What language to teach my kids...

[ladysycamore]

Originally posted by Slartibartfast
If you have ancestors from a particular country, you might want to teach them a language from there to help give your children a link to their past.

I totally agree with that! That's part of the reason why I took French in high school...my
family crest (coat of arms) has its' motto in French:

"Sans mal". (without death)

Plus, I liked the way the French language sounded when spoken

[lumberjim]

i failed french 1 cuz i was too embarrassed to speak it in class.

i switched to spanish, and failed that because i like to fuck off.

i still learned un pocito espanol, though. pass los cacahuetes. Lo siento, yo stupido

[SteveDallas]

perl. Definitely perl.

I'd go for Spanish at this point.

[elf]

I didn't do well with languages in school. I think they ought to teach it earlier than they do. But I can still count to ten in German, French and Spanish.

On a completely unrelated note, my seventh grade English teacher forced us to memorize the prepositions. I was never good at memorizing things, and I nearly failed the seventh grade because of it. I had to go to summer school . just to memorize the prepositions. Unbelievable.

But, now I have this: (takes deep breath)
aboutaboveacrossagainstalongamidamongaroundatbefore
behindbelowbeneathbesidebesidesbetweenbeyondbutby
concerningdownduringexceptforfromininsideintolikenearofoffon
ontooutsideoverpastsincethroughthroughouttotowardtowards
underunderneathuntilupuponwithwithinwithout

Now, isn't that worthwhile? (Yeah, I've probably missed a few here and there, but we're going on fifteen years since.)

[glatt]

I took latin in high school for a year or maybe two.

I wouldn't recommend it for kids. It's not a language that anyone speaks as a native, so the only time you hear it spoken is in class. It's more of a written language. Kids are going to be less excited about a written language. Sure, it will help with learning the other languages, but not as much as studying those other languages would.

[wolf]

But wouldn't it be cool to be able to understand bits of The Passion without the subtitles? That's useful, isn't it?

I've been wanting to learn Ancient (not New Testament) Greek for a while, but have been thwarted by the lack of colleges offering such a thing. Also, It's something that I want to do, but don't really want to have to make massive adjustments in my schedule to accomplish. I have several "teach yourself ancient greek" books, but I stall somewhere around chapter three or so. I work better when I have a more structured environment and the feedback of a live teacher, particularly for something like language acquisition.

And yes, it has occurred to me that I could/should pursue education in some language of practical usefulness, like Spanish. There is a fairly large Spanish-speaking population in the area, and it might come in handy at work, however, doing such an thing violates my belief that "you're in America, speak American dammit!"

A refresher in German would probably not hurt me much, though. Reading Stern is a lot more of a struggle than it used to be.

[ladysycamore]

Originally posted by wolf
And yes, it has occurred to me that I could/should pursue education in some language of practical usefulness, like Spanish. There is a fairly large Spanish-speaking population in the area, and it might come in handy at work, however, doing such an thing violates my belief that "you're in America, speak American dammit!"

Now you're speaking MY language...ha! I just don't understand how anyone can communicate "properly" if they don't learn the language (and I mean without the help of an interpreter).

Aren't "we" (Americans) expected to do the same when visiting other countries (learn *some* of the native language)?

[Happy Monkey]

Originally posted by ladysycamore
Aren't "we" (Americans) expected to do the same when visiting other countries (learn *some* of the native language)?

No. We're lucky that way.
Move there, on the other hand, and it's a different story.

[SteveDallas]

Originally posted by wolf
I have several "teach yourself ancient greek" books, but I stall somewhere around chapter three or so. I work better when I have a more structured environment and the feedback of a live teacher, particularly for something like language acquisition.

I'm the same way with Ancient Egyptian... I always stall out. (The Oriental Insitute at the University of Chicago has a correspondence course, but I already have the textbook they use, and I've never felt like paying the course fee to have somebody take me through it by mail. Tho it's possible that if I did pay I'd be more diligent about it.)

Reading Stern is a lot more of a struggle than it used to be.

Oh yeah, I love Stern. My favorite was when he had the cheerleaders and the strippers on teams playing trivial pursuit against each other.

[Pi]

Go for a roman language. Maybe spanish. After knowing that it's a piece of cake to learn french, italian or portugese.
It's maybe the easiest to teach and learn.
I speak about 5-6 languages but only "european" ones. Would like to try some russian or japanese... But it's difficult cause different letters

[lumberjim]

pi, you know 5 or 6 languages? why the uncertainty? i'd think that someone smart enough to learn all of thoses languages would be smart enough to count to 6. which is it 5 or 6? and name them. i'm friggin impressed.

let me ask you this: when you are speaking a different tongue, what language do you "think" in?

what is your first language?

[Pi]

I'm not shure because it depends on how you count all the languages:
1. luxemburgish (is it a real language, I'd say yes...)
2. german (at school when I was 6, but knew already some because of german TV)
3. french ( when I was 7, at school, quite difficult)
4. english (12 years, at school, knew some because of music and so on)
5. spanish (16 years, at school but only for 2 years, would need some exercice to get in again but still understand when watching TV)
6. dutch (20 years, never learned it in school, but over here in Brussels, I have lots of dutch-speaking friends, quite the same as luxemburgish or german)
7. italian/portugese (can read a newspaper and understand the meaning of it, can do some shopping and understand if spoken slowly, never learned it but's easy if you know french and spanish).
Still trying to learn more...
Don't need to translate when using first 4 languages, sometimes dream in 2-3 different languages in one dream. That's really crazy!

Originally posted by Radar
I was going to suggest the same thing Jim. Latin makes all the romance languages easy to learn. While spanish is practical, it's also very easy. While they're young and learning languages is easy, latin would be a good choice. It will make learning French, Spanish, Italian, and Portugese very easy.

Wow! I actually agree with Radar on something! My study of Latin made it a lot easier for me to learn Portiguese and Spanish. When I was in Mexico and my Spanish failed me, I'd try Latin. Boy did everyone have some good laughs off that one! Plus, I know all these cool Latin phrases like "Ad astra per asperum" and "Cave canem!"

[lumberjim]

yeah, you sound SO much smarter than everyone else if you throw a little latin at them. they don;t know what the hell you just said, but won;t want to admit it because they figure you must have gone to a better college.

meanwhile, i know " carpe diem" and that's about it. I did learn the latin "roots" of words in 7th grade, and it helps my vocabulary immensely. between context and word roots, i can usually figure out what a word i've not heard means without having to look it up.

[OnyxCougar]

Originally posted by ladysycamore


Now you're speaking MY language...ha! I just don't understand how anyone can communicate "properly" if they don't learn the language (and I mean without the help of an interpreter).

Aren't "we" (Americans) expected to do the same when visiting other countries (learn *some* of the native language)?

Before I went to Croatia, I started to learn the language, bought dictionaries, and spent HOURS in a Croatian IRC chat room. I wasn't fluent (still not) but I understood enough to find the bathroom, the American Embassy, and order bread and a coke. (Actually, I got alot more than that, but turns out I didn't need it, as our friends over there spoke WAY better English than we (I) did Croatian.) But yeah, definetly, learn as much as you can before you go, because people are MUCH more open to help you if they see you at least trying to speak in the native langusge, rather than assuming everyone speaks English.