how do you teach a language you cant speak yourself

Early Learning Teaching Your Child - Signing, Speaking, Languages
1

hi there

i would love to teach my baby a new language but i am not bilingual.
how would i teach him say potuguese or french if i cant read the word the way it is meant to.

is there a program for this or a way to do it.
please help

thanx in advance

2

The french files I am loading have pronunciation. You learn here as well as your child. They will probably learn faster. You can also get cds, and movies from library and play in french. They also have material to teach the language. The files to start with here are a good beginning plus there is information on the internet.

I am hoping that someone increases the chinese files. :happy: I am slowly increasing the french files. Even if you only teach them a few basic words they will be well ahead of the class when it comes times to learn a foreign language.

3

i know a bit of arabic and afrikaans. i dont have a voice recorder but would like to up load files. did you just put in the pronunciation in a written medium?

4

  1. Find a native speaker. Could you find someone who would be willing to let your child play with theirs (speaking the other language, of course)? Could you afford a foreign-speaking nanny? Could you see if other mothers would be interested in a “foreign language playgroup”? Could you get an au pair or a foreign exchange student to come live with you? Really–hearing a native speaker is best.

  2. Meida - Try BBC language course Muzzy. Get CDs and DVDs in the target language. Sing (children can learn so much from music). Play it when the child sleeps, plays, whatever.

  3. Once the child is older, try something like Rosetta Stone or other foreign language immersion programs.

My son is fluent in English, near-fluent in Spanish, and is currently learning Mandarin Chinese.

5

I found this cool site which emerses you in several foreign languages http://www.hello-world.com/.

Here is another site that has nursery rhyme in english, french and german. They are looking for translators for all the languages. http://www.childrensbooksonline.org/

6

Thank you so much for sharing these!!

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Your welcome. Both of these sites sound like wonderful ideas. I hope they grow with lots of languages. Maybe some Chinese people can spread their language by helping at sites like this and ours (hint hint). You can’t tell I would like to teach Colin Chinese can you?

8

Could we start a list of nice sites for learning other languages and reading material? My bookmarks are over running. Might be useful.

9

teaxslady: Can your son read in all three of those languages too?

10

English - yes
Spanish - yes
And in both of these languages we’ve done an Encyclopedic Knowledge program (English ~2,000 cards, Spanish ~500).

Chinese - ummmm…we’ve done some flashcards with the Chinese characters, but I’m not sure he recognizes that many Chinese characters. Actually, I take that back. I believe if you show it to a child, the child eventually learns it. But he isn’t interested in reading Chinese in the same way that he’s interested in reading English and Spanish

11

I am planning to teach Chinese and Spanish. I am planning to make them listen to each languge on alternate days. I don’t have any more time. So, I am not planning to put any effort. All I will do is play DVD’s or CD’s. Right now I am collecting bunch of cd’s and dvd’s. I don’t know how far it will help. But I sure they will atleast learn couple of words. I like these dvd’s http://www.littlepim.com/
http://www.cleverlittlepeas.com/products.htm#

and I am borrowing all the CD’s and DVD’s from the library.

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The BBC has where you get immerson dvds for 5 languages

http://www.early-advantage.com/NewShoppingCart.aspx

13

thanks Texaslady2,
You had great ideas which I will look into and try. I have heard of Rosetta Stone but not the BBC

14

thats fascinating!

cant wait to start!! you people are so well informed. i hadnt even thought about these things.

thanx for sharing.

15

How do you do all this, when did you start? I mean what age did you start? What is your daily schedule? How long did it take for you to get the material ready? I am slowly loosing all hope. I started this program two months ago, I started with words and math. I was not able to do it on all days. For thanks giving we took a break for almost 2 weeks. We started again. But, I don’t think we are getting anywhere. I keep telling myself since I have two kids, I am not able to do it. But, deep down I think I am not doing it correctly. Between the pumping, feeding, eating and playing I am not getting much time. To top all this I will be starting work in 2 weeks :frowning: Sorry for venting… Anyways, I read a lot of other mom’s schedules and am still in the process of learning it. If you could share your schedule too, that will be great.

16

For teaching Chinese I came to know of this site (from this forum only) http://www.winktolearn.com/. Have bought the DVD’s. They have flash cards + songs DVD. Yet to start it though. U can try the sample lessons. There’s also a similar thread.

Great effort texaslady…would also be keen to know how u schedule n manage as currently I’m also in midst of planning the routine for my lil one.

Another thing which i’ve been planning is to take up worldspace radio…u get music in different languages (mostly Indian languages but have french, arabic and german), classical music as well. It’s a great source but currently postponed it due to already so much to manage. http://www.1worldspace.com/

Thanks everyone for ur inputs specially the files / uploads in foreign languages.

17

Thank fatima786 for this great post. My daughter told me that she wanted to learn Japanese for quite a while. Since we don’t speak Japanese, the best way I thought about was sending her to Japanese preschool. Unfortunately we are not able to afford that.

So, thank you all for the great links and ideas. They really give me HOPE now. To start, we are going to let our daughter use Rosetta Stone (Thanks Texaslady2 for bringing this up) to learn Japanese.

You ladies are the BEST!!!

By the way, to learn Chinese, some of you may find the following link useful.
http://edu.ocac.gov.tw/lang/basic/ch_cards/01/INDEX2.HTM

18

Hi I am planning to quit my job when i join back after my pregnancy leave.

I was planning on becoming a full time mother but did not know what & where to start but after having a look at the different things which i can teach my child i am sure both me & my kid are going to have wonderful time learning.

Thanks for the website.

19

Dear Patreiche & All,

I just saw this post and was sooo happy to find Arabic on the hello-world.com site! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! :slight_smile:

Ayesha

20

Thanks for all of the links!!

I am lucky to have native speakers in all of the languages I am teaching my son and they have been sooo helpful. I have always been good at learning different languages, but just didn’t do enough to become fluent in any of them. I am hoping things will be different for my son, but if not I am comfortable knowing that I have laid a foundation and if he chooses to learn a language later in life he can go back to all that I taught him :slight_smile:

The main thing that keeps me motivated is his interest and although he does it when he feels like it he had shown me that me can read flashcards in all of the languages:)

Good luck!