Reply With QuoteWell he's allowed to have that attitude, its his daughter.Originally Posted by Cheez
I think this thread should be just locked. The topic creator has this "we're doing things this way and nothing you say will change it" attitude, so you're just beating a dead horse repeating how bad of an idea this will be when only positive comments about their choice are actually being taken into consideration, and to hell with anyone who disagrees.
Well he's allowed to have that attitude, its his daughter.
I'm happy
To add on to this, a lot of it depends on borders. European nations are considerably smaller than the US when it comes to land size. France borders Germany, Spain, and Italy and they each have their own language. Most English speaking states border other English speaking states. Even if they "learn" Spanish or French, unless they do some extensive traveling or enter a career involving international affairs, they are never going to have a chance to really put it to use. Once they're done getting the grades, the language serves no other purpose. They don't need it anymore. As you go further south towards Mexico, I'll bet that bilingual people are much easier to find.
As for the Ido debate, go for it (though I think it's more common to learn Latin to make the romance languages more accessible). But keep at it. Keep using it in the house because once she starts going to school, the English is going to take a firmer grip on her. Going back to my point where a language can be forgotten when you don't have the chance to use use it...I work with a lot of people who were born all over South America and can speak both Spanish and English. Many of them have kids who started out bilingual from being around their parents but then lost the Spanish after starting school and being immersed in an English dominated environment.
Latin is win! OMG get her to learn Latin!
COUNTESS EST BIBENDUM *tips over*
This is a signature. Hurrah.
latin? im learning latin next year. fascinating language.
Revived, sorry. Just for this comment. Well, not just for this comment, but because I have a new job that's taking some time to get used to.
Look, Cheez, just because I find a way to disagree with every negative does not mean I am biased against them. I seriously do believe that, even taking every single negative into consideration produced in this thread, that one thing remains; the fact that research shows that children who learn a second or even a third language before they're about 6-8 has no negative affect on their learning ability for other things.
The reason for this thread was to see what hurdles people might come up with to me teaching her this language, and to overcome them. I prefer this format to a linguistic forum, for now, because I believe there is a stronger bias here against second languages, meaning better, bigger hurdles.
And on a more "down to earth" level, regarding the best reasons people have come up with on a non-linguistic forum against Ido, the best by far is to teach her ESL or ASL instead. The best reason outside this forum against Ido has to be the Esperanto community.
The best reason by far for Ido is the ratio of people willing to learn it to those undecided and unwilling. I haven't counted, but I know of 2 in this thread alone, in only 5 pages of posts. That's a much better ratio than the one regarding people in the world to people who currently know it. The best reason outside of this forum for Ido is that everyone I happen to mention the language to at work, even on cold calls to customers, they are very supportive. Not even an "Aren't you worried about xxx?", but more of an "Any second language is awesome for kids." And no one seems to be able to find a single argument against that glaring point.
Morfleduf Lv32 STR Cleric | Warripuf Lv21 Warrior | Ditduf Lv18 Thief
If you only count the people who support you into your decisions and reasoning and all that **** as you've just said, you're ****ing insane. You don't even seem to get that everyone with common sense is telling you to get the kid to learn a USEFUL language, not this "Ido" crap.
This has positives and negatives that you need to consider before going headstrong into the idea that you will be blessing her with a wondrous gift.
Despite what people think; lots of who we are and "will become" is with us from the time of birth. The true objective of parents should not be to set goals and platforms, but to do everything within reasonable limits(basically as long as it is not going to hurt anyone) to make their child happy, in the way that makes their child happy and not in a way that suits the parents' goals for the child. If you set too many goals, such as wanting them to be bilingual as in this case, learning to play an instrument, playing sports, or etc, they may end up doing it to appease you but hating it and feeling trapped into doing it by your unwavering expectations of whom they are. It is one thing to let them see if they like it, but it is another to tell them they must keep going on with it.
Children, although not fully aware of themselves in the young ages, are going to be a certain person pretty much no matter what you sit in front of them. Sure, some little things with how they react to stuff might be altered by their environment, but the core is always going to be the same no matter what you do. If a child wants to play with dolls, it is not something the parents sit in front of them but a choice the child makes because it makes them happy. The same really ties in with anything later in life such as learning languages, advanced math, and etc.
Pushing the child into learning multiple languages is only going to work if they want to do that in the first place. In the case of David(Satsumomo) and his sister, it obviously was something that interested him a bit further as can be seen in his learning Japanese at 17, so his parents teaching him English at first in an effort to make him bilingual was a very good choice, but at the same time a blind one. Not everyone wants to learn multiple languages or is adept at learning them, just as not every child wants to play with the same toys, or in the future, have the same career.
Everyone is different, and you must raise your child with their happiness in mind, but keep in mind that what makes them happy is going to come mostly from them to you, not vice-versa. You can help them learn about what they like by exposing them to new things, but what they will end up liking or disliking will ultimately come from within them, not from mistakes or huge successes in raising them.
In the case of language I would say go English first, then start them onto Spanish or another language at a really young age once they master English. That way, if they are adept in learning languages, then they will get a chance to do it easily while they are young. At the same time, it will have a much lesser chance of colliding with their English and messing it up if they are not. Cheers.
I don't only count the people who support me in my descisions! You don't seem to recount any positive support for the language, though. Here's a good example of positive support for Ido. And would this be a good example of someone with better common sense then?
I think what you don't know, or yet grasp, is I'm running this by many people. Many many people. Well read people, linguistic people, people with degrees in various languages, people having no experience at all and have a slack jaw American accent, Creole speakers, and most importantly herself. Also involved from a different aspect are family members, others from around the community, and potential prodigies that could really add an even richer background to help her use Ido as a tool (like a 15 year old friend who already knows 6 languages at a fluent level).
I just have a tickling feeling that if I tell her it's really not that important and she can stop at any time, however she sees her parents using it and are making it fun to use between themselves, she'll be on that like cheese on pizza.
You are right. I will not teach her the language in the case that she is unable, or if it's causing problems in any way. That will deal a serious blow to my goal, but she is much more important.
I would love to teach her Spanish, but I have always had difficulty with the language. It would be beyond my limits as an individual to provide her with the proper environment of a bilingual household at this time. Ido is my way around that, in a way, if used moreso as a tool to make learning Spanish easier.
i say do it.
Ido sounds very familiar to Mandarin. Mandarin, like Ido, is sort of a backbone to other similar dialects. If you know Mandarin, you can sort of decipher Hokkien, Teow Chew, or even Cantonese. Of course it may be spelled differently, or spoken with different intonations but it will be a very useful language to learn.
(I myself had difficulty grasping Teow Chew and I am still having problems. But since I started Mandarin lessons, I can somewhat understand what my relatives are blabbing and laughing about at our annual gatherings. :p)
I say teach your daughter Ido.
English is a very easy language to learn. With practice and exposure to an environment where people speak English (like you and your wife, school, tv, etc.) then you wont have to worry about your daughter learning English. I have many friends overseas who have their national language as their 1st language but they are also fluent in speaking the international language, English through school and exposure.
Every language is useful. May is be used often or not for knowledge is never ever wasted.
What you are trying to do is a very bold move.
I wish you luck, ybom.
PS: Do keep us updated.
Edit: Did you realise that the word 'English' came up on 3 consecutive sentences in a straight line? lol. I'm just stating my observation. :)
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