Daughter Curious About Other Languages

Your daughter might be interested in this TED talk on how babies pick up their parents' language(s): http://www.ted.com/talks/patricia_kuhl_the_linguistic_gen...
There are other related TED talks as well, just look for the links that will come up.

Children's brains are wired for language acquisition until about the age of 6, and then that particular door closes, although many people do go on having a greater-than-average ability to learn language. But if your daughter were to become interested in learning some particular language (perhaps there's a large immigrant community in your area that would make that language especially useful?), I have heard that Rosetta Stone lessons are about the best thing out there.

She has a natural gift for other languages. There are classes just for kids like her. Spanish is simple and she can speak it often with others. I remember following Spanish speakers down the street to hear their language and mimic it.
I learned it when young and speak it so well that people say "you are from Salvadore", because my accent is so perfect for that area. I speak German so well I dream in it. I speak two other languages besides English. All are European. In our town we have Japanese and Chinese immersion schools. Look around and see if you can find a language immersion school so that she can begin her passion for languages with an early success.

Just go to a bookstore.
They have lots of workbooks for kids, for other languages.

Or, join a cultural club, in your city.

Learning other languages is good.
It creates different synapses connections in the brain too.
My kids are bi-lingual. My Husband being European.

And my eldest, my daughter, also learns Hawaiian, Japanese, and Madarin at school. Because since birth, my kids have been talked to and learned different languages, they catch on to other languages very easily.
In Hawaii as well, there are SO many varying cultures, so they learn that too.
It is all good, for a child or adult.

You might also consider, learning it with your daughter. Using the same workbooks you use for her.
Tell her you BOTH, will be learning!
How fun!

Kids are sponges, and learn other languages quite flexibly.

all the best,
Susan

There are a lot of bilingual books out there. You should see if your library has any so she can see what the story looks like in Spanish and English or French and English or Korean, etc.

Muzzy is also a children's language program that you might want to look into, even as a demo. If her father knows some languages, perhaps start with those so he can use them with her when she comes home.

My daughter loves Dora and Ni-hao Kai-lan. She is thrilled when she gets to use the few words she knows and people respond. Friends of ours are from Taiwan so when we visited recently and said "ni-hao" her eyes got huge. Kind of a "so it's REAL" reaction. I'd look for those opportunities to make language "real".

She is getting on the older side to start this, but not too late. Get Muzzy DVDs and start to rent foreign films from netflix so she hears the languages in the background. Buy used children's spanish books on ebay. There are daily lesson plans online, and if you can find anyone who speaks languages, let her be around them. It's very frustrating that American schools don't teach languages in pre school thru early grades like other countries. Kids can easily learn several languages at once, but that goes away around ages 6-10 without special attention and focused learning. I know a little french and have been doing all of the above with my kids (they already know more than me), but without speaking fluently myself, there is only so much I can teach them which is a DRAG. We have some french friends locally who babysit sometimes, and we started a weekly story time together. Definitely push dad to speak languages to her when he gets home, that's GREAT!

My daughter is the same age and is also very curious about other languages. She's been in a Spanish immersion preschool for three years, and has learned a lot. They absorb so much when they're young. Even if they don't learn to speak the language, just exposing them a bit to other languages and cultures makes them better little people, I think. Just let her lead the way so she doesn't feel pushed into any of it and will continue to enjoy exploring languages. She'll do great with your positive support when her dad is able to teach her a bit.

Here are a few books that have some simple phrases in several languages. My daughter loves all of these:
Yum! Yuck! by Linda Sue Park
Mung Mung by Linda Sue Park
What Is Your Language? by Debra Levanthal (this has a pronunciation guide for all the foreign words in the back - yay!)

Some other authors to check out:
Grace Lin - she has a lot of books about Chinese culture - traditions, food, etc.
Arthur Dorros - his books are written in English, but have Spanish words scattered throughout, and also have lots of detail about Latin American cultures. They also have pronunciation guides for the Spanish words, I think.
George Ancona - he has a lot of books with both English and Spanish text so you can see the languages side by side.
We also frequently just look through the foreign language section at the library and find books that we know, then also check out the English version so we can look at both. I think we had Rainbow Fish in Korean for about a month last year.

My daughter is really interested in Japan right now. She has discovered Hayao Miyazaki's movies (Ponyo, My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, and others, but these are her favorites), and has fallen in love with a sweet manga series (like a comic book series) by Kanata Konami called Chi's Sweet Home. We just finished the second book and she is very frustrated that the third is still checked out of our library by someone else! All of these are in English, but have a very Japanese influence.

You may be able to find books about the country where her dad is now - depending on how much you want her to know about what's going on where he is. If he's in the middle east, you may want to look at The Librarian of Basra by Jeannette Winter, or I think Greg Mortenson has a children's book based on his Three Cups of Tea book about Afghanistan.

Keep up the good work. You're doing great!

There is a wonderful book out there called Ox, House, Stick It is about the origins of our alphabet.
You'll find it on the children's section of the library.