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10 year old moving countries. | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Immersion, Schools & Certificates |  | |
| AppleLanguages Newbie United Kingdom applelanguages.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4922 days ago 4 posts - 3 votes | Message 9 of 11 30 November 2010 at 5:35pm | IP Logged |
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Hi Adina.
Ten years old is certainly not too late to start learning a language - I started English at age nine, French at twelve and Spanish in my 20s, and can get by in all three of them (native-speaker level for English, Upper Intermediate for the other two). However, I would be careful about the child becoming confused due to excess of languages. I've had personal experience of this because when my cousin had her first baby, her, her husband and the boy's grandparents started trying to teach him three languages at once - Italian, Portuguese and English. The only result was that the boy became confused and learned none of them, instead using a mix of words from all three in the same sentence - "Il mio nome is...". Subsequently the parents had to revert back to just English, which is his mother tongue, and drop the other two languages. While this may not be a problem with your son, since he is older than my cousin and has picked up languages in the past, I would still advise you to help him figure out which languages matter the most. English is mandatory, of course, and Spanish may be of much more use at the present time than German. Romanian may be nice, to keep him in touch with his cultural heritage, but beware of muddles - children at that age are like sponges, "soaking up" all they can, but like sponges, they have limited absorption capacity and eventually "overflow". Even today, for example, I still get confused and tend to forget how a certain word is said in Portuguese, reverting to the English expression, and vice-versa. And Portuguese is my mother tongue! In short, then, I would not worry too much about the language change, but I would be careful not to let the child's mind muddle up with too many languages! Maybe leave German aside for now? But if the move is beneficial to all of you, then I say by all means go for it! If you wanted your son to learn Spanish quickly, there are also a number of language schools you could enroll him in. In case you're interested, the company I currently work for offers courses in several locations in Spain. You can visit our website clicking on the link to your left, on the profile bar, right under our name. I hope I have helped you make up your mind somewhat, and wish you the best of luck in your move to Spain! Pedro Portuguese Translator for Apple Languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Susiesue Newbie Spain Joined 4926 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: Spanish | Message 10 of 11 02 December 2010 at 11:21am | IP Logged |
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I don't think that this experience would be a negative thing at all for your son. Having been raised in a British forces family, I spent all my childhood moving from place to place, and living abroad in Cyprus and Germany.
Although it is true that as you get older the more difficult it becomes to pick up a new language, this is as a general rule and there are always exceptions. In my time I have studied Russian, French, German and Spanish (currently living in Spain) and although Spanish is at the forefront of my mind because I am living it, I am always suprised by how much of my other languages I do actually remember when I need to. You never lose the ability it just gets a bit buried under everything else!! If your son already speaks German, Romanian and English I think he'll find Spanish a doddle! There's plenty of schools where he can take some basic classes as has been suggested and apart from the language side of things, I think that the experience you get from living in a different country is priceless! Susan Carmel 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| marmite Triglot Newbie Portugal Joined 5027 days ago 35 posts - 57 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, English, French | Message 11 of 11 07 December 2010 at 3:32pm | IP Logged |
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1. Children pick up languages quite easily, if they're motivated and if they have a reason to. This is probably the case with your son -- since it's not absolutely necessary for him to keep up with English because everyone he talks to speaks German or Romanian, and he can get subtitles for things (and movies and games are just one part of his life). I have had several foreign classmates and known several foreign families who moved to my country, and in many cases the kids end up speaking the language much better than their parents, because they are in touch with it at school, sometimes they have language lessons, and they need it to make friends. If your son is used to learning languages then he probably won't have any problem with it. 10 years old is not too late to learn a language. I also disagree with Pedro -- from what I've seen, a lot of stances where people start mixing up is when a) the person doesn't have someone to pick up the correct forms (a child attending school shouldn't have much issue with this) and b) if they speak an inconsistent mix of the languages at home, like, say, a Portuguese family moving to England and trying to train their kids by speaking English to them but making mistakes. I think this depends a lot, too, on how you teach your son, his adaptability, lessons, etc. AND it seems to me that mixing up terms happens a lot more often with adults.
Another note: I hope to raise my kids as bilingual one day. Advice I often come across is that they learn the languages better (as in, without slacking off on one of them or mixing them up) if they have a specific setting/person for both. For example, if the parents speak one language to them and the nanny speaks other, or if they speak one language at home and one at school, and at each setting they *only* use that language. (Sorry if this sounds confusing or inaccurate, I haven't had my morning coffee yet) 2. If there's any concern, it wouldn't be solely based on language, but on cultural issues and xenophobia (especially depending on your ethnicity and social class). This is something to keep in mind depending on how it's like where you want to move. Then again, I've seen kids from entirely different cultures show up at school without speaking the language or knowing anything about the culture and fitting in and adapting pretty quickly. In this, kids are probably more flexible than adults. A good article (though probably controversial, I don't know) can be found here. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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