I have always enjoyed language. I am a word person. I excelled in English in school (and majored in English at college), loved my course in Greek and Latin Roots in high school, and enjoyed studying French in high school and college. I also took an intensive semester course in Spanish in college and spent a year studying classical Greek--another intensive semester learning the nuts and bolts of the language followed by a semester of Plato. After graduating, I tried teaching myself Latin and studied a bit of Hebrew with a pastor friend; I didn't get far with either one, but the interest was there. I spent a number of years being paid to exercise English language skills as an editor.

So it only makes sense that we do languages in our homeschool. We have dabbled, mostly, in modern Romance languages, but our current big interests are in Latin and biblical Greek. I am by far the most enthusiastic language learner in our family, but the others are catching on!

For links on learning Greek and Latin other than the curriculum links below, click here.

Modern Languages

Latin

New Testament Greek

Modern Languages

Because I studied it in school and spent a summer using it on a missions adventure to Senegal during college, French was the first language beyond English that we tried at home. My early attempts were met with limited success and fizzled out. One standout product we did use was an audio tape called It's Fun to Speak French with Zozo, which came with a storybook as well. The songs were catchy and the story funny, and my oldest and I still remember bits and pieces, though the tape has long since disintegrated.

When my oldest was 10 I felt it was time to get serious about a foreign language. Her interest in the American Girl doll Josefina motivated her to try Spanish. We started with Power-Glide, the equivalent of what is now sold as the Spanish Ultimate Course, which was then recommended for grades 5 and up. We worked on it together for about 5 months, and some of what we learned we can still say easily and fluently 4 years later, but we found over time that the approach was a bad fit for our very word-oriented brains. We were also frustrated that much of what we could say was not useful in everyday life, so that while we could chat amiably about kings and queens singing funeral chants in the tower (and we still can!), we weren't finding a lot to say to each other in Spanish during the course of our days.

From there we moved on to Rosetta Stone Spanish. This worked quite well for some time; Aimée ended up using it for several years, completing level 1 and moving on to do a chunk of level 2. We found Rosetta Stone to be much easier to use, and in fact Aimée could do it entirely on her own, which was a plus for me. Rosetta Stone is computer based; she worked on it for about 10-15 minutes a day. We did not start with the Homeschool Version; she simply worked through the lessons, took tests, and proceeded at her own pace. She did well, but it was still difficult for her to come up with Spanish on her own, and she wasn't learning much, if any, Spanish grammar. 

We made some attempts to remedy that gap by supplementing with Spanish instructional books. We enjoyed using Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish for some time, alternating days with Magic Key with Rosetta Stone days. After bogging down with that, we tried Practical Spanish Grammar by Marcial Prado. This was not as fun as the Magic Key book. We gradually realized that Aimée needed to do more grunt work memorizing forms and vocabulary. We also gradually realized that she was tired of Spanish and didn't have the energy or motivation for said grunt work.

What did we learn from this journey? Aimée learned some Spanish, but it's hard to know how much. I think, were she dropped into a Spanish-speaking environment, she would pick it up pretty quickly, but for some time she wouldn't say a word. I learned that doing modern, spoken languages at home requires a high degree of commitment, because it's really a lot of work, unless one of the parents knows the target language well enough to speak it easily. I did not have the commitment necessary to dive into Spanish with my daughter, and she did not have the commitment or desire to jump into more immersive experiences, like a class, which would have helped a lot.

My youngest recently expressed a desire to learn French. I was willing to give this a go, despite our lack of stellar success with Spanish, because of my own familiarity with French. I scouted around message boards and Amazon.com looking for resources for young children learning French and chose French for Children by Catherine Bruzzone. French for Children includes audio CDs and a colorful book with games and activities. We've been using it for a couple months and like it very much. Both my boys can introduce themselves and carry on a short, somewhat scripted, conversation in French, chatting about how they are, how old they are, and the like. The songs are catchy but not annoying; some are pitched kind of low for children (they are sung by adults), but that is my only complaint about the music. It is friendly, easy to use, and fun. Best of all, we've been able to stick with it for more than a couple weeks, and the boys like it pretty well. Alas, it appears to be out of print.

Latin

While Aimée was still soldiering on with Spanish, I started Ben with Latin. Latin has become quite popular among homeschoolers, especially homeschoolers with a classical bent, and I thought it would be a good choice for my middle child. Besides, I had always wanted to learn Latin!

Latina Christiana. After researching various Latin programs for young learners (there is a good, if not complete, chart comparing various programs at HomeschoolChristian), I chose Latina Christiana, published by Memoria Press. Latina Christiana, then recommended for children in grades 3-8, is designed to be taught by a parent or teacher with little or no Latin knowledge, which fit our situation. It is also grammar-based rather than immersive, which I felt made sense for a non-spoken language like Latin.

(Memoria Press has since come out with Prima Latina for grades 1-4. I have not seen it, but it appears to be a gentler, less grammar-intensive version of Latina Christiana. It is designed to lead into Latina Christiana. Based on our positive experience with its big sister, I would recommend Prima Latina to families with Latin scholars younger than 9 or so.)

We started Latina Christiana when Ben was 8 and would have been in third grade. It is a very systematic approach, and I like it very much. It is not easy, however, and interest flagged more than once as we made our way through the first level. We found the flash cards to be invaluable; daily we went over the cards, chanting the declensions and conjugations and drilling vocabulary. Daily drill like this really went a long way toward ensuring our success, in my opinion.

Minimus. Partway through Latina Christiana, Ben was complaining enough  that I sought out some other way to skin the Latin cat. We landed on Minimus, published by Cambridge University Press. Minimus is designed for schools and Latin clubs (mostly in the U.K., apparently). It is delightful and perfect for young children, and Ben enjoyed it very much. The major drawback to it is the cost of the teacher's manual, which I found indispensable to the program (but if your Latin is good, you could do without it). Minimus is also pretty short; we did the whole book in just a few months with no trouble. There is a now also a second book available, which I haven't seen. There is a Minimus web page, where you can get a feel for the program and see some activities.

Salvete! After our detour into Minimus, we returned to Latina Christiana, eventually finishing level 1 and moving on to level 2. At times we also supplemented with Salvete!, which is designed to follow Minimus. Where Latina Christiana stresses the grammar and learning the paradigms, Minimus and Salvete both provide practice reading Latin. I am not sure I'd want to do Minimus and Salvete on their own without the strong and sytematic grammar component that Latina Christiana provides, but they are fun and give a good feeling of accomplishment. Cambridge Latin is the last in the Latin series from Cambridge University Press and is designed for high school.

Henle. When Aimée decided to abandon Spanish, it wasn't too hard to talk her into Latin. I took her through Latina Christiana level 1 in all of three weeks (she was 14 and had, after all, been hearing me and Ben chant amo-amas-amat for several years now). In September 2003 we started Henle Latin with the help of an email study group at Yahoo Groups. Ben also joined us with Henle.

Latina Christiana was designed to lead into Henle's text, so most of the vocabulary is review for us. Henle's approach is to keep vocabulary at a minimum to allow students to concentrate on learning the grammar, and I think it's brilliant. (I had briefly tried working my way through Wheelock's Latin but found the volume of vocabulary to be just overwhelming.)

Lingua Latina. I purchased an old copy of Lingua Latina by Hans Oerberg through EBay. Lingua Latina is a Latin text written entirely in Latin, so it is an immersive approach to the language. Ben sat down with it and promptly read the first several pages hardly taking a breath and felt such a sense of accomplishment. Our days are so full that I'm not sure how to work Lingua Latina in more, but I think it would be worth it if we could.

Greek

I studied classical Greek in college, but that was almost 20 years ago and I haven't always been diligent about keeping it up. I have started brushing up my Greek (between Latin lessons!) using an old textbook by J. Gresham Machen, New Testament Greek for Beginners. It's adequate for the moment, but since I don't have an answer key, it's not the best solution. I also wanted something to help me teach my family the Greek alphabet and something to use, eventually, with the kids after they have a few years of Latin under their belts.

For the alphabet, I settled on The Greek Alphabetarion by Harvey Bluedorn of Trivium Pursuit. It just arrived at my doorstep a few days ago, and I like the looks of it very much. Bluedorn includes not just the bare essentials--how to form the letters, how to pronounce the names of the letters, and what sounds each letter represents--but also quite a few interesting sidebars to spice things up. Younger learners will not care much about the notes on the history of the alphabet, probably, but I've enjoyed my perusals of it.

For my own grammar work I also have The Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar and Workbook by William D. Mounce. This is used in many seminaries (as is the Machen text). There are a variety of teacher helps, including answer keys, on the book's web site. The CD-ROM that comes with the textbook has short, encouraging lectures by the author.