Should I give my child the opportunity to learn spanish?
My son is 1 year old. We live in the United States. My first language is english. I believe the second most common language spoken in the U.S. is spanish ( the Puerto Rican dialect as well as the Mexican dialect), I want to know if you think my son should be given the opportunity to learn to speak spanish. Should I take an active part in encouraging the learning or stand by and see if he decides to pick it up on his own later in life with no encouragement?
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I would give him the opportunity now. My friend’s little brother is 5 and speaks 3 languages and it is very impressive. It is always good to be able to speak another language.
When a child is young they pick up languages even quicker as well so starting him young is the best way to do it.
Also, if your son turns around one day and says he doesn’t want to do it anymore then you can respect that and let him stop.
The United States is now incorporated as a Spanish-speaking nation (though it has no official language as a whole, some states like California have Spanish as one of the official languages).
It would be a nice advantage for your son to be bi-lingual.
Definitely encourage it and take an active role in helping him learn. The earlier the better and the benefits of knowing a second language go beyond merely talking to others in that language. Depending on where you live, some jobs may actually require him to be bilingual when seeking employment, many universities require a second language before graduation and being bilingual will actually mean he may get paid more money even if he doesn’t need the language.
Also, contrary to popular belief, small children are not confused by growing up with more than one language. I grew up in Norway and I grew up listening to our dialect of Norwegian (obviously) along with German because of my large, extended family. I learned both at the same time with no problem. My boyfriend is from Finland and his mother is part of the Swedish speaking minority in that country, so he learned both Finnish and Swedish from birth. We both started learning English in year 3 or so of our schooling, which is common throughout Europe. Now we’re both polyglots (and he’s picked up a couple of other languages easily).
I always got paid more in the US than others BECAUSE I was a polyglot even if my job didn’t require it. I don’t know why that happens in the US (the employment laws are different here) but it does. Now my boyfriend has the opportunity to come over full time on an employment visa and his pay will jump dramatically simply because he’s a polyglot. His job only requires two and he speaks six. So there will be financial benefits down the road for your son as well if you stay in the US.
Also, the social benefits are HUGE. Taneli can communicate with people I cannot because my spoken English is hard for them to understand as theirs is for me. When my boyfriend is around he talks to them in their own language. Since we go to a lot of international music festivals, we’ve actually met people from all over the world and between the two of us, rarely have a problem communicating with others and have made a lot of good friends over the years as a result.
Good on you, btw! Some people in the US take a rather short sighted view on such things and cling stubbornly to their mother tongue. This doesn’t benefit anyone and I actually view it as harmful. There are studies all over the internet that describe the benefits in ease of education, brain development, etc, just from knowing a second language as well if you care to go looking for them. Good luck to you and your cutie!
Definitely! My parents taught me spanish ever since i was a baby as well as english and i can tell u it is 100% helpful. A lot of people speak spanish now and in high school the spanish class is always full. knowing it will also help with his jobs. Also it is much easier to learn a language when ur still a little kid. Later on it could get either harder on him. the more languages he learns the better for him and his future!
I would definitely let him pick it up now. It will be much much easier for him to learn it now than later in life. Plus, Spanish is a very useful language and he would be able to use it a lot if he learns it now. Also, he might not have the time or energy later in life to learn it, so give him the chance to learn it now and don’t take the risk of him not learning Spanish.
Learning any language could help your son in the future, be it Spanish, German, Arabic, etc.
I do recommend you get him to learn Spanish. It’s become a very important language in the U.S, and it’ll also open your son to learning about other cultures.
yes yes yes. absolutely. you could get him muzzy! but seriously… you don’t have to start him now, considering he’s probably still learning English, but when he starts grad school, definitely encourage him, if not force him, to learn Spanish. it is so commonly spoken in America now, there is no way he could NOT benefit from it. Most jobs look for people with a second language, and there are so many opportunities for those who are bilingual.
Not free but a fraction of the price of Rosetta Stone: http://www.stuff4you.biz/spanish.asp