Teaching children a foreign language

[dvisto]

Here are a few activities and methods you can use to teach your children foreign lnguages.

1. Watch TV and Movies:There are so many english cartoons dubbed in Spanish (eg. spongebob, dora the explorer, sesame street)

2.Games: Want your kids to enjoy learning a foreign language. Then purchase interactive computer games in a foreign language.

3.Read and Sing: Start with basic children’s books that are kindergarten to preschool level and work up.

The earlier you start the better.

[JPablo]

Originally Posted by Josh

One of my driving forces for learning Spanish is because I have a 3-year-old and I would like to get him started on learning Spanish. I've heard that children may have an easier time learning foreign languages. That being said a buddy of mine who is a speech pathologist told me that teaching a child a foreign language after age 2 can lead to confusion for the child and make it difficult to separate the two languages as they continue to learn both languages.

I'm interested to know what others think about trying to teach a toddler a foreign language. Is it a good idea? Does anyone on this forum have experience with it?

Hi Josh, I think it is an excellent idea. I read this thread and pretty much all the pertinent answers you got here. Each of them valuable and useful. I can tell you that I started learning Catalonian (Catalán, very similar to Italian/Spanish/Portuguese) when I was 3 or 4, as people around me spoke Catalonian, although my parents spoke Spanish Castilian to me and I spoke Castilian. I started to speak Catalonian when I was 8 or 9, not very confidently, but I could understand everything. Never had a confusion. Started French at 11 and English at 20! Never studied Italian, but when I was 17 and travelled to Italy I quickly picked it up, as it is very similar to Spanish. Portuguese, I understand thanks to the similarity. I have seen kids from 7 or 8 years talking Spanish, English, French, German and Danish like nobody's business! Seriously. They would not mix these languages, and I honestly would feel 'retarded' being a grown-up and only being able to speak a bit of English... I am just telling you this because I have seen people with total command of English and Spanish and perfect accents in both languages... Bottom line, to make long story short, learn yourself and teach your kids, get them to learn by themselves, as long as you learn with a purpose, you will learn, you can go at your own pace and your kid at his, take it easy and ENJOY what you learn... using it...
I hope this is useful to you. ¡Buena suerte! [Good luck!]

[Jessica]

Originally Posted by CrOtALiTo

What science.
I believe that the science is wrote in all the languages knowns in the world.

It's nice the Latin, but I don't believe needed in the language at least in a archeology, there in that science is important that the people knows different dialects and languages for the old story and important documents discovered ultimately.

Chemistry - the elements. On this TV show - Jeopardy I was watching - a few weeks ago one of the categories was Elemental Latin. The clues were in Latin but I got them really easily! Because I knew what they were. aren't most of the elements from Latin? Like Au, Ag, gold, silver

[JPablo]

Originally Posted by Jessica

Chemistry - the elements. On this TV show - Jeopardy I was watching - a few weeks ago one of the categories was Elemental Latin. The clues were in Latin but I got them really easily! Because I knew what they were. aren't most of the elements from Latin? Like Au, Ag, gold, silver

I believe so.
I studied 1 year of Latin. When I did it, it was "mandatory", so I had no purpose. Nowadays, I realize HOW USEFUL IT IS.

Basically all Romance languages come from LATIN, so knowing Latin gives you such ability to understand in present time, that it is not even funny...

There are TONs of English words with Latin derivation... In other words, "they" say Latin is a "dead tongue"... But not so, really. It is alive in the aforementioned languages, in scientific nomenclature and furthermore, the Asterix and Obelix comics are TRANSLATED into Latin... That should be enough motivation for anyone to start learning this vibrant, dynamic and humorous and dramatic... tonge... (I am joking a bit, but on the other hand I am serious.) Like my mother used to say, however, "Quan natura non dat, Salamanca non presta" (something to the effect that when you don't have a basic-natural intelligence, the University of Salamanca is not going to lend you some extra I.Q...)

[CrOtALiTo]

Originally Posted by Jessica

Chemistry - the elements. On this TV show - Jeopardy I was watching - a few weeks ago one of the categories was Elemental Latin. The clues were in Latin but I got them really easily! Because I knew what they were. aren't most of the elements from Latin? Like Au, Ag, gold, silver

Yes but the Latin language isn't necessary in the ambit labor, already that the companies at least here in Mexico or my city thus language isn't required for the industry, the language more required for the industry is the turk language and the English too.

In both cases they're necessarily for the commerce in the ambit labor, yes it could sound interesting in the investigation of the new cultures more here in south America for any discovery, but well it totally is the tasty of each person, in my point of view personal it's not necessary.

But well your brother has the freedom of acquire any language of his preference.

Don't you?

[Tarential]

Certainly learning Latin is not necessary, and I don't believe anyone wished to give that impression. It can be, however, quite useful in many situations. Most of our scientific nomenclature can be traced to Latin roots or is specifically Latin itself. As an example of what I mean (besides the chemistry elements example already posted), we can consider the taxonomy of the flora and fauna of our planet.

To start with, flora and fauna are both words of Latin origin (Flora being the goddess of flowers and Fauna being the sister of Faunus, the god of the woods). Certainly I did not need to know these origins to learn the meaning of flora (plant life) and fauna (animal life), but it is very useful to know.

Now let us consider the common wolf. Laymen would refer to it as merely a "wolf". However, in scientific terms it is actually "canis lupus" which shows the genus and species of the animal. Without knowledge of Latin one would have to memorize this name and association. However, by knowing Latin the meaning becomes quite clear. Canis means dog, and lupus means wolf. We can therefore assume this creature is a wolf (which is a kind of dog). Our common dog is canis lupus familiaris, from which we can see that all modern pet dogs share a common ancestor with the gray wolf.

I hope this post has helped you see how Latin can help people in scientific work and understanding of English terms.

Disclaimer: I have taken only high school biology and know very limited amounts of Latin, so I apologize for any factual errors I may have made.

[CrOtALiTo]

Originally Posted by Tarential

Certainly learning Latin is not necessary, and I don't believe anyone wished to give that impression. It can be, however, quite useful in many situations. Most of our scientific nomenclature can be traced to Latin roots or is specifically Latin itself. As an example of what I mean (besides the chemistry elements example already posted), we can consider the taxonomy of the flora and fauna of our planet.

To start with, flora and fauna are both words of Latin origin (Flora being the goddess of flowers and Fauna being the sister of Faunus, the god of the woods). Certainly I did not need to know these origins to learn the meaning of flora (plant life) and fauna (animal life), but it is very useful to know.

Now let us consider the common wolf. Laymen would refer to it as merely a "wolf". However, in scientific terms it is actually "canis lupus" which shows the genus and species of the animal. Without knowledge of Latin one would have to memorize this name and association. However, by knowing Latin the meaning becomes quite clear. Canis means dog, and lupus means wolf. We can therefore assume this creature is a wolf (which is a kind of dog). Our common dog is canis lupus familiaris, from which we can see that all modern pet dogs share a common ancestor with the gray wolf.

I hope this post has helped you see how Latin can help people in scientific work and understanding of English terms.

Disclaimer: I have taken only high school biology and know very limited amounts of Latin, so I apologize for any factual errors I may have made.

Yes you right as you have said in the scientific term is most used, because that is the reason of the scientific names in the actuality as you said in the animals names are named for it's scientific name and well just of there coming the names that nowadays the culture uses, but anyhow in the actuality the scientific names aren't used for the ordinary people, in my case I don't use the scientific name in this case for the dog, only I see wrote that name in the zoo, but anyway the more correct way to name something is for scientific name that the scientific people use daily.

I agree with your term and your own way to think in the Latin use, and well I think that the Latin usages is important only for the people who really uses the language like as writers or reading of the old culture, also the scientific people who investigate the new species in the planet or world animal.

Without those term I don't believe that today existing all the variety of the common names that exist currently.

Well said everything.

[ookami]

Puede ser importante para cualquier persona, no solo para científicos de profesión. Las cosas no tienen que rectificar las convenciones sociales (es decir, no tienen porqué ser útiles para la sociedad) para emprender su estudio o uso. Veamos, ¿es necesario vivir?

[irmamar]

Originally Posted by Jessica

Chemistry - the elements. On this TV show - Jeopardy I was watching - a few weeks ago one of the categories was Elemental Latin. The clues were in Latin but I got them really easily! Because I knew what they were. aren't most of the elements from Latin? Like Au, Ag, gold, silver

If you knew enough Spanish, you could associate those elements with Spanish:
Au - oro - áureo
Ag - plata - argento, Argentina
Fe - hierro - vía férrea, ferroso.
etc.

[JPablo]

Well, for that matter, English too, (even if 'poetic' or 'technical')
aurify - to cause to appear golden; gild: Dawn came, and sunlight aurified the lead-gray ocean.
argentine - (note lower case) means "of or pertaining to silver".
ferroelectric - pertaining to a substance that possesses spontaneous electric polarization such that the polarization can be reversed by an electric field.

[Tarential]

While I am not an English major, I have read a lot of novels, textbooks and other various articles in English over the years. I don't believe I have ever encountered the three words you posted JPablo Considering the size of the English language and the niche usage / rarity of those words, I do not find it all that surprising.

On the other hand, I know all the main elements of the periodic table by their symbols (I tend to get fuzzy on some of the heavier and unstable elements) from usage in high school chemistry.

Simply put, it is a matter of knowing around a hundred elements (I forget the exact number) as opposed to knowing a very rare three words out of a possible... how many words? I've seen claims from 250 thousand to almost a million words in the English language (there are disputes as to exactly what constitutes a word). When a native speaker might speak around 30k at the high end for a normal university graduate it leaves a whole lot of missing words.

Consider, on the other hand, learning a mere 2-3k words of Latin. You are much more likely to learn the word for "gold" or "silver" or "fox" or other common terms in those few thousand words than you would be to stumble across "ferroelectric" (without being an engineer/physicist). At least, that is my very subjective opinion, using my own lack of knowledge of those three words as a judgment on their popularity of usage in English.

As far as learning the Spanish words and it being helpful as well, while I cannot judge of my own knowledge about specific terms I can say that I found Spanish to be, in general, much more closely related to Latin than was English. I would imagine it thus to help more than English, but less than actual Latin in deciphering the scientific terms which are based on usually Latin or sometimes Greek and rarely if ever Spanish (or English).

Please understand I say all this not to negate your posts. You are both quite correct. There are certainly other ways than learning Latin to associate the terms we are speaking of. Yet it seemed that some other people were not entirely sure that Latin was a good method to choose or was even useful in learning the terms, so I wanted to emphasize how Latin can be just as or more helpful than an increased vocabulary in English or learning Spanish.

[CrOtALiTo]

Originally Posted by Tarential

While I am not an English major, I have read a lot of novels, textbooks and other various articles in English over the years. I don't believe I have ever encountered the three words you posted JPablo Considering the size of the English language and the niche usage / rarity of those words, I do not find it all that surprising.

On the other hand, I know all the main elements of the periodic table by their symbols (I tend to get fuzzy on some of the heavier and unstable elements) from usage in high school chemistry.

Simply put, it is a matter of knowing around a hundred elements (I forget the exact number) as opposed to knowing a very rare three words out of a possible... how many words? I've seen claims from 250 thousand to almost a million words in the English language (there are disputes as to exactly what constitutes a word). When a native speaker might speak around 30k at the high end for a normal university graduate it leaves a whole lot of missing words.

Consider, on the other hand, learning a mere 2-3k words of Latin. You are much more likely to learn the word for "gold" or "silver" or "fox" or other common terms in those few thousand words than you would be to stumble across "ferroelectric" (without being an engineer/physicist). At least, that is my very subjective opinion, using my own lack of knowledge of those three words as a judgment on their popularity of usage in English.

As far as learning the Spanish words and it being helpful as well, while I cannot judge of my own knowledge about specific terms I can say that I found Spanish to be, in general, much more closely related to Latin than was English. I would imagine it thus to help more than English, but less than actual Latin in deciphering the scientific terms which are based on usually Latin or sometimes Greek and rarely if ever Spanish (or English).

Please understand I say all this not to negate your posts. You are both quite correct. There are certainly other ways than learning Latin to associate the terms we are speaking of. Yet it seemed that some other people were not entirely sure that Latin was a good method to choose or was even useful in learning the terms, so I wanted to emphasize how Latin can be just as or more helpful than an increased vocabulary in English or learning Spanish.

Certainly your own point of view is acceptable.
Although there're differences between the usages of the language, that even they aren't clear in the ambit scientific.

Yes you're right with the Latin, there're millions of words than doesn't seems in both languages.

[JPablo]

Originally Posted by Tarential

Consider, on the other hand, learning a mere 2-3k words of Latin. You are much more likely to learn the word for "gold" or "silver" or "fox" or other common terms in those few thousand words than you would be to stumble across "ferroelectric" (without being an engineer/physicist). At least, that is my very subjective opinion, using my own lack of knowledge of those three words as a judgment on their popularity of usage in English.

Totally understood, Tarential. I fully acknowledge your point. I agree my "English/Latin" examples are a bit extreme, and/or not so commonly used. Yet, just as an exercise, (not very careful at that, just roughly) I took one of your paragraphs above, and put in red the English words that have a Latin derivation. (In blue, from Greek through Latin.) (Note: ferro- and electric as units are actually a lot more common.)

But what? Not even a 20%?
Then again, many common English words are directly from Latin, which is why, knowing that "dead" language may be very useful for anyone who deals with communication and languages...

Again, I agree with your viewpoint on the matter, just wanted to further illustrate the influence Latin had in English... (much like current English has a heavy influence in Spanish... what with cyber-talk-texting and many other facets of life...)

[Jessica]

Originally Posted by irmamar

If you knew enough Spanish, you could associate those elements with Spanish:
Au - oro - áureo
Ag - plata - argento, Argentina
Fe - hierro - vía férrea, ferroso.
etc.

yeah but I associated them with Latin.