I am not sure how far along you are in developing the French and Spanish curricula, I just have a couple of questions.
When teaching French/Spanish nouns using LR, are you planning to introduce the words along with their respective definite and indefinite articles? For example, teaching un livre (rather than livre) for book and une chaise (rather than chaise) for chair. Some educational programs teach the article along with the noun (Little Pim) and some do not (Baby Bit). Personally, I would like to have my child learn the gender of the noun and the article that goes with it from the beginning rather than having to go back to memorize them after she has learned the words. This may not be as big of an issue for native speakers since they hear the language in their environment and learn it naturally. I would also like to hear the opinions of native French/Spanish speakers. How do you teach the gender of nouns to your kids? Is it important for them to learn it right from the beginning?
The current draft of the French and Spanish curricula will teach both. First without the gender, then with the gender when the Categories come back. That’s why we have 2 Categories for each Category that contains nouns.
For French, it’s looking like around 2-3 months out. Spanish probably another 2-3 months after that. But we’re working on them as we speak, so hopefully we can surprise you all and get them out sooner!
I have a question about the spanish curriculum.
Do you have any preferences on the native speaker country of origen?
Posible answers:
a) prefered …’ country name’ Example Spain, Latin American, Colombia or any other.
b) do not know
c) it is the same to me.
I understand that the voices are of native speakers? Maybe in French there is not too much difference in ‘entonation’ but in spanish we have very mark pronunciation as Argentina, Puerto Rico. I would like to know if this would be an issue for native speakers and others.
For the French curriculum we are working to get native French speakers for the pronunciations. This way we can get a pronunciation that’s as neutral as possible (as far as accent is concerned), which we believe is best for everyone, especially for those who are not familiar with French.
We will most likely do the same for the Spanish curriculum, though we are not quite at that stage where we start looking for voice artists yet.
Any updates on the release of the French curriculum? Sorry to keep bugging you guys but my baby is growing up fast. (Too fast! Where did the last 2 years go?!)
I would love to have a Spanish curriculum for my kids, as I want them to learn English and Spanish reading from jump.
If it matters, I prefer the Latin American pronunciation to Spain, Which latin American country? I have no idea as of yet…
Anything but Chile. We lived there for three years, and even my husband who is a native Spanish speaker couldn’t understand them at first. Same goes for Argentina. I Vote for Ecuador or Colombia. It’s where soap operas are taped for the rest of Latin America since they have the most neutral pronunciation.
Liza
@aangeles: Thanks for keeping us on our toes! lol
We’re in the middle of working on the French curriculum now, although I can’t promise you that it will be done before Christmas. We will try to complete it as fast as we can, though.
@Mom2Bee and lizaveta:
Thanks for the inputs, we’ll keep those in mind!
but my baby is growing up fast. (Too fast! Where did the last 2 years go?!)