Where did my interest in Slavic languages come from? I am something of an amateur Slavophile when it comes to languages.  I’ve spent the past decade learning Polish (as I live in Poland and no longer participate in a formal language course, it’s more at the passive than active stage at this point) and have made numerous trips to other Slavic countries.  What follows are some observations and a bit of background on Slavic tongues and their speakers.

Background of Slavic Languages

Slavic languages originated from one mother tongue known as Proto-Slavic, spoken previous to the 7th century.  Old Church Slavonic was the first written Slavic language, codified in the 9th century by Cyril and Methodius, two missionaries who adapted the written language from a tongue spoken in modern-day Macedonia.  Cyril and Methodius are revered in some countries in particular and one will see monuments to them and their work throughout the region.

Today Slavic languages are grouped into 3 geographical groups:  Western Slavic, Eastern Slavic, and the Southern Slavic families.  Western Slavic includes Polish, Czech, and Slovak.  Eastern Slavic comprises Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarussian.  Southern Slavic includes Serbian, Croatian, Slovene, Bosnian, Bulgarian, and Macedonian.  There are also minor Slavic languages, such as Kashubian (spoken by a small minority of Poles in a small region south of Gdansk;  the current prime minister, Donald Tusk, as it happens, is a native Kashub) or Rusyn in Ukraine.

Taken together they form a band spanning from the Adriatic Sea across Central/Eastern Europe through Asian Russia to the Sea of Japan.  Russian, Belarussian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Bosnian, Macedonian and Serbian are the Slavic languages which use Cyrillic.  Cyrillic is also used by some non-Slavic tongues, such as Moldovan and Mongolian.

Interestingly 2 languages of significance exist among this “sea of Slavs” that are not Slavic—Romanian (and by extension, Moldovan), a Romance language more closely related to French, etc, and Hungarian, a language only distantly related to any other.  The Baltic countries as well interrupt the Slavic domination of the region, with Lithuanian and Latvian related to one another and sharing some elements with Slavic tongues, but forming their own language group, and Estonian, a language related to Finnish and distantly to Hungarian.

The Cyrillic alphabet, though it may look exotic and difficult to master on first look, is not as tough as it may seem.  During a four-day trip to Bulgaria, I was basically able to get down the basics, to the point where I could read signs and pronounce words (not that I knew what they all meant, but a basic operational capacity in using the alphabet—helpful in train stations and stores).  Previously I had been in Greece for a week, which did help a bit as some of the characters in the Greek alphabet are similar, but for the most part it is not too terribly difficult.  On later trips to Ukraine, this capacity came back to me (and coupled with the fact that Ukraine has some similarities to Polish and that Polish is generally understood, particularly in Western Ukraine where I was traveling, I was able to operate fairly well).

Benefits of Learning a Slavic Language

It’s been my experience that if you get even one Slavic language under your belt, it allows you to operate and communicate in many countries and languages.  This is most true within the geographical grouping (Polish speakers will find it easier to understand Czech or Slovak;  Russian speakers likewise with Ukrainian and Belarussian).  With just a little bit of on-the-fly tourist study, I am able to communicate pretty well in Czech or Slovak, using only a base amount of words in the local language and plugging gaps with Polish if need be.  I don’t understand- “Nie rozumiem” in Polish, would be “Ne rozumím”* in Czech, “I don’t know”—“nie wiem” in Polish, “ne vim” in Czech, “large” or “great”- “wielki” in Polish, “veľký” in Slovak, etc.

Some words come out quite differently:  train-‘pociag’ in Polish, ‘vlak’ in Czech, for example.  But knowing one Slavic language helps you understand others.  This is true even across groups—knowing Polish I am able to understand some Russian, an Eastern Slavic language.  I recall on visiting Croatia, that the South Slavic tongue Croatian was surprisingly also understandable as well, at least to a degree.

The Slavic language speakers cover the most geographical area in the world.

Another benefit of learning a Slavonic language is the rich culture, overshadowed for ages by that of Western Europe.  Slavic countries are responsible for very fine art, literature, advances in technology, science, etc.  Chopin, Kafka, Mucha, Dostoevsky, Copernicus, Pushkin, and scores of other greats in the worlds of literature, music, art, and science hail from Slavic-speaking countries, and learning one of the languages can help contribute to your appreciation of them and their works.  Adam Mickiewicz is a renowned poet in Poland (and held in high esteem by the Lithuanians as well, for that matter).  Poles swear that English translations do not do him justice, however, and reading him in Polish is a must to appreciate the richness and depth of the language he used.

I also love Slavonic church music but this is another story.

Another reason to learn a Slavic language is the travel.  For example the nature in Russia is almost unparalleled. The colors you see in Siberia have an other worldly quality.  Knowing the Russian language will give you a passport to see such beauty.

Russian sky and birch trees; learning the Russian language will help your world travel to beautiful places like Siberia.

For those interested in traveling or even living in Europe, Slavic countries generally offer a much less expensive cost of living, especially when compared to their Western neighbors.  While this doesn’t necessarily hold true for the largest cities (Moscow, Warsaw) comparatively one can live and travel much more cheaply in Slavic Countries than in, say, the United Kingdom or Italy.

Fun with Slavic Languages

Though there are similarities among tongues, there are also some often-amusing challenges that arise when comparing Slavic languages.  While many words are similar, some words which seem to be the same, actually have different meanings.  The most well-known among Poles and Czechs is probably the confusion over the verb “to look”.  This verb in Polish is “szukac”, in the first person form it would be “szukam”, as in “Szukam policjanta” (I am looking for a policeman).  But be careful when you are in the Czech Republic and thinking you are asking a person on the street an innocent question—“szukam” in Czech has a much different and more vulgar (sexual) meaning.  The verb you want in Czech is “hledat”.

Another similar instance is found in Slovak—with Polish visitors to the country sometimes encountering the very funny “odchody” sign at stations—meaning “departures” in Slovak, but something like “excrement” or “feces” in Polish.  Not a great image and one that gets at least a chuckle from Poles.  “This way for feces”, Poles are advised and helpfully directed by an arrow on the sign.  No thanks!

The accent and pronunciation differences can be interesting as well.  Czechs, to my ears, have a sing-song pronunciation.  It sounds like they are serenading you in short bursts, with words rising in tone or with drawn-out syllables.  I find it quite charming, and is one reason why I consider Czech to be one of the more beautiful languages to listen to (more so than Polish, and also more so than the supposedly beautiful and much-lauded French).  Russian, on the other hand, and Eastern Slavic languages, for that matter, tend to grate on my ears a bit.  They consist of some drawn out sounds as well, but to my ears they seem to sound more “obnoxious” and exaggerated, for lack of a better description, especially in comparison to the lovely Czech tongue.

Another thing that Poles are well acquainted with is a Czech and Slovak pronunciation which sounds unusual to Polish ears—words may seem similar but pronounced in a funny way.  Poles tend to say that Czechs sounds like Polish children or babies trying to pronounce Polish words.  What is funny is that I have heard the same thing said by a Czech friend about Poles.  I would tend to agree with the Poles on this one though—the much harsher and harder sounds of Polish are more difficult for children to pronounce at first, and are more likely to come out sounding like the soft tones of Czech.  A simple comparison of the words for “thank you” shows this—“Dziekuje” in Polish, with the hard “dz” syllable, vs. the softer “dekuje” in Czech.

If you have questions about any Slavic language or have Slavic ancestry or a general interest in Eastern Europe I would love to hear from you.

How I learned a language interview

• How did I learn a language? – Introduction
• How did I learn a language and why?
• What prevents people from learning a foreign language?
• What idea can help others learn a language?

What prevents people from learning Polish, or for that matter any foreign language?

I really think anyone learning a language at some point hits a plateau, and if you are just doing rote learning, people can burn out quickly.  So the saying that keeping it fun and interesting is key is definitely true.

And part of keeping it fun is kindling a passion for the language.  If you have a reason why, you figure out the “how”.  I think that basic idea applies in so many areas of life, and it definitely does in language.

For some, especially those living in a foreign country, being able to function in the day-to-day, and the feeling of independence and freedom that being able to communicate for yourself gives you, is a strong reason ‘why’.

Others maybe motivated for reasons of love and the opposite sex.  No surprise there.

I’ve also seen people, especially in upper levels of English and academics, who seem to take a real pride and pleasure in learning a language well, the semantics and the ins and outs.  They continue to devote time and energy to learning, among other reasons, because they have a natural passion for language in itself.  Some people have this, almost like a natural quality or inclination.  Others don’t, and so other reasons may have to serve as a ‘why’.  But I believe you can also cultivate a passion for a language—for example as you learn more about the structure and meaning and origin of words in a given language, it often naturally stimulates curiosity and interest.

For example, I particularly find the connections, similarities and differences among Slavic languages fascinating.  I discovered this early on a trip to the Czech Republic.  Some words were the same or nearly the same as in Polish (ie “rabbit”—“krolik” in Polish, “kralik” in Czech).  Others weren’t but made sense to me (“hospital”—in Polish “szpital”, in Czech “nemocnice”, which makes sense knowing the Polish “nie moc”, in other words roughly “to not be able to”, which would make sense—people in a hospital are generally incapacitated and unable to totally function normally until they heal).  And still others seemed totally unrelated to one another (the verb “to find” being “szukac” in Polish and “hledat” in Czech).

There are many other aspects of language that one can develop a passion about, not just the comparative aspects between languages.  For instance, if you are a political junkie, learning a language may allow you to read articles in that language that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to for lack of translation.  This will not only further expand your knowledge, but in a way can make you more savvy by being able to perceive an issue in the way it is written by the writer in its original form, with all its original bias and context (which is of course often lost in translation).

Continue reading how to learn a language here: What idea can help others learn a language?

How to learn a language – Interview

• How did I learn a language? – Introduction
• How did I learn a language and why?
• What prevents people from learning a foreign language?
• What idea can help others learn a language?

What other ideas can you share about learning Polish and languages in general?

A language can be learnt in the spare moments of the day.  I always tell people who are learning English that my absolute favorite method for increasing my vocabulary in Polish was simple flash cards.  I would use these for example while waiting for or riding in a tram around Krakow or any other time I had a few moments to kill.  The 10, 15 minutes here and there throughout your day are just ripe to be used for learning a language and boosting vocabulary.

I would keep a stack of flash cards in my shirt or jacket pocket and would cycle through them.  As I got comfortable with them I would rotate them out and put new ones in the pile.  I found this a fast, effective way to get you confident and feeling like you are learning.  If we know the names of things and can identify verbs, even if we are not totally sure how to put the sentences together or how to conjugate the verb, we still feel a sort of growing power over the language as we continue to file away vocabulary in the memory bank.

Not only that, but I found that flash cards were a great conversation starter.  People are naturally curious when they see you filing through a pack of cards and mouthing words to yourself.  I found them to be fun at social get-togethers, pulling them out and making a game of it even.

The old saying that it’s best to live in a country of course is very true.  But of course not everyone can make such a large life move.  I was fortunate as I did it shortly after graduating from college, and I was fortunate enough to be able to transfer my work from the States to Europe.

When you are in a foreign country you are just constantly exposed to the language.  Even in a place like Krakow, where there are a lot of students and a tourist orientation, and thus a comparatively high level of English.  At the same time, living in larger and more cosmopolitan cities (depending on the country) can be an obstacle, as more people are likely to know English and you are not forced to learn.  If you live in a foreign country you have to be careful not to slip into the trap of only spending time with other foreigners, or with natives who speak your tongue very well.  Cultivating friendships with people who do not speak your language as well is a good way to force you to use the tongue of the country you are living in.

So just going to live in a foreign country doesn’t mean it is automatic, as it really depends on your immediate environment (which you of course have a large measure of control over).  I see a number of people here that have lived here a long time but don’t ever get past a rudimentary level of language, which is not what you’d expect, but makes sense when you look at the social circles they operate in.  It is easy to be lazy about learning when the people around you already know your language.  It may be one reason that in America we generally don’t have the language skills that Europeans do.

Language is a great ice-breaker and a lot of humor and fun can come from language as well.  When I worked selling books in Amish communities, I was always sure to try to pick up and use some basic words and phrases in Pennsylvania Dutch.  It was a great ice breaker and I think learning a bit in someone else’s language (even if they can speak your own) is a sign of respect.

I’ll never forget the sight of Amish kids looking up shocked when I slipped in a line or two of my rudimentary Pennsylvania Dutch.  They just don’t expect us “English people” (Amish term for non-Amish) to know PA Dutch, so using it out of the blue like that it often gets a laugh.  A lot of fun and again a great way to make a connection.  I would often teach some basic Polish in return—fun things that fit the environment—the word for cow, horse, etc.  Language differences, perhaps counter-intuitively, often bring people together.

People enjoy seeing you make the effort, and even if you struggle a bit, people tend to be on your side and want to help you because they see you are trying.  The more obscure the language, the more true this is, I find.  For example, someone learning English, since there are already many foreign speakers of English, is less of a novelty.  Not that you won’t get sympathy and help as an English learner, but people are less fascinated by someone speaking English with a foreign accent (versus, say, someone speaking Polish or Estonian or Thai with a foreign accent) since there are so many foreign-accented speakers of English already.

But the key thing in this is not to be afraid to make mistakes.  The only mistake is not opening your mouth.  We train our minds and tongues by using them.  Everyone will make mistakes but the vast majority of the time people are very forgiving when they see you are trying.  Just try to avoid the swear words.  Come to think of it, perhaps this is why swear words are among the first thing language learners are taught;  for amusement, but also to prevent you saying something that you really wouldn’t want to!

Post comments or go back to the start here: How to learn any foreign language you study..

How I learned a language interview

• How did I learn a language?  – Introduction
• How did I learn a language and why?
• What prevents people from learning a foreign language?
• What idea can help others learn a language?

How did you learn Polish—and why?

I originally became interested in Polish after visiting the country as a child.  My grandparents lived in Warsaw and I still have a grandmother there today.  Mom was born and lived her first 20+ years in Warsaw, and Dad was technically full Polish too, his family having originated from near Lwow (or rather L’viv as it is now a part of Ukraine).  But my father, immigrating to the states at age 4, did not have the strong Polish foundation and began to lose it in American society.  He met my mother when they were in their 20’s and she was visiting on a trip from then-communist Poland.  Since his Polish wasn’t strong and her English was excellent, English was the language spoken at home (with a few Polish words thrown in here and there).  Occasionally I would hear Polish when relatives would call and I’d hear one side of the conversation, with my mom talking, but little of it stuck.

Perhaps it did help a bit for knowing what Polish should ‘sound’ like on some subconscious level, but other than some rudimentary vocabulary like the word for “ice cream”, and being able to count to 10, I really had zero Polish knowledge when I signed up for a Polish language course at age 20 while a student at UNC-Chapel Hill.

After 2 years of studies, I was definitely the weakest in my class of 7, though I was able to pass the courses and move on.  At this point I really did not have more than a functional command of the language, still struggled greatly with conjugations and declensions, and to be frank, lacked a burning desire to learn more.  Though I wanted to return to Poland for a period of time, there was just not an immediate need to be good in Polish, and thus I lacked the level of motivation to really throw myself into it.

But I did have a strong desire to return to Poland for awhile, and I will say that I really began to learn when I arrived in the country.   And it turned out my 2 years spent learning I the States was really a good investment, as though I did not have a strong active command of the language, I had acquired a good bit of latent knowledge and when I began learning in Poland my mind was able to fill in some gaps and begin to build on what I had learned at studies.

After about six months of self-study as well as attending a further Polish course in Krakow, I hit a point where I remember things began to click.  Like a switch had been turned in my brain.  I still remember it well;  perhaps this is when I began to “think” in Polish.  Responses and words just seemed to flow better, the words I was looking for and struggled to find before began to appear, and life got sunnier.  I continued to build from there over the next few years with continuing self-study, reading newspapers and articles, and so on.  I did not do too many more courses, in total I took perhaps 2 or 3 semesters worth when in Poland.

So I think there is a definite place for language courses, but they function best by providing a foundation, and then when you are in the environment you have to swim or sink with the language.  That gives you the motivation that you may lack otherwise.

Continue reading here to find out: What prevents language learning?

• How did I learn a language? – Introduction
• How did I learn a language and why?
• What prevents people from learning a foreign language?
• What idea can help others learn a language?

At this point I recommend you jump right into the interview above. The rest of this post below is just my rants about language learning; which I have a passion for, but might not be as interesting. So go to the second part above called ‘how to learn a language and why’.

My rants about this language interview

Why is it good? It is specific, instructional and authentic and not written by a linguist, but by a man on the street.

It is not written in some broad abstract ivory tower way; rather, it a very concrete interview with someone  who learned a language to the fluency level. It asks the three most relevant questions for language learners.

This person started studying his language with no knowledge of his target language as a adult.  The result is this:

• He now communicates perfectly, almost as a native speaker, in fact,  native speakers have told me they hear absolutely no mistakes, with the exception of sometimes a very light but nice American accent.

Note: When I am in a club with him and the music is playing, people do not hear an accent.

His own modesty would prevent him from saying he is at this level so I would rather convey what native speakers have told me.

I think this will be of  a great value to readers, because probability the most frequent question I get is ‘how do I learn any language?’.

Most people feel  intimidated and feel that languages are either acquired as a child though a bilingual education or learned by the gifted.

This is not true. Please read on.

For ease of reading I have divided this narrative into three addtional parts. Each part answers a question.

An interview with a language learner

I chose the interview format as it is the most interesting and readable.

The language he learned was Polish. It is one of the   hardest languages to learn for an English native speaker. This is because of the grammar and pronunciation which is foreign to Western European languages.  However, I think it is the best language to hear a story about because it is so challenging. It is not something relatively easy like Spanish or Italian.

I felt it better to have someone else tell their story, rather than my own experience with language learning here. This is because I might lose some of my objectivity and show partiality towards my method of how to learn a language.

How to learn a language feedback

If you have any comments or feedback or personal experiences with you or someone you know who has studied a foreign language with success,  please let me know. I think it is a story worth being read, for any one who wants to know how to learn any language.

Read part two of this series here and find out: why and how I learned a language.

The best way to raise a bilingual child is to expose them to both languages at the same time. That means,do not favor one language over the other. Simply speak naturally to your child in both languages. After the age of nine months you can actively teach your child the two languages by demonstrating what things are around the house. I found that before nine months, there is no great need to teach them, but rather speak to them naturally. That is bilingualism.

This post is a little long so I added some organization to it. Here are the major topics I will cover.

• Real bilingual education mistake stories
• Bilingualism experts where wrong
• How to raise a bilingual child

Why I know about raising a child with two languages

Here are my credentials for writing about bilingualism.

• I have a daughter who is both American and Polish like me. We live in Krakow, Poland. We are raising her in two languages.
• My mother was raised bilingual with English and Ukrainian.
• My father was raised bilingual with English and Polish.
• I was not raise with a multilingual education but had to learn languages as an adult. I now teach and learn languages in Europe.
• I teach bilingual children as well as adults.

I do not profess to be the world expert on bilingualism or bilingual education, however, these are my personal experiences with bilingual children both as a father and a teacher.

I do not profess to be the world expert on bilingualism, however, these are my personal experiences with bilingual children both as a father and a teacher.

Real bilingual education mistakes stories

How not to teach children languages

I believe, and linguistic science confirms that people learn from mistakes. If you are an adult language learner, one of the best ways to learn is to make mistakes. It is our mistakes that teach us. Similarly, the Ancient Greeks favored tragedy over comedies. They preferred this because they believed we can learn not only from our mistakes but from other people’s mistakes.

Therefore, read and learn. I will give you five stories or examples of families that do not raise their children bilingual.

Bilingual education story one

I meet a British couple while on vacation in Greece. They were raising their children in Greece. They choose Greek to be their children’s first language. This decision was because the environment they was growing up in. They were given this language advice, that if a child learns two languages they can easily be confused. Therefore, it is better to learn one language at a time. This linguistic advice came from a local linguistic expert. Therefore, their intentions were to teach them English later, in school with the other children. This is wrong thinking. It is wrong because the children will learn their second languages, English, as a non-native speakers. In fact, they will never get those years back, and lose the window of opportunity to make them truly bilingual. For their whole life English will be stored in the second language area of their brain, rather than their primary language area of their brain. They will never master their second language and never truly be bilingual, even if they sound like they are fluent. Brain imagining confirms this and so does my personal experience.

Bilingual education story two

Another mistake in raising a child with two languages is being too passive. For example, I have meet a couple of American fathers in Poland who teach English to foreigners. Yet, amazingly these teachers are very passive about teaching their children English. Their children understand English, but speak Polish. That is the children do not want to use one of their two languages. Why? Children are children.

The children’s fathers are more poets or backpacker type teachers. They love their children very much, but when it comes to playing an active role in teaching them English, they are more passive. They enjoy talking philosophy or watching the football match on TV with their ex-pat friends in a pub than being active in their kids language learning. They wrongly assume, their children will pick up English anyway. This is a wrong assumption. Why? Because kids gravitate toward the path of least resistance. Unless you actively guide children with love, patience and time, their learning during these critical years will be less than optimal. The result is they will not be perfectly bilingual.
Bilingual education story three

I also meet a British father who thought it was cool to speak Polish his son. In my opinion this is very selfish as this child will not learn English like his father learned English. I was doing this myself a little. I love speaking in different languages. So I was practicing my Polish sometimes with my daughter sometimes or mixing English with other languages. However, one of my students point this out to me. I was unaware I was doing this. I do not know why I was not aware, it was my fault.

I think most parents’ mistakes are things they are not aware of consciously. If you want your child to be bilingual you have to be proactive. If you and your spouse speak several languages, then each one of your needs to speak in the language(s) that you are the strongest in speaking. Otherwise, your child will speak with an accent. In fact, I met children growing up in multilingual homes with permanent accents because their parents did not teach them in the right way.

On the other hand, another point which might sound like it contradicts some of what I said above, if you live in a country, favor the other languages. Why? Because all the children’s friends, school and TV will give them immersion. To be bilingual children your children need your help with the non local language. If you are not worried about your child’s linguistic development, become worried. Quite your job. Stay at home with your child and work with them. Better than saving for an Ivy league school, is teach and love them when they are young. This goes for fathers and mothers. What would you, yourself rather be a polyglot with multiply passports and experience with many cultures or have a piece of paper that says you have a degree? If I had to choose I would choose the former. However, the irony is if your child is a polyglot then they will have a better chance in getting into a top school. So stay at home if you can and have your kids love languages.

Does this sound like radical advice? It is not. I do not have a cushy life. However, I hope to raise happy children. What is more important to you, your important career and money or your children?

Bilingual education story four

A couple of my neighbors are rich. One is a Lawyer and one is a Doctor. They have both asked me should I teach their children who are around two years old English. I said yes, right now, start today. Get a private tutor, it does not have to be me. Or put them in a class with native speakers. There are English schools for the young. There is an English church in town and an English story time at the American bookstore and many other opportunities for the kids to have immersion even without spending money. Get involved in your child’s language learning. They said, ah they will learn it in high school, and they took a vacation (the third that year) instead or investing in their child. Again, I think this is very selfish.

Bilingual education story five

I was teaching a bilingual native speaker in English and Polish. The girl was ten years old and lived in the USA until she was eight. However, since moving to Poland she was lagging behind in her English language development. This was because since she moved to Poland and attended school her parents and friends spoke only in the Polish language.

Her mother was determined that the way I teach her daughter was with grammar drills. This is because this is the way she learned English as a none native speaker. Her mother wanted this naturally bilingual fluent native speaking child to spend my lessons with her doing a lot of book work. Book work meant learning grammar forms and pen and paper, rather than conversation. For example, practicing the present perfect tense or the difference between passive verse active speech and English grammatical constructions.

The child so disliked languages learning she would not do her homework and complained all the time, and then said she did not like English. This is the wrong way to teach a native speaker bilingual child. A child like that needs to learn vocabulary naturally and just practice and enjoy the language. Read books at her level and have fun with the language. She should read books like Sweet valley high and Nancy Drew or movies like Princess Diaries or learn about animals and the world in English. She should not be punished with boring grammar and book work, while in the presence of a native speaker. These grammar books were made for non-native speakers to learn a language as an adult. A bilingual child’s brain functions totally different. Eventually I taught her my way. That is, lots of natural conversation and just get her using and enjoying being bilingual, watching films using the Internet in English and talking about it during the lessons as well as some vocabulary work. Her mother was from the old school and did not like it and wanted her to return to grammar books. I eventually gracefully gave up as I did not need the stress.

What can we learn from these bilingualism failures above

I think the lessons from the above stories are as follows:

• Bilingual children should learn both languages simultaneously, with equal development with both languages. Do not worry about measuring their linguistic development with their peers because they are special bilingual children.
• Do not assume a child will become perfectly bilingual naturally just because one or two parents speak a language. You need to be active and not passive in the teaching process.
• Put your child’s development before you career and lifestyle and education in school. You, and not your school or any experts are responsible for your child’s development.
• Do not teach bilingual children in methods made for non-native speakers. Make it fun not work.

Bilingual experts

In my opinion ‘experts’ are often full of ideas and ego. Therefore, they lose their objectively. In the past psychologist were recommending the approach mentioned above, that is teaching a child one language at a time. They were wrong for many reasons.
Children have a window to learn languages in a native way. Once this door is closed it is closed forever. Even if you are fluent in a second language as an adult you will store the information in a different area of the brain and it only mimics real fluency.
Children that learn two or more languages as a child’s brain develops a more flexible structure than non-bilingual children. In fact, these children have a greater protection against senility in older life and mental decline. They are also in general just smarter. How do I know this? Modern studies on the brain confirm this.
A child might initially develop linguistically slower learning multiply languages at once, but this challenges their brain and they develop compensatory strategies for learning a language. Therefore, by the age of ten they are equal or greater in both languages.

My parents did not make my trilingual for this reason. They were advises by experts to only teach English. The experts were wrong. While the experts are trying to give a definition to the word bilingual you and be focusing on teaching your child Spanish or another target language.

Raising child with a bilingual education

How to give your child a bilingual education even if you are not multilingual.
With all children with love and patience. They are only children.I do not believe in the hard way, at least not for the first twenty-five years. From zero to eight is when IQ is determined in a child as the child’s brain prunes unstimulated connections. From eight to eighteen a child’s emotional stability is determined. If you mess it up during these two phases they will spend the next twenty years of their life trying to recover. Therefore, with love and patience try to be good to them.

The first thing to remember is, they are only children. So try not to be goal oriented when working with them. Simply be there and spend time with them and have fun with them.

Concrete ways to raise a bilingual child
That being said here are some concrete ways to raise a child to be bilingual is you do not speak a two languages yourself.

Bilingualism-a bilingual education for children is fun

• YouTube is in my opinion the best resource. It has short clips with native speakers which are made for kids.I use YouTube as a create source of multilingual sounds for them to digest. Kids get addicted to this early and can watch three or more hours a day starting at about age one. Next move to kids movies in your target language. Children love to watch the same thing over and over again.
• I also love books. Reading every night from age 3 months or earlier, in different languages. Even if you are not a native in the language, reading to them with an accent is better than nothing, just my opinion. I think some linguists will cringe at this.
• Enroll them in a bilingual day care. Or if your target language is Spanish for example, a Spanish day care even if you live in the USA. If they have friends that speak the target language bilingualism will be more natural.
• Perhaps this is my best advice. Hire a native speaking tutor. Sell your car if you can not afford it. There is nothing more important then loving your child. Use local classified ads that exist in every city. There are always students from other countries that will tutor your child at ten dollars or less. If you spent thirty dollars a week on your child your child would be bilingual for life. If you live in the USA are you telling me you can not afford thirty dollars a week? I live in Poland and I live on only a few hundred dollars a month. Stop making excuses and start investing in your child while they are young, rather than saving for that big high in the sky Ivy league education that in my opinion is not worthy as much as enriched cognitive function of your child’s brain while it is still flexible.

Use your imagination. If you are proactive. Be positive and relaxed about it. Although I make a strong argument that you should make introduce bilingualism to your child, there are no shoulds in life. But why not introduce bilingualism into your child’s life and enrich it.

Here is a series of posts I wrote on bilingualism .  Here another site worthy of consideration on bilingual education.

You are smarter than you think. Look in your town and with multimedia resources to teach your child more than one language. If you have a desire, you can have a bilingual child and it will enrich their lives.

I think Rosetta stone is a good program for some and might even recommend it. But it did not work for me.
My experience with Rosetta stone Polish was as follows.  I bought it off their website a a few years ago.  I was really fired up about learning Polish.   In fact, I had the intention of visiting/moving to Poland so cost of was an issue.

For the first three weeks I worked really hard with Rosetta Stone. However, I became very confused. Why? When I asked my Polish friends they all said Rosetta Stone was a very ‘głupi’ (that means stupid in Polish) program.  I asked why and what was going on.

Polish cases not taught properly

They explained the program was written by English native speakers for the English language.   It gave no respect to Polish noun cases.  This is what the Polish language is all about.  Just like Russian or Ukrainian.  In the first lesson, there are three Polish cases with no explanation.  This is crazy. The result confusion.  I had to learn Polish grammar on my own and years latter Rosetta Stone made some sense, after I already learn to speak Polish.

Pictures in Rosetta Stone are unclear

Further, the pictures are unclear as to the meaning.  A lot of mental energy and pain goes into trying to figure out what the picture is about. This same energy could go into learning the word itself, rather than just what the picture is about.

Customer service turned to Stone

A few years ago I thought Rosetta Stone customer service was great. When I was purchasing the product, there was no push, the people answered all my questions honestly, they even admitted the weakness.  I was impressed and decided to try it.  When I called a few years latter just to see if the level of customer service was the same, it was another team.  The sales agent must have been on commission as he was pushy, uninformed, rude and really turned me off.  I asked him not about Polish but Russian this time, he said it teaches grammar well.  This is not true, not for Polish nor Russian or almost any other European language.

Is Rosetta bad?

Not at all.  I think the idea was great.  I love the idea and the effort they put into creating it.  However, for me personally it taught me little, it wasted my time (money was not a factor). Time is the most important thing, not the money.  It put me back six months, me messing around with their program and eventually coming to the realization I was not really learning anything.  I guess I did not want to believe it at first as their product looks so tempting. I think Rosetta is trying to improve in many ways but the core program has issues with the method.  I personally would not use it to learn any language but English. But its not all bad.  It looks nice, the photos are nice, they use native speakers.  So its not all bad, but Rosetta Stone Polish is just not for me personally.

Alternatives to Rosetta Stone Polish

You can read about these LearnFast Polish flashcards here -> Flash cards

Method for learning a language with flashcards:

I learned Polish largely with flashcards. This is what I recommend to learn a language.  Use 100s of flash cards with words and phrases and learn them. Learn them until they are a reflex. I have a pack of 200 Polish, Russian and Ukrainian flashcards. They are real flashcards just like the ones I learned Polish from.

Language is a reflex. When you know words and phrases like a reflex then you will start to understand and express yourself in a more artful way. Use my flashcards and you will see.

Another language  learning solution:

LearnFast makes an MP3 program that is based on audio flashcards. That is, it is just not sound files, but rather sound files which repeat over and over in small lessons. You can learn for example, 20 words in a sound loop. Why are these audio flashcards are different?  Because these are clear and the English native speaker speaks only when really necessary.   You have a pure sound with your target foreign language being the focus.  You can listen to this loop until you can say the word before the native speaker. Whereas, other programs are long dialogues with an English native speaker giving long loud descriptions, the the target language native speaker speaks for a very seconds very quickly.  And your suppose to learn a language like this? Most language learning programs are written in a format which the brain can not grasp. I know I have tried them.  This is why LearnFast mp3 program is an audio flashcard program which uses  clear, pure repeating loops of words and phrases so it can go into your brain.  Try ->  Russian Polish or Ukrainian language learning flashcards.

What is the best alternative to Rosetta stone language learning software?

• LearnFast language learning

The reason it is better than Rosetta Stone is:

• It uses mnemonics
• Music
• Brainwaves
• Etymology
• Fairy-tales
• Conversation

Rosetta Stone was good

Rosetta Stone was good in their day cira late 1990s but they have a cookie cutter approach to learning languages.   I tried their program and my personal experience was it was fun for about a week then I never learn my target language, which was Polish, until I developed my own program based on the above ideas. I do not think Rosetta Stone is bad at all. It was only my personal experience with trying to learn with Rosetta stone that was not positive. Over all it might be a good way to learn a language for some. However, there is an alternative to Rosetta stone.

The Alternative

If you want an alternative to Rosetta stone try LearnFast.

Ukraine is a country with the most interesting history in the world. It starts before the arrival of the Indo-Europeans and right now the course of Ukraine will determine the course of Europe. The peaceful, intellectual  and spiritual Ukrainians lived in a borderland between more primitive imperial states.

Chapters of Ukrainian history

Ukrainian history can be dividend into:

1. Prehistory
2. Ancient peoples
3. Indo-Europeans
4. The first Ukrainian state
5. Kievian Ukraine
6. The Golden age of the Kievian state
7. The Tartars and the fall
8. King Lev and the founding of Lviv
9. Polish rule
10. Beginning of liberation
11. Russian Austrian partition of Ukraine
12. The complex romantic period
13. Ukrainian state
14. Soviet Ukraine
15. Freedom

This is the start of a history of Ukraine.

The current state of Ukraine is this.  It is between two worlds.  One is Moscow and the other is the EU.  I personally think it has to move toward the EU.  Free movement of labor and capital would infuse Ukraine with new wealth and direction.  Moscow would only make Ukraine a junior partner.