by T. H. Orin

Created on: February 14, 2007   Last Updated: May 02, 2007

Charlemagne said, "To have a second language is to possess a second soul."

I've always believed that, and I've always wanted my children to benefit from that belief.

It's a well-documented fact that children learn languages much more easily while they are young. This doesn't just apply to their native language, but any second or third languages they might pick up as well. The parts of the brain that develop speech are still fresh and open to experimentation, perhaps.

I love to study other languages, and have always encouraged my children to do so. I'm not just talking about waiting for high school French or Spanish to roll around. I have tried to instill in them a love of language exploration from the youngest possible age.

My youngest boy (now eight) has studied Russian with me since he was about six. He has also learned a little Bulgarian. My daughter (now a teen) knows a lot of Korean.

Here are some tips that might encourage you to try some language fun with your own family:

1) Buy some simple language learning books and work through them, together with your kids. I highly recommend the "________ (fill in the blank) in 10 Minutes A Day" series. These workbooks are so fun and interesting (for any age group), it hardly feels like you're learning at all, but by the end of the book, you are surprising familiar with your new language. (Look near this article for links to sites that sell language books and resources.)

2) Encourage each of your children to pick their own second language, and then learn it WITH them, even if it takes months or years. Any kid will think it's fun to learn a language that only they and one parent know. Imagine the secret conversations you'll have, as you speak to one kid in Russian, and another in Spanish, and each kid isn't quite sure what the other one is saying to Dad or Mum.
(If you don't have multiple children, this is still fun with one child, of course.)

3) Travel to places (or even local business) where your new language is spoken. Learning Mandarin? I guarantee there's a restaurant near you in which you can practice saying "please" and "thank you". Learning Korean? There's a "Korea-town" probably not far from you. Learning Spanish? Take the family out for Mexican food regularly, or plan a vacation to some destination where Spanish signs are everywhere, and everyone speaks Spanish. The possibilities are endless.

4) Use the media. There are television stations available now in just about any language you can imagine. Watch them, find a favorite show, and see how well you can follow it. Watch a favorite movie on the Spanish HBO channel one night. (It will be easier to follow if you've seen the movie a dozen times in your native language, of course!) Rent a foreign film in your new language if you don't have alternate-language channels available on your television.

5) Order some tapes or CDs to listen to in the car. There are many of them available that cover conversational __________ (again, fill in the blank with your new language). I like the "conversational" recordings because they usually feature native speakers, and most people (especially children) learn much better by hearing than by some other methods. For a lot of us, once you get used to the sounds and words of conversational speech in that language, it's much easier to learn its writing later. (Again, see links near this article for language-learning resources.)

I hope that you and your family will try some of these ideas soon! Even if your child doesn't stick with it for long, you'll find that they have stimulated the language centers of their brain anyway! They will tend to have better vocabularies in their own language, and do better in language-related subjects at school. Good luck!

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