Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy French for a five year old?

Had the first discussion of the year with the kids about what they want to work on learning over the summer. My daughter wants to learn French, of all things!
I can't really say not to that, of course. But I do not speak a word of French. Any ideas for good resources to help her learn? I don't even know where to start!

The ideal thing, I guess, would be a French playgroup or something - in my city there is a French Institute that runs play sessions "in" French, I believe, mostly for French families living here but also welcoming children wanting to learn French. If that's impossible, you could try one of the DVD-based French learning packs, e.g. Salut Serge. We have this one and I quite like it, but I couldn't really say DS learned much French before he started learning it at school; otoh, he never especially wanted to, so ymmv.

I don't know if it would work well for your DD to learn right from this site, but it may be helpful for you to get a feel for the pronunciation and basic vocabulary: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/french/

Rosetta stone? Live mocha?

Call the high schools and ask to speak with the French teacher and see if he/she has any leads?

Just a silly, hire a French nanny?

Hahaha! I wish I could afford to hire a French nanny! That would make this whole process far easier!

Muzzy. Or Any kind of Music in French. The local French teacher organized a once a week enrichment class that DS enjoyed for a few years of elementary school. Good Luck. Grinity

Warning: Muzzy looks very, very dated these days. We quite enjoyed it, but a media-savvy 5yo might not.

Well, I am French and I may say : what a strange idea to learn French at such an early age
I hope your DS is not dyslexic because French is an anti-dyslexic based language .... (lot of things that are written different ways but pronouced the same, conjugation,a lot of exceptions to rules) .... A real hell even for a normal child ... This said and as a consequence, learning French is challenging and therefore can be appealing for gifted kids (well, not for mine :() . And of course, French is the most beautiful language of all ... Just kidding !

I have not the time right now to see if I can find things to help you, but you may google "French as a foreign language for children" or searching on canadian ressources especially from Quebec.
In france, the translation for "French as a foreign language " is "Français langue étrangère" (abbreviation : FLE). A first approach on internet ressources may be : http://www.lepointdufle.net/french-learning-material.htm. This site http://www.lepointdufle.net is all about FLE. On amazon, I guess you can find a lot of material like books, music for kids in English and French, DVD or soft. My children (5 and 7) especially love the Mia sofwares. I do not have tried this one about initiation to English and spanish for French speaking kids ... but may be the French for English speakers exists ....
Anyway, of course the best thing is actually to speak French with French or French speaking people.

If it comes you need occasionl translation or so, you can private mail me. I cannot promise to answer in a minute, but I will try as best as I can.

a quick search :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryfrench/en_france_all_flash.shtml

http://www.lepointdufle.net/enfants.htm

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/french/

Agreed, unless it's the wrong French-speaking person. I took two years of French in high school and outpaced the rest of the class by a country mile. Unfortunately, my teacher was an American with a strong accent on her French. I could understand her perfectly, but if I hear French spoken by anyone else, I'm lost.

You're right Dude (something to do with the Big Lebowsky, there ?)
In fact, I meant essentially that they're is other countries than France where people speak French (Quebec, Belgium, many African Countries, ...) with a lot of different accents too. And I guess some people in the States speak a good French. I have a few friends there who speak a rather good French with an accent, but not that strong.

lol I've been meaning/sometimes trying to at least get better with reading and writing in French (my H.S. French didn't help much) to do a project based in Quebec. Reading is the easiest if you have the time. Speaking is so hard, plus the few people I have dealt with always speak English and translate for me anyway so my laziness just perpetuates.

raoul: You may be less sensitive to French accents since it's your native language. I've seen this play out in the opposite direction as well... English is my wife's second language (Spanish first), but she speaks it without a noticeable accent. When I introduced her to Monty Python, she couldn't follow their language at all. That continued to be a pattern for anything with British accents. She finally learned how to understand those accents by watching movies with the English subtitles turned on. As a native English speaker, various accents on it hardly bother me at all.

I'm probably not a good judge, though, because I remember having an instructor of Chinese descent, and I was the only member of the class who could figure out what he was saying. Mr. Lee... or, as he would say, "Missah Ree." Each morning we'd take a quiz on the previous day's material, and as everyone failed but me, he'd send everyone over to my desk, where I'd deliver a quickie version of the previous day's lecture. The most frequent comments during these lectures were "He said THAT?" and "How the hell do you understand him?"

The most hilariously awful English accent I've ever heard was when I met two women originally from Vietnam who were living in rural Virginia. The pronunciations of Vietnam and the Deep South were mixed together to produce something unrecognizable to either group.

Well, right dude. I quite understand The Monty Python not bad (She's a witch !...)but I understand better English people than people from the states (remember a meeting with people from the South of the States ... I thought I was on Mars). May be that's due to the fact that I am European.. Nevertheless, as many French, I have a lot of difficulty with very strong accents (Scottish accent, for example)

On the other side, I remember not understanding some of my uncles living in rural part of France . I also remember wishing a French-speaking guy from immigration Canada (I used to live in Montreal) to switch back from French to English because I understood better his English than his French.

Well, we are quite far from this post original purpose... Sorry.

oh... there is an app- French for dummies.. its like $2.60 or something off iTunes and is quite good !

Michelle6, I saw these DVDs in the library yesterday and they looked cute. Maybe you could look up some parent reviews. I'm tempted to get them for myself and DD but will wait until the summer.

http://www.littlepim.com/