Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Arabic and Hebrew are both members of the Semitic language group and "work" (gramatically speaking) in much the same way. Many Arabic and Hebrew words are extremely similar. Of course, they are written using different alphabets, but that's not a significant issue.
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To me, that would seem to be a significant issue. All the languages I've used use some variation of the letters used in the English alphabet- add a few, take away a lot, add diacritical markings, etc. To learn a language that had completely different symbols would be harder, I would think...
A Japanese friend taught me a little bit of Japanese and the letters used really threw me off. My mind is trained to recognize the slight differences in English letters. I wonder if that would have been easier had I learned, or even been exposed to, a variety of alphabet systems as a child.
My oldest son had a good start on reading English before he began at Hawaiian immersion. I found that he was able to keep up well in both languages. My younger two had not really learned letters or sounds in English before beginning Hawaiian. Now that they have finished K and 1 grade, I am working more on having them learn English. Some of the letters have different names, and all the vowels have different sounds. I am doing it during the summer, hoping that the more "intense" instruction in English won't confuse the instruction they get during the school year in Hawaiian. I have always had the rule (in the classroom as well) that if you're spelling in Hawaiian, use the Hawaiian letter names, in English, use the English letter names, hoping that will help eliminate some of the confusion.
How does it work in countries where they teach a second language at a younger age? Do you learn to read/write in both language simultaneously? or do you get a foundation in one language before moving on to the next?