Looking at the Petit Filous ads, I wonder – can you get a lifestyle from a language?

One of the great things about Facebook is that you ccan get back in touch with people. Today, I’ve been looking at the photos of my Frnech friend’s new born son.
French friend? Yes, I apologise for the turn of phrase.
When I was younger, we made friends with the people staying in the next door gite, while on holiday near Colmar.  As it turned out, they actually lived about 40 miles from us and I spent my teenage years learning French with a purpose.  It all seems so much more worthwhile when you have someone you want to be able to talk to.
Through this I enjoyed what we shared as culture, and  the differences too.  I gained access to a whole different way of thinking and a way of looking at the world.

I also speak some Spanish.  I chose to do so because my 13-year old self thought that it was better to learn a language spoken so widely in the world rather than German, spoken in only one country.  Now I’ve several Germna speakers in my circle of friends, and no one Spanish speaking.  I keep feeling embarrassingly monoglot.

So when it comes to teaching my son languages, I want to start early.
After all the theory behind language lessons in primary schools was about cutting money and improving GCSE results by not requiring a lang- I’m sorry, was about children soaking up languages more easily early on so that they learn a love of them (I guess this is the same theory of learning that leads to atheists saying that children should not learn about God’s love until they are old enough to decide to do so…)

But while it is natural to me as a francophone that my son should learn to speak the language of our neighbours, is it rational?  Is it the most useful thing he could do?
What about Spanish?  My theory still holds, plus I found travelling in California that it was very useful to speak Spanish. Even Gerorge W Bush spoke Spanish.
What about the language of the BRICs?  As Europe and the US decline as world powers, surely there’s a point to learning Hindi, Chinese, Portuguese, even Russian?

We’ve decided to start with what we know.
After a few goes yesterday, learning in English and French, my son now sings:

Fairer Jacker, Door May Voo, Sonic May A Tina, Ding Dang Dong!

Which isn’t bad for a first go.

We have the Muzzy VHS tapes in French and Spanish too.
These were given to us by a lovely B&B owner in Salisbury (we’d highly recommend a stay there, and please also make a donation to the Meningitis Trust if you have some spare pennies).
We need to dig out the video from the roof to be able to play them, but we think it might be time to get them going…

There are apparently lovely Fench clubs here in Ashford too, including holiday clubs for toddlers, so may be starting with what we as parents know, and starting with French.

Then the rest! Ciao…