Curricula and Learning Links - Modern Languages
Choosing Which Language to Study and Which Program to Use
Studying a foreign language has many benefits. It boosts vocabulary, helps children to understand grammar structure, and helps them relate better to foreign cultures. Two years of high school foreign language is required to be admitted to many universities. Which language should your children study? Which one is easiest? Where does Latin fit in? The choices and materials are endless. Here are a few thoughts from the contributors on HomeschoolChristian.com's message boards.
My suggestion is to let children take whichever language they want. Success in a foreign language is GREATLY enhanced with interest!! For Latin, look at the Latin Comparison Chart on our review page to help decide on a program. I recommend starting with an introductory program.
I have a degree in French, but I haven't found the "perfect" program yet. My daughter has been doing French for a couple years. (She was 11 at the time I originally wrote this post.) You want to look for a program that uses native speakers. Learnables makes us all a little crazy because it is so repetitive, but it gets much better at the Structures level. French Is Fun is good, but it doesn't have an audio so unless you speak French, you won't get the pronunciation. Calvert has a good program, but it doesn't use native speakers. Pimsleur (the full set!) is outstanding, and I really like it, but my daughter feels the lessons are too long. Rosetta Stone is good, and my daughter likes it in small doses. It's computer based.
We spent some time doing Muzzy when the children were little, and my two older children, who were probably 8-9 and 6-8 when we watched most of it, retained an amazing amount. They can still recite chunks of it at 17 and 14. My younger ones who were in preschool and toddler age when they watched Muzzy seem to have little memory of it at all.
My youngest watched Bonjour, Les Amis! videos. These are animated with an adorable cat, and the accent is excellent. She retained some vocabulary and expressions from the tapes. I'm sure she would have retained more if I had allowed her to watch them multiple times.
We also used PowerGlide for a little while. Unfortunately, the method PowerGlide uses of speaking half French and half English was too confusing for us. The program does not use native French speakers, and I'm a stickler for accent!
My oldest took two semesters of French at the community college recently (with substantial help from me) using the French In Action program. This is, in my opinion, the worst French program ever. I learned French in a traditional way (with its strengths and drawbacks), so French In Action was a bit of a shock to my system. The program is video- and book-based, with a story about a young man and young woman who meet each other in France. It strives to be a sort of immersion program, and I certainly agree that immersion (in a real, rather than video/book setting) is the quickest and easiest way to learn a language. This program, however, seemed to spend more time working on idioms and slang than it did on grammar, and the grammar concepts were introduced in an unusual order. It was a great relief when my son finished the second semester and could quit!
I had some Latin in high school, but much more French in high school and college. In fact, I was privately tutored by a French woman as a junior and senior in high school, and that allowed me to be WAY ahead of the other college kids when I took French classes. If you can afford it, private tutoring is your best way to become fluent.
Since I've been homeschooling, I've worked much more with Latin, and it is SO easy because of my French background. French would also be much easier with a Latin background, and of course, the other "romance" languages, Italian, Spanish, Romanian, and Portuguese, will also be easier with a Latin background. - Martha R.
My daughter (9) has been taking French because I was told by a woman that grew up in Brazil (South America), that of all the Latin-based languages, French was the most difficult. We started off with a small group setting of an actual teacher. When we moved here to Tennessee, my daughter had a one-on-one French tutor. I then bought Muzzy, and now we are on Power Glide. Since our coop has started this fall, a woman there teaches French. - Stacy in TN
Yes, motivation is key to learning languages. Having said that, of spoken languages, I think Spanish is easier than French. Latin is harder than either in some ways, easier than both in other ways. My family finds Latin easier than any spoken language because we don't have to concern ourselves with the conversational aspect, which we found hard to incorporate at home. (I would highly recommend a class or a tutor or some similar approach for any spoken language.) Latin is more complex grammatically, but it's also more regular than French or Spanish. - Laura in CT
Interest will play a big role. However, I would agree that if interest is the same across the board, Spanish is definitely easier than French.
Looking at Latin: Latin on the one hand is harder because of elements of the grammar, but on the other hand it is easier (at least initially) because you don't have to worry as much about pronunciation (it's still a concern, just not as much of a concern as with a modern language), and also because I think it is less irregular than either Spanish or French. On a third hand, though, not all colleges will accept Latin as meeting their foreign language entrance requirement. You'll have to check with each individual college.
Finally, a friend of ours has an adult child who is with military intelligence doing work involving foreign languages. When this adult child was in language school for the intelligence guys, the languages were divided into different tiers of difficulty. Spanish was in the lowest (easiest) tier. French was one or two tiers up from that. I think Chinese was in one of the highest (most difficult) tiers, as was also, I think, Arabic. - Caron
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