Find a video at the end of this post

Learning one or more foreign languages is a concern for most people in the current globalized world. For us not native English speakers, learning English is usually the main priority. I agree that English is useful. So useful that most of my reading is in English even if my mother language is Spanish.

However, I believe that learning any language as a kid is as useful as learning English or any other “popular” language as French, Spanish or Chinese.

photo credit: bagaball

For kids, learning a new language is usually a lot of fun. Just listening to new sounds and playing to repeat them, inventing new similar sounds and pretend they’re talking in “Chinese” or “Italian”.

I’ve been told by “experts” that we shouldn’t talk to our kids if our accent in the other language is not perfect, because they’ll pick our “wrong” accent and will never be able to “overcome” it.

Then I wouldn’t talk to my son even in my native Spanish, which is obviously  not perfect. Here in Ecuador our Spanish is mixed a bit with Quechua, some grammar and vocabulary is unique, and other native Spanish speaking people from abroad might have trouble understanding 100% of our casual conversations.

So, should I go learn perfect Spanish before daring to talk to my son?

If you ask me, I’m not affraid of him picking my accent and grammar mistakes (that could obviously been corrected by him in the future). I just mean to share my joy of learning to communicate in other languages. He’ll take care of the grammar and pronunciation later on.

In the same way I’m not affraid of reading outloud to him an English or French book, or to translate something into Japanese upon his request. I do dare to sing in my very broken German, and even in completely unknown languages like Indonesian.

Once in a while we enjoy visiting Mama Lisa’s site and look for a song from a country we’re interested in at the moment. This is our #1  resource for children’s music and rymes from around the world.

The other day I found my friend Dina from Indonesia on Facebook, so we learnt and recorded this song for her. It was a lot of fun

If you’re passionate about foreign languages, let’s sing along this Indonesian song!

Indonesian:

Pelangi… pelangi…

Alangkah indahmu

Merah, kuning, hijau di langit yang biru

Pelukismu agung, siapa gerangan

Pelangi… pelangi…

Ciptaan Tuhan

English:

Rainbow, rainbow,

How beautiful you are.

Red, yellow, green,

On the blue sky.

Your painter is great,

Who is him?

Rainbow, rainbow,

Creation of God

Related posts:

1. Standard Mother Language?
2. Recommend: Mama Lisa’s World Children Music Site
3. Say Hello In different Languages

My son loves this song and it was his favourite for a while.

We recorded this for a fellow homeschooler mama blogger from Spain who was planning a trip to Paris last summer.

The voices you hear are my son  (3.5 yo at the time of the recording)and I…and yes, I’m aware we’re not professionals…I can’t go that high!

I love how easy and fun it is to learn other languages thru music.

Sing along with us, by clicking here: Lutèce

Lyrics in French

Quand Paris était petit
Il s’appelait Lutèce
puis il a grandi
et il est devenu Paris
Paris grandit sans cesse
il grandit le jour
il grandit la nuit
tour à tour
Paris grandit encore aujourd’hui
Paris ne s’est pas fait en un jour

English

When Paris was little
It was called Lutetia
Then it grew up
And became Paris
Paris is constantly growing
It’s growing during the day
It’s growing at night
Round and round
Paris is still growing today
Paris was not built in one day

If you feel like listening the song by Don Pedro et Ses Domadaires, have a look at the  Putumayo French Playground CD. It features children’s songs from different performers with different French accents.  I like children’s music that is nice to listen by anyone.

Have fun!

Related posts:

1. Foreign languages for kids
2. Recommend: Mama Lisa’s World Children Music Site
3. What are you reading to your kids?