Family: mono-lingual -> Multi-lingual
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Forum Name: General discussion
Forum Discription: Discussion about language learning for people who study languages on their own.
URL: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=40395
Printed Date: 21 July 2021 at 4:23pm
Posted By: chobbs
Subject: Family: mono-lingual -> Multi-lingual
Date Posted: 30 April 2015 at 1:57am
Our household is currently a mono-lingual native English environment. My wife and I both had a few years of high school Spanish and she would like to continue to learn Spanish, ultimately up to fluency. My oldest son at ~13 is currently learning German, and my youngest at ~10 has expressed interest in learning Japanese. My language interests are quite varied and always have been.
I have been studying French sporadically for a few years now and have recently come to the conclusion that my initial goal of a passive understanding allowing me to consume media is not in the cards with my current approach. Basically, I need to speak with people to make forward progress. It is possible this wouldn't be the case for me with a language other than French, but at this point I am operating under the impression that it is.
With all of the above in mind I am wondering about the process of transitioning our household to another language and from there into a truly multi-lingual one. Specifically I am thinking about switching to Esperanto for all of our in-family communication initially. From there each family member would choose to study any desired language and from there we would communicate in that language when there was overlap - for example, once I am ready to tackle German, speaking to my son solely in German.
The goal seems pretty straight forward, but the process for doing so is what I am currently struggling with. For example, does it make sense to have everybody trying to learn the target language at once, or is it better to have one person get a base and have them gradually bring others into the fold, teaching it to the rest of the family so to speak?
One thought I had was that my wife and I would each go through the process of learning Esperanto, and as soon as possible start integrating what we could into our conversations. My oldest could easily do the same, but my youngest may need a more interactive environment and would probably benefit the most from picking it up via the rest of us, as opposed to learning on his own. As each one of us gathered new vocabulary the others would then learn it as it came up in conversations. Obviously, we have English to fall back on for making ourselves understood or providing a translation to each other.
I did some searching and couldn't find anything about families that had undertaken this type of process. Most the things I could find, as well as all of the family situations we personally know of which are multi-lingual, have native speakers of another language for one, or both, parents.
Given that we have no native foreign language to share, I settled on Esperanto as a good target. The benefits to further language acquisition are well known, but also since it has a straight forward pronunciation we wouldn't have to worry about the possible accent problems encountered with a bunch of beginners conversing together like we would with another language.
If anybody has had a similar experience, knows of any resources I should look into, or has other suggestions for this process I would appreciate them. Thanks!
- Chris
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Replies:
The most drastic is to ban all use of English within the household. I would do that
within my own house but no one is desperate enough for an immersion environment to do so.
But if your family are willing, banning English completely and replacing it with target
languages is what I would recommend. I do this right now for myself only, and when I
lived alone I did it for the flat in which I lived. It increased my level very much. This
includes mobile phones, television, radio, all Internet activities, games, etc. I even
write reminder notes to myself in anything but English.
1e4e6 on 30 April 2015
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Yeah, ultimately I'd like to get to the stage of banning all English communication, and the family seems open to the idea. It is getting to the point at which that ban is reasonable that I am still figuring out.
At this point I am leaning towards giving myself a few weeks head start familiarizing myself with Esperanto so that I will hopefully be able to guide the learning for the rest of the family, or at least be able to point them in the right direction for their questions. After that, I will probably start things off with my wife, who currently doubts her ability to learn a new language entirely. Not quite sure when I will bring the children into the mix, but probably shortly after my wife and I can have some short conversations. My oldest is likely to just go off studying on his own.
When I start teaching my youngest though, who is the most likely to not learn on his own via independent study, does it make sense to give him a basic grammatical explanation of some rule or simply wait until he has seen hundreds of examples and just picks it up naturally?
My concern with the above is that learning through pure immersion seems like it would negate many of those benefits that Esperanto brings for the acquisition of the next foreign language. If you are fluent, but still haven't actually learned the basics of the grammar do you still get a boost for the next language? On the flip side I don't even know if I can simplify the grammatical aspects enough to make it comprehensible for him.
- Chris
chobbs on 03 May 2015
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I'd personally think that learning together would be more fun for everyone (but this
is 100% opinion, with no real-life experience to back it up).
As your youngest son is ten already, I feel there is no need to shirk away from
grammar. The younger he starts to learn about grammar the better it will be for him
(both for his English and whatever other language[s] he decides to learn.) Using
Esperanto might even be beneficial, as it's much simpler to explain the differences
between tenses when there are suffixes to help you along.
I assume you know about lernu.net?
EDIT: I do question the utility of learning Esperanto as a means to get to
other languages (especially for your younger son, who wants to learn Japanese). I can
see it being beneficial to inspire confidence, and it might be nice to have a language
that all of your family can speak together, but I don’t know that viewing it as a
means to reach an end will be of much use for your individual goals. There are other
topics about this, but sadly my search function is limited so I can’t find the most
relevant ones for you
Elenia on 03 May 2015
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I think practicing together is great, using only target language if more family
members share it, sure. But Esperanto? I think the propedeutic advantages are a bit
overestimated, especially once you've already got the experience with learning another
language.
In case of your family, from what I've just read, Esperanto looks like:
1.an unnecessary step between family members and their real target languages
2.more of an advantage for those wanting to learn romance languages than for those
longing for German or Japanese.
3.it might even endager the quality time you have together. Any family has sometimes
trouble understanding each other even when they are all speaking the same native
language together. Switching to Esperanto, that somehow doesn't sound right to me but
it might be just my opinion
I think it would be an awesome thing if you added German to your list so that you can
have this tie with your son and help him. If your youngest picked something easier, it
might be great to just add another language to your list. I don't know how much your
youngest one desires Japanese. While I had been a very stubborn child to learn French
(large part of the time on my own) since I was nine, not everyone is like that, even
my sister (now 11) isn't. A sentence "I wanna learn Japanese" said once doesn't mean
much. And even if the interest is true and lasting, won't forced Esperanto just
extinguish this language learning desire in your youngest child?
Sorry to sound a bit pessimist, I find your overall family passion for languages
awesome and it might be a great step forward.
Cavesa on 03 May 2015
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Thanks for your insight Elenia. Yes, I am familiar with lernu,net. Everybody will definitely be learning together to a certain extent, it is pretty much just a question of when do they start. I know my wife prefers having me answer her questions on a subject, and so my slight head-start was mostly to facilitate that aspect. My eldest could start at will, but the youngest and his needs, if we head solely down the immersion path for him, is the big question.
One other thing that factors in, which I didn't mention, is my oldest is a voracious reader. Whereas my youngest has struggled with his reading. It is definitely starting to come around, but it is a big factor because I can pretty much hand my eldest any book at all and be confident in his comprehension ... not so much with the younger one. So, studious methods don't seem like they would be the best choice for him.
Agree the Esperanto carry-over might not be as high for my youngest (or even for any of us), but I figure that, if nothing else, having a less rigid word->meaning mapping due to knowing two languages should be beneficial and the language is simple enough that we can pick it up and start reaping the benefits in a lot less time than other languages. Since we don't currently have a common specific language in our sights this seemed the most reasonable compromise.
I guess most of my struggle with this centers around how to teach my youngest. None of my language learning experiences have included immersion so I am a little lost about how to teach in that manner - especially without being fluent in the target language.
- Chris
chobbs on 03 May 2015
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Cavesa wrote:
I think it would be an awesome thing if you added German to your list so that you can have this tie with your son and help him. If your youngest picked something easier, it might be great to just add another language to your list. I don't know how much your youngest one desires Japanese. While I had been a very stubborn child to learn French (large part of the time on my own) since I was nine, not everyone is like that, even my sister (now 11) isn't. A sentence "I wanna learn Japanese" said once doesn't mean much. And even if the interest is true and lasting, won't forced Esperanto just extinguish this language learning desire in your youngest child?
Sorry to sound a bit pessimist, I find your overall family passion for languages awesome and it might be a great step forward. |
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I don't mind the pessimism at all, and in fact have some of the same thoughts myself. Mostly the proposed switch to Esperanto was to give a common non-English ground to everybody. It seems the easiest to pick up, and if there are other benefits, as many have claimed there to be, then great. Even without extra benefits, everybody would still gain confidence and the other non-language specific benefits. One other factor is that everybody listened to some and like the sound, which was quite the opposite for other languages that were a possibility.
The youngest and his desire for Japanese is a non fleeting thing I think. It has been a difficult thing for my wife and I to sort out because of his general desire to want to participate in everything. However, this particular thing has lasted awhile and come up often enough that I think it is something he actually wants. Now, whether he is prepared for the amount of work required to learn a new language is something else entirely.
- Chris
chobbs on 03 May 2015
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You might want to PM Radioclare who is part of the Esperanto movement in the UK, She can certainly answer a lot of your questions. I studied Esperanto briefly and it shouldn't be to much of a struggle, there are only a dozen grammar rules, so everything else is just learning vocabulary.
On big benefit of Esperanto is there is a long standing travel community, where you can stay with people in various countries at no charge, the only rule is you have to speak Esperanto with them all the time. Which I always thought was a really cool reason to learn. This might be one benefit to your son later in life, if he wants to travel to Japan, and can stay with a Japanese family and they have a common language (other than Japanese) to speak.
To quote wikipedia: "Several studies, such as that of Helmar Frank at the University of Paderborn and the San Marino International Academy of Sciences, have concluded that one year of Esperanto in school, which produces an ability equivalent to what the average pupil reaches with European national languages after six to seven years of study, improves the ability of the pupil to learn a target language when compared to pupils who spent the entire time learning the target language. In other words, studying Esperanto for one year and then, say, French for three results in greater proficiency in French than studying French for four years."
So there is some benefit in your children learning this first. Also, research into the neurobiology of bilingualism has found that being fluent in two languages, particularly from early childhood, not only enhances a person’s ability to concentrate, but might also protect against the onset of dementia and other age-related cognitive decline.
So I say go for it. After all what could it hurt, and the advantage is you'd have a language in your family very few outsiders understand, so you can talk about how fat Great-Aunt Bessie has gotten without her actually knowing. :)
rdearman on 03 May 2015
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rdearman wrote:
You might want to PM Radioclare who is part of the Esperanto movement in the UK, She can certainly answer a lot of your questions. I studied Esperanto briefly and it shouldn't be to much of a struggle, there are only a dozen grammar rules, so everything else is just learning vocabulary.
So there is some benefit in your children learning this first. Also, research into the neurobiology of bilingualism has found that being fluent in two languages, particularly from early childhood, not only enhances a person’s ability to concentrate, but might also protect against the onset of dementia and other age-related cognitive decline. |
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Thanks, I'll send her a PM and see what insight she can offer.
rdearman wrote:
| So I say go for it. After all what could it hurt, and the advantage is you'd have a language in your family very few outsiders understand, so you can talk about how fat Great-Aunt Bessie has gotten without her actually knowing. :) |
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LoL, I am sure the boys will get quite a kick out of that aspect.
- Chris
chobbs on 04 May 2015
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Part of the equation for learning languages is exposure to a language. The other is personal effort. In order to
be successful learning any language,
There are parents who are first generation immigrants and speak to their kids in their native language.
Although the kids have the advantage of being exposed to the language early, in some cases the second
generation is able to maintain language fluency. Depending on a number of factors including connections with
the home country (frequent travelling back & forth and relatives visiting), watching videos in another language,
etc. Families with parents and grandparents who are not fluent in English the kids tend to be more fluent in the
mother-tongue because they often act as interpreters for the older generation when shopping or going to a
doctor's appointment.
Relying on going to class everyday is not enough. Once you get to a summer break, you have 3 months with
no exposure to a language. Personally I'd read news in Chinese at least 3 times per week, listen to news in the
language on radio as much as possible and watch all sorts of online documentaries of interest. In the
beginning, picking up words & phrases from a documentary may be a bit difficult. Try to find TV programs that
are entertaining such as ä¸ĺ›˝čľľäşşç§€, the Chinese version of "America's Got Talent" and "Britain's Got Talent".
Many countries have their own versions of the show and the format is very similar so the only issue is
following the dialogue. There are other reality shows including singing contests similar to "American Idol" that
are also easy to follow.
I know 1 family who had no TV for many years or even a video machine. Although the mother is Dutch and the
father is German, the kids learned other languages (Latin, French & German) in class. Their parents never
spoke to them in a mother-tongue. They maintained good marks in school but did not become fluent speakers
in another language until they moved to Europe where they picked up Spanish and Italian as well.
Some people suggested getting to family to stop using English at home. The problem is hat when 2 people are
learning the same language, they tend to pick up on each other's mistake. My parents would never speak to
the kids in Japanese if they are learning the language unless they are already native-speakers. On the other
hand, I know someone in the US who belongs to a local Deutsch Klub where the group would meet once a
week to practice their German. And he also belong to another group who studies Chinese in a program
sponsored by the Confucius Institute. They would meet regularly to practice Mandarin. When you have a
group of people who have already reached an advanced level in a language, communications become easier.
shk00design on 05 May 2015
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