5 Years old Mabou Loiseau Speak 7 Langs (Polyglots) Language Learning Forum

5 Years old Mabou Loiseau Speak 7 Langs
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tmp011007
Diglot
Senior Member
Congo
Joined 6075 days ago
199 posts - 346 votes

Speaks: Spanish*, English
Studies: French, Portuguese

Message 1 of 18

03 May 2012 at 3:15am | IP Logged

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/supergirl-5-year-old-queens-prodigy-speak-languages-play-instruments-article-1.144085#ixzz1tllS3Otj wrote:

Seven languages. Six musical instruments. Two types of dance and two sports. It all adds up to one busy little Queens girl.

Five-year-old Mabou Loiseau's parents spend $1,500 a week on tutors and lessons - and she spends seven hours a day in some type of instruction, with Sundays off.

She grew up speaking French, Creole and English, but her immigrant parents didn't want to stop there. She's also learning Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic and Russian.

"Russian is my most favorite. I just hear something, and if I don't understand I say, 'What does that mean?' and they'll tell me," said Mabou, whose Laurelton house is plastered with flashcards in different languages.

She can sing her ABCs in Spanish, count in Mandarin, read fairytales in Russian, and already has an ambitious list of career goals.

"I want to be a firefighter, and I want to be a doctor, and I want to be a dancer, and I want to be a princess," Mabou said with a smile, sitting shyly on her mom's lap. "And I want to be an actor, and I want to be a musician, and I want to be a singer, and I want to be a veterinarian, and I want to be a mom."

Mabou has her own dance studio with a mirrored wall where she learns tap and ballet. Her mom recently got rid of the kitchen table to make room for a full-size drum set. She's also learning to play the harp, clarinet, violin, guitar and piano. When she's not taking ice-skating or swimming lessons.

"All the sacrifices in the world for her," said her mom, Esther Loiseau, a piano teacher who taught French at an American school before leaving Haiti for Queens 15 years ago. "Furniture is not important. Education is."

Loiseau, 47, said friends and neighbors were initially shocked that she was starting Mabou on such a regimen so early - instead of just letting her be a kid.

"But I make sure I leave enough time for her to play," Loiseau said. "All she knows is learning. What becomes fun for someone is what they know."

Loiseau tells the tutors to play with Mabou, speaking in their native language, for half of the lesson. They spend the other half reading, writing and practicing vocabulary.

She said a sure way to make the opinionated only child behave is to threaten to cancel one of her lessons - especially Russian.

"It's a great experience for me, honestly. A lot of even adult people can't understand what she does," said Rogneda Elagina, 24, Mabou's Russian tutor. "We like to read together ... we started with the alphabet and connecting letters, and now she can read real folklore."

Mabou's dad works 16 hours a day as a parking attendant in Manhattan to pay for everything, and the Loiseaus have also started hosting other students for classes at their house.

The proud parents homeschool Mabou but found out last week that she scored in the 99th percentile on the city test for gifted and talented schools.

"Honestly, I just want to open doors for my daughter," said Loiseau. "She is really my princess."

old news, I know, but..

5 Years old Mabou Loiseau
http://youtu.be/4juUy8iewF4?t=7m46s

Edited by tmp011007 on 03 May 2012 at 4:23am
5 persons have voted this message useful

Ygangerg
Pentaglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5324 days ago
100 posts - 140 votes

Speaks: English*, Spanish, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, French
Studies: German

Message 2 of 18

06 May 2012 at 9:45am | IP Logged

Too much pressure! Small children don't question things, but later she will be a deeply unhappy adolescent. All this, and her dad working 16 hours a day as a parking lot attendant. In my opinion, seven languages is good. Selling your well-being for them... not so much.

Different strokes for different folks.
2 persons have voted this message useful

clumsy
Octoglot
Senior Member
Poland
lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5184 days ago
1116 posts - 1367 votes

Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin, Italian, Vietnamese
Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swedish
Studies: Danish, Dari, Kirundi

Message 3 of 18

07 May 2012 at 10:49pm | IP Logged

That's really cool, I guess by the "Creole" they mean Haitian French Creole?
She seems enjoying her studies, if she wouln't she would not make a progress.

Edited by clumsy on 07 May 2012 at 10:49pm
1 person has voted this message useful

Torbyrne
Super Polyglot
Senior Member
Macedonia
SpeakingFluently.com
Joined 6101 days ago
126 posts - 721 votes

Speaks: French, English*, German, Spanish, Dutch, Macedonian, Portuguese, Italian, Swedish, Czech, Catalan, Welsh, Serbo-Croatian
Studies: Sign Language, Toki Pona, Albanian, Polish, Bulgarian, Turkish^A1, Esperanto, Romanian, Danish, Mandarin, Icelandic, Modern Hebrew, Greek, Latvian, Estonian

Message 4 of 18

07 May 2012 at 11:36pm | IP Logged

My daughter will be five this year and she has five languages. It is all done through play though. She asks to
learn more languages too. We don't pay tutors or anything, we just use switching at home and keep it
relaxed. She starts the switches herself quite often now, when she wants to change language. She is proud
of what she can do. I put it down to living in an environment where many kids we know have 2 or 3
languages anyway. I am just pleased that having multiple languages is something positive for her. We
agreed that five was plenty for now in our house! ;p. If she wants to learn more later, then she can. Not sure
there are enough hours in the day at the moment for an extra two languages, like this little girl! :)

Edited by Torbyrne on 07 May 2012 at 11:45pm
6 persons have voted this message useful

Midnight
Diglot
Groupie
Czech Republic
Joined 4645 days ago
54 posts - 111 votes

Speaks: Czech*, English

Message 5 of 18

09 May 2012 at 12:14pm | IP Logged

I'm highly sceptical to multilingual upbringing at all cost. Once I saw a purposeful dad who spoke to his kid only in English at home, while he was going to kindergarten where everybody spoke Czech of course and the dad even hired a Chinese nanny. They went on a show about some products the dad made to get the attention of potential investors and brought his little son with himself. The kid didn't quite behave and acted like didn't understand the English (or maybe he really did not) and to top it off, when his nanny spoke to him in Mandarin, the kid just made those "well-known" ching chang chong humiliating sounds that had nothing to do with the actual language. It was the dad's bad, because he only saw a potential future profit of his trilingual kid who could IDK get his products to sell in PRC and the USA etc. Forcing is really not a good thing (Jackson 5, Williams sisters) Just imagine languages are just another kind of a hobby and you probably wouldn't feel comfortable if your parents would've shoved their postmark, butterfly or classical music colloections to your face if you hadn't liked them. Okay those are my 2 cents.
2 persons have voted this message useful

Solfrid Cristin
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2011 & 2012
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5340 days ago
4143 posts - 8864 votes

Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian
Studies: Russian

Message 6 of 18

09 May 2012 at 1:04pm | IP Logged

I agree forcing is not a good thing, but if you can make the kids like it, like this little 5 year old or Torbyrne's daughter seem to do, it is great! The thing is to play it by ear, and if the kids are uninterested, you drop it.

I spoke only Spanish to my oldest duaghter for the first 6 weeks of her life, until fatigue and sleep deprivation was too much for me. I then got her a Spanish au pair when she was one year old, and she learned "Thank you" in Spanish before she learned how to say it in Norwegian. After the au pair left, my daughter refused to speak a word of Spanish for years, and I did not try to make her - but when she started learning Spanish again her accent was very good.

At the age of 2 and 6 my daughters went to a French school for 4 months, and learned how to speak basic French. The accent was great, but the vocabulary and grammar were very limited. When they came home they spoke French to each other on occasion, and also sometimes with me, but after a few months they refused flatly to speak French, so we dropped that too. Whenever they say something they still have a great accent though.

Now my youngest daughter (12) is in Spain learning Spanish (on her own request), and my oldest daughter (16) and I are alternating watching series dubbed in French and Spanish (the last one with Spanish subs only). I have convinced both my daughters that it would be a great idea to listen to series in both French and Russian, since they have English down and are half way to Spanish.

I have also bought them whatever books they wanted in English and Spanish.

I do no believe in forcing kids, but I do believe in facilitating things, and getting them whatever they need within your individual means. Whether that is a trip to Europe or to a library will change from person to person - but both can be just as efficient :-)

8 persons have voted this message useful

Midnight
Diglot
Groupie
Czech Republic
Joined 4645 days ago
54 posts - 111 votes

Speaks: Czech*, English

Message 7 of 18

09 May 2012 at 4:06pm | IP Logged

Yes. I wish I had such mom as yourself. I mean I wouldn't exchange mine for anything, but I wish I would've started learning languages earlier. I started learning German when I was like ten, but I was not interested back then and now I regret it, because I could've been a polyglot already. Now I have to pass the leaving exam and find a job so my hobby is going to get side-tracked. I was so careless.
1 person has voted this message useful

Solfrid Cristin
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2011 & 2012
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5340 days ago
4143 posts - 8864 votes

Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian
Studies: Russian

Message 8 of 18

09 May 2012 at 4:18pm | IP Logged

Midnight wrote:

Yes. I wish I had such mom as yourself. I mean I wouldn't exchange mine for anything,
but I wish I would've started learning languages earlier. I started learning German when I was like ten, but I
was not interested back then and now I regret it, because I could've been a polyglot already. Now I have to
pass the leaving exam and find a job so my hobby is going to get side-tracked. I was so careless.

Well my daughter would probably like to exchange me for any American mom. She is desperate to live in
the US and thinks living in Norway is torture.

1 person has voted this message useful

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