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When is the best age to start teaching kids new languages?I speak Arabic, English, French and German fluently.I recently had a son so I am wondering what's the best age/way to teach him 4 languages?
Feb 11, 2013

Dr. Ivana Dabaj Pediatric Neurology
First I suggest to start with one language that is the one that the surrounding speaks then later on start introducing some words of a second language. If before two year you have 2 or more languages that you use equally with your baby he risks having speech delay and a lot of babies will start talking late in the case of families speaking different languages. If you and the father have the same mother language start with that then when the baby is older start introducing one language at a time. The brain plasticity in children is so magnificent that they will learn very fast (but you need to give time to the language area to be well stimulated before overwhelming it). You might tell me that you know kids at the age of 2 years that know 3 languages already (that could happen but they will have difficulty in mastering them all and there are always exceptions). The first cause of speech delay in kids is the use of several languages at home.
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