Last year my son had spanish lessons once a week in his preschool class. However, every time I asked him what new spanish word he learned, he just said “I don’t know” (in english.) School started this year and spanish has resumed again. My daughter started preschool this year in addition to my son moving to pre-kindergarten, and spanish is being offered each week in the class. I also signed my son up for Mandarin Chinese, wondering if I am wasting my money though because of his non-language interest.

This week, when I picked up my two year old daughter from school, she said “Amigos”. Then when my son came home from his Chinese lesson today, he told me the chinese name of cat and dog. Not sure what has just happened (their sudden interest in language), but I realized one thing…I need to keep up. If I want to know what my kids are saying, I need to learn along with them. Even though I feel like I’m too old to learn a new language!

It seems daunting, but I just got the Little Pim Chinese DVD. Not only will it enhance the lessons my son is learning, but I can learn too. Same with Spanish. It also has encouraged me to refresh my smattering of French that I once knew and spoke 20 years ago (Out of sight out of mind.) I still remember a lot, but it will be nice to kick it in gear and speak to my kids in French, say, every morning. Not sure how much they will pick up, but so many studies show that the earlier you introduce languages, the easier they learn. Not sure if I’m sold on that, but it will be fun to see. So I’m going to do a complimentary 90-day Rosetta Stone trial to brush up on my French and start speaking it in the house. Then start watching the Little Pim DVDs with the kids.

Stayed tuned as we start our learning language journey! I’ll post updates as we go along!