Teaching Toddlers Foreign Language

[sweetDD]

Originally Posted by JennTheMomma It may be a little difficult if you don't speak it. They learn best by hearing you talk and being exposed to it. We are trilingual and our children are bilingual in English and Italian. We speak to them in both languages on a regular basis as well as read books that are in both languages. Listening to music, etc helps too. Maybe Muzzy would be a good option for you.

I agree with this,. though playing with mandarin speaking kids might also be great though you will need to guide your baby when doing this because not all kids have a good influence. Goodluck!

[sblakeley]

Originally Posted by sweetDD I agree with this,. though playing with mandarin speaking kids might also be great though you will need to guide your baby when doing this because not all kids have a good influence. Goodluck!

Thanks everyone for the great suggestions!! Playing with the local children is not high on my favorite list. There are some good apples, but many not good apples. I view it as a side effect of the one child policy with each child basically having 6 adults to cater to their every whim. (you thought American Gen-Y was bad.... wait til these guys become adults).

She does spend three afternoons a week with our Ayi (household helper) who does not speak english. I've been looking at preschools and they seem cost prohibitive unless we resign our package and suddenly preschool is paid for.

I babble at her all day in mandarin and currently she knows or responds to 50 words (16 months old) and about 10 in english.

[kimb96]

The best way is to simply speak it around her. My son learned alot of thai when we lived in thailand from the maid. Even though she was fluent in english, she spoke thai with ds. I think the toddler years are a great time to learn a new language. When we lived in thailand, my girlfriend who is austrian adopted a thai baby. By the age of 3, she could speak thai, german, and english fluently. The maid spoke english with her, the family used german at home, and everyone else used english around her and she just soaked it all up.