I’m a planner. Considering we’ve been trying to adopt for 5 years now I’ve had plenty of time to plan. We’ve discussed everything from dating rules for our kids to who’s going to pay for their first car etc. One of the things I’ve thought about lately is languages. It is so important now to be bilingual at the very least. I took 4 years of Spanish in school. I can be cordial with the waitress at our local Mexican restaurant but I’m nowhere near conversational or fluent. I do have a book on tape on my iPod, I guess that would be audiobook now- old habits, and I’ve listened to it some . I bought it when we were working on our Guatemalan adoption. I think it would serve our children well if they learn Spanish, whether in school or at home. I’ve also been thinking about Mandarin, especially with my recent trips to the Grand Asia Market. China is clearly emerging as a world power so learning Mandarin could be a huge benefit too. I have Pimsleur’s Quick and Easy Mandarin on my iPod too. I haven’t made it past the first 3 chapters though. Once I got to chapter 3 we were disqualified from adopting from China so I had to stay away from learning it for a while. When I was with Susan at the Asian Market the other day we talked about this and she suggested teaching the kidlets Mandarin because they’ll likely pick up Spanish from friends and in school. I think that’s a good idea. I really admire people who are fluent in more than one language. Ooh, I know like 5 words in Greek, does that mean I’m trilingual? I think it would be really fun to learn the languages along with my kids. Plus, we can totally speak in Mandarin or Spanish when we don’t want bystanders to know what we’re talking about. Like a secret code!
Do any of you plan on teaching your children another language? If so, what?
Bless Your Heart 