Spanish, Latin, Greek, German.

French because we are in Canada and it is our second language here; also because I was in French Immersion in junior high school for three years so can speak it fairly well.

Spanish because half of my husband’s work staff is from Mexico, so we have lots of native speakers to practice with (I was recently able to make a request for Mexican Fried Ice Cream for my birthday).

Latin because it gives such a good base for grammar, and so many other languages.  Plus it sounds neat.

Greek because it’s fun to read the New Testament in Greek.

German because we have some relatives and many friends who are German.  Some speak no English at all, so it just seems the polite thing to do if we want to have any conversations  🙂

I am interested to hear what you end up wanting to learn.

Gaeleen

This is an old post but it intrigued me to read others’ replies.

We have not decided for sure, but I believe we are leaning toward Mandarin Chinese for several reasons.

1). Our 11YO son is fluent not only in speaking it but knows more than half of the written characters (and his penmenship is quite neat I might add!).

2). It is spoken by more people than any other language in the world.

3). B/c we have three children who were adopted from China (the others do not speak the language but definitely LOVE to hear it spoken by older brother), it just seems the most logical.

Anyone else on here teaching their children Mandarin Chinese?

I do not know how it will all work, but we already informally allow our oldest boys to work with one another on language learning: 12YO and 8YO DS help 11YO DS with English, then he shows them the Mandarin characther equivalent and speaks it for them as well.

The tones trip me up for now, but our children learn it much more quickly.

The other language we use very limited but hope to learn more is ASL as our yougest two are hearing impaired and also speech delayed.