Language Processing in Children
Monday, June 29th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
Around three, children begin to better understand hidden meaning of words and start to develop an exceptional vocabulary. A three year old is curious and open to new things, so trying to teach him a new language like how to learn spanish is a wise decision. This is the moment when a new language should be introduced. If you start addressing him in the foreign language, he will understand meanings better. The child might take long before he actually speaks any of the new words he hears because he will first assimilate them.
Trying to teach a child a language that is too similar to the one he knows can be confusing. This basically means that children learn better two very different languages than two languages that are quite similar. At three, no child is 100% sure of all native language words he hears from adults, so trying to teach then words from another language that are too similar to some he hears every day might be very confusing. If you want them to understand the difference between two languages, you will have to choose two very different languages. The new language has to be as different as possible. For example, if your child is born in the USA and speaks English, then teaching him a Latin language like megavocab software learning game or French is one of the best choices.
Don’t worry if the child says words form the foreign language in a funny way, the main responsible is the larynx, that is accustomed to reproduce sounds from the native language. In time, as he starts to speak better his native language, he will perfect the second language pronunciation also. In the beginning, the child will not understand the different language definition and will simply learn two different meanings for the same object. Maybe a few sentences will be made using words from both languages. Instead of giving the child definitions of an object in both languages, we can simply say the name in the foreign language and then point to the object.
Try to make him remember what he has learnt. A good idea is to listen to music in that language or to watch cartoon dubbed in that language, because early learning much be solicited constantly. Without practice, the child will not remember the new words. Reading in the foreign language must not be forced. You should wait for the child to learn how to properly read in his native language before trying to make him read in a different language.
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