How do I teach a language that I don't speak?

[FLKL]

I've heard of moms teach their babies languages they don't speak themselves. I found this site and wonder if anyone has tried them?: http://dinolingo.com/

I want my kids to learn Spanish, Hebrew and Latin. My husband speaks Spanish so I'm not so worried about that one but we don't speak the other languages.

Thank you.

[mom2bee]

I have been reading blogs and forum archives of people who teach languages that they don't know speak as natives or don't know at all. I don't have any experiences w this myself but I plan to do it so I have been reading a lot about it over the years.

I am in the waiting room of the Dr.s right now so l will post later from home.

[mario]

I've read about this and although I wanted to be very optimistic about this subject, my personal opinion is that there is no easy way.

By easy I mean, so far I don't think a kid will learn a language the parent doesn't know by just watching TV.

But what can be done is to increase the exposition whenever you can:

- TV
- Music
- Adult friends that speak the language

And most effective:

- Immersion School
- Playgroups
- Au pair who speaks the target language

We can't deny the power of exposition. My grandparents couldn't speak well our local language, but my father learned our language very well with the community.

But for dead languages, I think what can be done very early is some fun activities like music, reading good books. I think this way it will be easier for a person to be "fluent" on Latin as an adult, for example.

[mom2bee]

Exposure to the spoken and written language
--Get books (with CDs if possible)
--DVDS
--Videos (look on Youtube)
--Vocabulary
--Nanny who speaks the language you want taught
--Playgroup
--Immersion school

--You, the parent, must be willing to work!!!
If you learn to READ the language with fairly good pronunciation then you can read simple books to your kids, even if you don't understand most of it. You can alter many games like go fish, match, etc to require the extra language.
There are tons and tons and tons of materials available for Spanish and a good amount for Hebrew also. I rarely take Latin seriously enough to consider looking for resources but I know that there are quite a few out there.

I will try and share my list of Spanish and Hebrew resources later. Sorry its taken so long for me to get this list posted....

[mario]

Well FLKL,

I wasn't expecting my son to repeat words from TV so soon but it did happen yesterday, so the TV influence may be bigger that what I was thinking. I wrote about this here:

http://www.nnsparents.com/topic/acquiring-language-with-tv-here-one-case-with-my-son/

[FLKL]

Thank you guys.

About the TV... I think it's a great educational tool. It makes no sense what people say about even educational TV rotting kids minds and that any book is educational. I've read many children's books that left me feeling... Less intelligent.

[nuria2012]

I agree. TV is a very useful tool that we can use in order to raise our children. The important thing is knowing separate what really is good for our children and avoiding the use of rubbish TV. They are only children, we , parents, get the upper hand.

[justbeinmommy]

I wanted to teach my child spanish and french but since I dont speak either I felt it will be a waste of time. Do you have any suggestions as how to start? Thanks.

[Chukwuma]

Use the BrillKids books. My son is 15 months old. He has been doing LR since he was about 5 months. We have been reading the Very Easy books everyday since he was about 8/9 months. I introduced LR in French when it came out which was a few months ago. We are on lesson 70. We read Let's Pretend in English all of the time and do the actions. We also read it on the computer when we do LR. Today, I decided on a whim to skip to lesson 131 in the French LR and look at Let's Pretend in French. Baby listened and read the sentences and BEFORE the picture came, he did the action to the animal. I was amazed!

I think the fact he already knows it in English helped a lot with that.

[amandaw114]

I really like little pim for an introduction to the languages and then rosseta stone when they older. This is what my sister is doing with French andItalian. It seems very effective aswell as listening to radio stations and songs in those languages.  I can't wait to start teaching my baby whenhe/she comes.

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