Comments on: Learning French and Danish

By: Heedan

Heedan — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 20:31:03 +0000

I love your idea of putting Post-Its around the house! Will is only three and I think our efforts at aiming to be multilingual could be subtitled “The Little Engine That Could, TBD”. From the time he was a baby I flashcarded, talked, put the DVDs and telenovelas on. But we live in an English language dominant world (including our own household) and at some point he will likely stop speaking anything else without some external real world context, support and community. That process of engagement is definitely an ongoing project…

By: Veronique Christensen

Veronique Christensen — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 20:27:20 +0000

Love these ideas! We do cook Danish and French meals, but mostly it’s because that’s what we grew up with, not in a conscious effort to expose the kids to our cultures. What’s funny is that Tomas and I do speak French — to each other — when we don’t want the kids to know what we’re talking about

By: Patricia

Patricia — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 16:29:36 +0000

oh, don’t get me started on the whole bilingual thing… i’ve also failed to bring my girls up bilingual with spanish, but i still have hope. my excuse is that my husband doesn’t speak spanish and i don’t want to leave him out! a few things i’ve tried and need to do more consistently: always watch dvds in spanish if it’s an option. have “spanish day” once or twice a week when we eat spanish food, read spanish books, speak spanish, you get the idea. also listen to lots of music in spanish. i try not to be pushy because both of my girls have a clear preference for english since they understand it so much better, and i don’t want to turn them off to spanish by insisting even when they start to get upset because they can’t understand. by the way, i love the new look for little elephants!