Re: How to prime kids to learn 3+ languages?

On 3 Oct, 11:55, phogl...@xxxxxx wrote:
On 3 loka, 13:21, Seán O'Leathlóbhair <jwlaw...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:



On 3 Oct, 10:53, phogl...@xxxxxx wrote:

On 3 loka, 12:25, Seán O'Leathlóbhair <jwlaw...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 2 Oct, 17:57, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Oct 2, 10:23 am, phogl...@xxxxxx wrote:

On 2 loka, 16:54, Seán O'Leathlóbhair <jwlaw...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Today, many years
later, they still speak English and French well, and they have learnt
some other languages, but have forgotten their Arabic.

This might have something to do with the fact that street Arabic,
especially Maghreb Arabic which is reputedly almost as replete with
French loanwordas as Maltese is with Italian, is no use outside the
souk: exposure to it won't help you understand much of that artificial
Esperanto that is called Modern Standard Arabic. If the souk jargon
had been supplemented with study of MSA, then the kids might have
actually found some use for that Arabic.-

Stick to Celtic.

If they'd had no use for English or French, they'd have "forgotten"
their English or French just as readily.

Of course, the reason that they lost their Arabic is that they left
Algeria after a few years and had little or no exposure to any form of
Arabic again. So, in this case, whether the dialect they were exposed
to in Algeria was or was not close to MSA is irrelevant. However, I
had not mentioned this before so Phogl (*) did not know that. If they
had later gone to Iraq, how valuable might their earlier Algerian
experience have been?

A very interesting question. If Yusuf were here, we might actually
discuss it in a civilized and informed manner, but in the presence of
Peter it is of course impossible.

(*) Sorry, I am not sure how you prefer to be addressed. I see
neither a signature nor a complete e-mail address.

My full name is Panu Hoglund, with dots over the o in Hoglund. The
surname is Swedish, the first name is Finnish, either a native archaic
word meaning "spark", or a Finnish truncation of "Urbanus".

Thanks but not quite an answer, I'll use Panu unless you request
otherwise.

Panu is OK. but it is also possible to use the Irish vocative: A Phanu.

A Phanu it is then. You can use A Sheán for me if you wish. Better
still would be a dot over the S rather than the following h. My
mother does not like the new orthography.

Due to your e-mail address, I am often tempted to think of you as
phlogiston.

--
Seán Ó Leathlóbhair

.

Loading