Teaching. Baby10 languages ~possible?

[anthonymummy]

Dear mummies and daddies out there
Am new to this forum but may i ask if it's possible to teach your baby ten languages ?
Was told that seven is maximum. As all of youhhave stress how much easier it is to teach kids from zero to six . I am hoping.to give my son that language exposure , so fat we are covering(mandarin, thai , english , cantonese ,french and spanish in the house ) and i have add on tagalog ,german japanese and russian (weekly one to two hour lesson in language center out there) .my concern is whether this is too much ?
Again i reckon 5 languages is possible but ten ? I hope i won't be frowned upon here .
As such , how can i teach my baby (1year.old) to read in all these.languages (given then i do mot intend for him.to watch any tv before a.later stage ,so i keep thinking how is this possible . French english and mandarin are easy as i have got a curriculum . But how about the rest ?i download the extra languages lessons in LR and show him different language everyday ? This sound confusing to me already and i don't really know how to.pierced as languages ari easier since the baby can associate one person one language . I will be the one teaching him how to read ! And he will associate me wwith all.these languages ?

[MamaOfWill]

10 is possible!  I think if you said something like 50 only then the BrillKids people will tell you to slow down.  It will definitely cost lots of hard work, and time for other learning areas might be very little, your time and hard work that is.  I admire you for taking on such a big challenge.  Personally, I'm only doing 4 (English, Afrikaans, Zulu, Mandarin) at the moment (2 serious and 2 very mildly) but we're touching on many learning areas including History, Science, Geography, Biology, Maths, Music, Chess and many more.  My boy surely has more time in his day for learning (this type of learning in any case), but I'm the one not organized enough for it.  In the long run I want to introduce many more languages (Xhosa, Sotho, Spedi, Twana, French, Spanish, German, Dutch)  but I'm not aiming for fluency in any of them.  That's 12 languages!  True, you're doing a much better job, but we've got similar goals and you'll find many here on the forum do.

All the best!!

[Jemi]

Hi ladies, how many of these languages do you speak yourselves?

Anthonymummy, what curricula are you using?

I think it is possible. Aim high. Good for you.

[Mae_Jakob_Ka]

Teaching 10 languages is very challenging! I am struggling with 3. I speak 2 of the languages I am teaching.
Please share the tips. I would love to know how you plan your curriculum, and  what methods and materials you plan to use.

Best of luck and keep us posted on your progress. 

[m_rogue23]

I think it's possible but I don't know how to do it. Since our household is bilingual, my child is exposed to 2 languages and one local dialect. I include little mandarin every 2-3 days a week and french but since I don't speak mandarin and french, I get really confused sometimes :-) The challenge really here is how to teach your child a language which you yourself don't speak.

[Kerileanne99]

You might check into the Baby Polyglot videos. The idea/method is to teach seven languages simultaneously... You can find some of the samples on YouTube, but I am linking an old BK thread started by TmT. She included some of the YouTube videos in the thread.

Unfortunately, they can be very difficult to come by in the US...outside of the US, I think it is much easier.

http://forum.brillkids.com/product-discussions-and-reviews/polyglot-baby-method-for-7-languages/msg91597/?topicseen

[Kristiina]

Yes! Go ahead with your plans! You are doing great work! 

The worst thing that could happen is that your baby wouldn't learn these languages  so why not try. Our baby is 8 months old and so far we have trained Finnish (my mother language), English (LR), Chinese (LR) and baby signs. I'm also thinking going through Little Reader French curriculum after finishing Chinese curriculum. We will continue giving our baby weekly Chinese exposure using Chinese Children tv series from Youtube after finishing the curriculum to keep the language active because you don't hear any Chinese in Finland! Most of tv programs (~80%) are in English with Finnish subtitles so after learning English basics you hear and see it daily.

Everyone in Finland has to learn Finnish, Swedish and English. I studied the least amount of Swedish I could and had to still study it total for 6 years (2 or 3 years is primary school, 3 years in high school and half years in university to pass the mandatory exam). You have to choose either Swedish or English as your A language. To minimize Swedish exposure, I chose English which I then had to study for 12,5 years to pass the minimum requirements for A language in all school levels (7 years in primary school, 3 years in high school and 0,5 years in university). It is also typical to choose fourth language (German, French, Russia or something else) in high school and maybe if you are interested a fifth language in university. Overall, teaching multiple languages to our baby seems very natural idea.

Before age 4 we are planning to go through the basics of languages me or my husband know (Swedish, German, Russia, Spanish) to ease pronunciation and learning words later. I'm also thinking of teaching Latin and Arabic basics to give fuller exposure to world of languages. Teaching these five languages seem now hardest to me because I don't yet know which curriculum to use as I am not confident enough with my pronunciation, so I would prefer to use some program or ready made materials.

To summarize, we are aiming for fluency in Finnish, English and Swedish. Little Reader coverage in French and Chinese. And basics in at least German, Russia, Spanish, Latin and Arabic.

Good luck!

[Mandabplus3]

Not many here will tell you it's impossible! There are people hear doing incredible things proving what is possible moves with each accomplishment.
10 languages seems completely feasible to me.  it's a lot of work there is no pretending it won't be!
If I was aiming for ten I would probably do 3 then add in 2 more after the first 2 have some reading success, then add in another 2 once 4 of them have some reading success. Then I would sit on those 7 until the child begging to speak in at least 2 of the languages. Then add in the rest.   I suggest this for a couple of reasons. A child learning 10 languages is probably going to be a little confused as to which language to speak in and may choose not to speak or more likely mix languages. Teaching sign language may help give a common denominator to ensure smooth communication.
Also as a mum teaching 10 languages is going to be tough on your time. Time finding resourses, putting them in order and presenting them to your child. A determined parent will spend hours searching for resources and finding language playmates and Nanny's to help.
If your child is young then you clearly have plenty of time to introduce and gain some fluency in 10 languages before your child is 6. Plenty of time means no head to rush. Build on what they know. If they can read English they can read Spanish. So link the two where you can. Other languages are heavily based on Latin. Consider teaching Latin route words as you go. Chinese is fairly stand alone, but still has some similarities with Japanese. Teach Chinese early as the picture writing is harder to grasp later on as is the intonation for perfect accents.
My tip would be gather resourses now. Get as many as you can. Don't overlook adult audio lessons. They can be played in the car and during naps for immersion. You will run out far too quickly.
I think if you dedicate an hour a day to presenting languages you should manage your goal easily enough. 1 hour a day per language for 3 years each would get amazing results.  For reading fluency in each language you will need another 30 mins on top. Of course the language you use every day around the house wouldn't be included in this hour, just the ones you Don't speak each day. If you can speak 4 languages then use those languages on alternate days and focus your hour on the ones you don't speak.
Go for it. I rekon there is a tipping point to learning language. Once you know so many then picking up new ones is a walk in the park.
Oh and remember you will need to revisit each language over time, both within the 6 years and well beyond it. So they don't forget all the hard work you have put in 

[MamaOfWill]

I am Afrikaans, my hubby English.  The choices for languages Xhosa, Zulu, Spedi, Tswana and Sotho are because they are the most spoken languages in our country - South Africa - we often have contact with people who speak these languages, they are not dialects but are all related languages.  For the African languages, I'm in the process of creating 3000 slides in each language in LR, about a thrid of the work is already done, with professional voice recordings.  I'll gradually introduce these languages, with a little bit of help from native speakers.

For Chinese, Spanish and French I'm counting on BrillKids, we've only been doing LR Chinese since he turned 18 months, the other two I plan for the future.

Because my boy is using Afrikaans and English well, he understands Dutch and German too, and since Dutch and German are world languages and Afrikaans is not, I would like him to get exposure in them too.

I'm thinking of using Rosetta Stone for the European Languages.

English and Afrikaans are Wilhelm's primary languages and I only aim to introduce him to the other 10, I want him to understand it and have a foundation for later language development if he chooses to.

We also have an option of sending him to a French immersion school, we'll see...

I only speak English and Afrikaans, I've read and spoken to him in these languages from pregnancy.

[mybabyian]

I think there are some things you need to be careful of if you try.  First, don't stress yourself out or your baby.  Mandabs advice of starting out with less and adding more as you go sounds like advice I would take if that were my goal.

Second, I would definitely give extra weight to some of the languages.  Maybe just two or even three.  Being able to communicate I think is an important part of a toddlers development.  Babies learn language by recognizing patterns of the language.  It's possible that his speech might be very delayed if you try to do too much and give to much weight to each language because he will have a difficult time catching the patterns.  I would think if you only spend an hour a week on each of last five languages that would be okay, although you might not see much progress in those.  I also thought that sign language to bridge understanding would be excellent.

I would take everyone's advice (definitely including mine!) with a grain of salt since none of us have tried to teach so many languages.  If you can find any case studies on kids exposed to so many languages I would seek those out.  I would just be concerned that I was not sacrificing his language development by being so ambitious.

[elaida]

I think it is possible, but takes dedication and organization.

I think it would be easier (and perhaps just as valuable) to teach a child to understand and speak 10 languages from the beginning and to introduce reading at a later date (or stagger the introduction of reading, limiting to just a few languages initially, perhaps starting with some very different writing systems). You could still read books to the child in all the different languages, but just wouldn't "push/formalize" the reading aspect as much in all the languages at once.

The following websites include some ideas that you might want to try.

LEX America http://www.lexlrf.org/ (they have sites in other countries/languages as well)
Their premise is that anyone can learn multiple languages at the same time. They sell (expensive) CD/book sets and host "language clubs" where members gather together to practice different languages. Although their website advertises a tagline of "Anyone Can Speak 7 Languages", 7 is not really a limit in their method. I think they just say that for marketing reasons (for many people, 7 is plenty) and they package 7 languages together in the basic packages that they sell. They also have 11 and 19 language versions of their materials.
Anyways, I think the most useful thing to read on their site is their explanation of how to use their materials http://www.lexlrf.org/Our%20CDs%20&%20Books/Files%20for%20Languages/Listening%20To%20LEX%20Audio%20Materials.pdf
You can apply the same concepts to materials that you find yourself.

The following YouTube video recommends readings 5-7 books in each of 3 languages to the child each day.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/Q7Njw1O2AYQ&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/Q7Njw1O2AYQ&rel=1</a>
So, you'd rotate through the languages over the course of a week.

The person who made the YouTube video above (http://thepolyglotexperience.blogspot.com/) also refers to the following website in another video:
http://www.goethe-verlag.com/book2/index.htm
The site provides free audio lessons in a number of languages (start by clicking on your native language in the left column).
You could use the lessons on this website (or any other language resource materials you have access to) in conjunction with the principles described in the LEX document together to expose your child to many languages at once. I have no idea about the quality of the courses on this website since I just found it now.

I know there are lots of internet resources available that one can draw on, but just want to remind people to check out their local public library. Some libraries stock a number of children's book/audio sets in various languages. If not, you might be able to request that the library invest in a few.

My last comment is to try not to mix up the languages when introducing the child to them. I think the child will be able to sort out the different languages if each language is used consistently when it is used (like one language per sentence/song/book), but will have a much harder time if the languages are mixed (like you start a sentence in one language and end in another, or fill in words that you don't know in one language with words in another when trying to make a sentence).

But, take the above with a grain of salt, as I don't have any experience applying it myself yet!

Good luck!

[Mandabplus3]

The lex resourses look great. I don't think there are nearly enough of them but better than nothing. The biggest set doesnt have enough total hours and its $1000! You are quite right, they are very expensive! I suppose you do get 7 languages though, more in the jumbo set.
I would love someone to review them! Anyone?

[anthonymummy]

hello everyone

i would like to thank you everyone here who has given me all these wonderful advices and words of encouragement. To answer most of your questions, I myself only speak two languages ( english and chinese ). The rest , my resources includes going to playgroups , attending lessons, hiring a native baby sitter , arranging native play dates etc.  Plus i will be sending him to a mandarin and english pre- school afterwards.  My hubby on the meanwhile speaks spanish and french to our son.
I agree with everyone on all of your advices, and no i don't have a particular ciriculum. Nor am i super dedicated and organised    So far i am only using little reader for their english chinese and french  , as we really have no time . At home we speak the above languages and adopt the one parent one language policy .and we speak english between ourselves. So our son should be picking up english during our conversations.  My son will then have one to two hours lesson on the rest of the languages mentioned in the previous post.  Right now I don't aim for early literacy for most of the languages except chinese and french and english , the rest , i would settle for comprehending and speaking .

Again, thank you all again to all of you who double confirm i am on the right track.I am more inspired Since all of you are telling me to aim high , and after reading some of  Ella's video of her reading in 5 languages . Perhaps i should up my game too  I am now looking into lex resources and will keep everyone posted on our journey.

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