foreign language taught at home-need advice!

[poppywise]

hi

we are interested in teaching japanese as a second language to our son at home. he will be in the public school system starting this fall [he'll be 6yo] but we feel it is really important to learn a second language and want to get started.

we are thinking of getting rosetta stone cds but i am wondering if anyone has any advice or suggestions on this program or others? before we spend the money, i was hoping for some feedback/opinions.

we do not speak japanese in our house, but until recently we lived in the pacific northwest and my son seems particularly drawn to the japanese culture/language so that is how we decided. i assume at some point our ability to teach our child a language we don't speak will be surpassed and we'd need a private tutor or something!

thanks in advance!

[Pam_and_Abigail]

:

[GoodEats]

No advice for teaching a language you don't speak (I have enough of a time when Bailey whips out some Spanish, having taken French/Latin in highschool myself) but you may want to check out the library systems in your state to see if they have Rosetta Stone available online. I know Montgomery County (MD) public libraries have it and all you need to log in is your library card (and any MD resident can get a library card for any county library system).

[poppywise]

wow i didn't even think about the library having it! thanks - will look into it!

[LeBoof]

My younger sister has been taking Japanese as one of her college classes. In her case she and her boyfriend also happen to be friends with the prof so I'm guessing that helps her. She really loves it and the culture. They both made one suggestion for anyone wanting to learn the language and I think it might even work for someone who's 6. Get some of the Japanese anime on DVD so that you have the choice about if you want it in Japanese or English (or captioned so you can have it side by side). There are some forms of anime out there for little kids, but read the rating and view content beforehand. A good video rental place like Hollywood Video or Blockbuster should have a few available. Dragonball Z is the first that comes to mind.

LeBoof

[BecBayGrayMad]

I taught myself Spanish using Rosetta Stone. It is GREAT! We are now learning Swedish as a family.

[poppywise]

thanks! and

[Roar]

Last time I checked Rosetta Stone either had sample lessons online or had a disk with just a few lessons you could try. It is expensive so I would suggest finding a way to try it before you buy it. I've sampled the Spanish program and I liked it. My son tried the Latin and he didn't care for it all. It is a program that will connect with certain learning styles and not with others. I have heard that the Asian languages don't work as well but I'm not sure why people thought that. And, as you mentioned really to be competent in any language a person needs real life people to talk to, but software can way to start.

[CharlieBrown]

When my oldest dd was 4.5 yr old, she wanted to learn japanese, chinese and spanish. I found a spanish summer camp for her, then she attended after school spanish class twice a week during kindy. In first grade I was able to find a saturday japanese school, which she has attended for three years. neither dh nor i speak japanese and she had homework every week. i hired a tutor to help her. the first year was strictly for homework. 2nd year found a native speaker who came to my house 2X week for homework and tutoring. same for this year. i don't know where you are located. if you try to hire a tutor, find a japanese friend to post on japanese web site. i had much better luck finding a tutor there than on craigslist. good luck!

[poppywise]

great info sdgrl- thanks!

when we lived in portland we were planning on enrolling him in a japanese immersion school. it was wonderful. we have just moved to nashville tn and so i have to search around a bit since i don't know much about this city yet, but will give your ideas a try. thanks!

[CharlieBrown]

once i found a list of language school in the usa. let me do some search and see if i can locate it.

also, contact the Buddhist CHurches. My dd's school is at a Buddhist church.

[poppywise]

thanks!

[KaraBoo]

My daughter wanted to learn Japanese so she could see Pokemon and Miyazaki films in their original language. The reason I mention this is because one way to hear Japanese, for us, is to watch these, as Leboof mentioned.

I'm just gonna list a bunch of things we've been doing:

We put up subtitles whenever we can so we can see kanji. I have an English/Japanese dictionary that we just thumb through and pic out interesting words. You can find loads of stuff online about pronunciation. I printed out some graph paper to practice kanji so our work will be uniform. We have two "teach yourself" books (great company!). One is for language and one for kanji. I printed out labels (in romanji) for things around the house and we taped them up. Everytime we look into any mirror in our home, we see a little label that reads, "kagami," for example. We practice simple introduction/niceties in our everyday language. We practice niceties when we go to a Japanese restaurant. I leave out the katakana/hiragana sheet and she messes around with figuring out words. I just ordered two sing-a-long tapes from amazon. Names of tapes/books: Sing 'n Learn Japanese, Vol. 1 (Book & CD) and Sing 'n Learn Japanese, Vol. 2 (Book & CD). We listen to JPop a lot. We also have some CDs of songs from anime series. And my daughter absolutely loves this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG9TT...rch=yuki%20joy

She has learned this song phonetically. And yes, you could hire a tutor. Make friends with Japanese people in your area. Go to the places Japanese people shop (is your city diverse?). Take in the whole culture.

We are doing this for fun so some of these may not work if you want a more ordered approach. Hope this helps!

[EVC]

To be effective, I think you will either really have to tap into the local Japanese community and/or take trips to Japan. Language proficiency requires real exposure and practise in real life situations. It would be almost ideal if you could find some recent immigrants with children your son's age that he could communicate regularly with. Just doing the CDs likely won't get him much farther than a passing acquaintance with the language.