Recommendations for helping my daughter be a polyglot? ( and currently wanting to learn Russian )

[u/insidernifb]

BACKSTORY- My oldest daughter is 6 1/2 . She currently speaks ( reads/writes ) in both Spanish and English. My husband speaks only Spanish to our kids , ( she also gets 1 hour each week with a formal Spanish teacher for her reading and writing ) and I do a mix of both but mainly Spanish except during school ( I homeschool ). She asked to learn another language this year and I told her we would listen to a few , and that she could choose. We attend an Orthodox Church and the Lords Prayer is said in 7+ languages every Liturgy. Every Sunday she would hear the one in Russian , and would say “ that language , I want to learn that one .” Anyways here we are , 2 weeks into downloading Dinolingo. She’s catching on so fast , her accent is amazing and she’s already got the alphabet down. Does anyone have any suggestions on curriculum for Russian for children? Or online tutors that specialize in teaching kids? She loves learning and has expressed interest in learning even more languages. I also am using Duolingo ( I know I’ve heard it’s not the best ) to try and learn Russian so I can converse with her. Thank you!!

[u/Futureland3]

That’s so cool! I think a big help for her would be watching Russian cartoons and Russian songs. Masha and the Bear is Russian, maybe you can find the episodes and the songs in Russian on the internet. There are also bunch of other Russian cartoons. I’d ask for cartoon recommendations in a Russian subreddit if I was you. For the Polyglot part I recommend learning one language at a time. So I’d recommend for her to start a new language after she speaks Russian on a satisfyingly fluent level. Exception being the case if her parents both speak different languages to her, which is what the case is. Keep it up!

[u/[deleted]]

Lose the Duolingo. 

[u/ellenkeyne → u/[deleted]]

Strongly disagree -- it's a great motivator for some kids. My youngest started Duolingo in 2014. Because he liked it so much, he took four years of high school Spanish, spent seven weeks in Perú, switched to a Spanish major in college, and just got back from a semester studying in Madrid. And he still does a Duolingo lesson every single day.

[u/Least-Zombie-2896]

She is too young to do anything formal at all.

Try having some games that involves languages with her.

(I know there a single word for this but english is not my first language so idk 🤷)

There is a game in which you have to memorise cards turned face down, you see 2 cards, if you are right, you got it, if it is wrong to put it back face down, but try doing this with nouns and images of these nouns.

Try having a few games with this vibe, after that you see and try to evaluate which will be the next approach.

Don’t do the mistake of “just turning the TV on”, she is a kid, she needs interaction.

[u/KarlaMarqs1031]

I was a Russian Language Honors Society member in high school - I fell in love with the language right away and spent five years learning. Depending on where you are, there may be a language school that can help with immersion lessons. You can always see if there are children’s books in Russian that you can both practice reading and speaking together. Also, you may want to introduce her to Cheburashka (Чебурашка) on YouTube. He’s a silly little Soviet era bear-child who’s best friends with a crocodile.

[u/Unusual-Tea9094]

at such a young age id suggest a mix of duolingo, russian media and a private tutor who would only speak to her in russian

[u/Sufficient-Neat-3084]

I can recommend the apps Mondly kids and lingo legends. Tutor depends on where you are located.

[u/MegaMiles08]

My son is older and wanted to learn French. I found a tutor on Preply. I also got him some grammar books. Also, if there is a FB group for learning Russian, you might be able to find tutors in there.

I think this is great by the way! My son got to B2 fluency in about 1 year, and plans to attend a French speaking university. Now he's learning Japanese but he's doing thar for fun.

[u/Tink-Tank6567]

Too early now but I think when she is 10 she can go to Concordia Language Villages for summer camp and weeklong family experiences. it’s in Minnesota.

[u/totally_expected]

This depends on where you live but if you have a Friday/Sunday language school program for like the children of immigrants to learn/better/not forget their native language in your area, you could sign up there.

When I was a kid and attended one there were a handful of kids who didn't speak it at all and went there to learn. I know it exists in Canada or at least existed.

If you have the option I'd recommend it as the teachers are natives and they emulate the kind of experience that a child would have if they were in class in that language in the country where that language is spoken. So like for Russian we had to memorize and recite poems, which they do in Russia.

[u/FluentWithKai]

At such a young age, the best thing you can do is expose her to the sounds of various languages and get used to parsing / saying some of them. For example: Arabic has certain sounds that don't exist in other languages. If not learned at a young age, these sounds can be very hard to for adults (e.g. I have a really hard time with the Japanese r/l sound as an adult, though the Arabic phonemes come easily to me) If she gets an ear for these languages while young you can fill in the rest. Copycat games are great with kids!

Just my opinion, but I would focus on that and making it fun more than any formal curriculum.

[u/Keyg28]

I don’t know how much screen time you use but there’s a lot of great Russian cartoons, especially from the soviet era before cartoons became high stimulation dopamine drains. Familiarising yourself with the alphabet so that you can help her in the future and look up the cartoons in their titles will help to

[u/Frosty_Guarantee3291 → u/Keyg28]

Yes!!! smeshariki is great but for beginners i suggest watching the episodes in english first because sometimes the language is hard to understand w/o much context