How do you teach a language

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That is

(a) Not commonly used in the country ?

and

(B) Is not based on the Roman script ?

Wouldn't this make it very difficult to actually become very proficient in the language ? Please advise ? Thank you !

If he is young he probably naturally has an ear for learning languages, even with autism. If you are fluent in the language just start speaking it to him.

We are Canadian and we will be putting our AS daughter in French Immersion. French Immersion is school where an English child goes and gets almost all instruction in French. Children eventually become fluent in two languages with this method.

funny I am Canadian, and do not know a word of French, nor do I think it's important to know unless you live in quebec, and well, f**k those people, some of them never bother to learn English or speak it in your presence really.

Something you hear quite often is that AS kids aren't good at second languages, unless it happens to be a special interest. On the other hand, I read lately that being bilingual is very good for your theory of mind, which is something that AS people have a problem with. So it strikes me that if you can persevere with it, it's well worth trying, especially if there's a family connection to the language.

In my own case, I live in Ireland. Our native language used to be a Celtic language called Irish or Gaeilge (some people outside Ireland call it Gaelic). It is still the native language for some people in certain areas (called Gaeltacht areas). But I was born in an English-speaking area. So my parents sent me and my brother to an Irish immersion school. We both became fluent, despite both being on the spectrum (though not diagnosed). My son (diagnosed with AS) is now also going to an Irish immersion school, and has become reasonably fluent in Irish atthe age of 10, although he struggles a bit with some sentence constructions, which are rather different from English. He has also improved his understanding of theory of mind, I feel. Whether this is connected or not, I can't know. But I feel it was worth the trouble, as it's culturally important to me.

There's a fair bit of information out there about learning a language, and quite a bit about teaching kids. See fluentin3months.com for general good information on language learning and great links to other pages, including some for specific languages. For young kids, it is said that consistency is important. For example, if it's a family language, then the parent whose language it is should speak only this to the child, or at least speak it at specific regular times. If its being learned outside the family at a class, you need to find someone outside that class who will use that language with your child, as it's hard enough to learn just from a class, and harder again for someone with AS. I'll look around my bookmarks and see if I can find some handy links on the subject.

May I ask which language? There are tried and trusted ways of learning non-Roman script , depending on whether it's an alphabet or pictograms.

As you say yourself, you dont bother to learn french and speak french as well and declare that it isnt important. So when its in your oppinion not important to learn another ones language, why do you bother when others act as you do?

Immersion is the best method.
That could be living in the country where it is spoken, only speaking that language at home, or enrolling them in a school which only speaks that language.
Depending on how old he is there are some kindergartens and preschools that offer the same thing - complete cultural immersion, including language.

If none of those are possible, then you need to get someone who is fluent in the language to teach him - always teach them to listen and speak first, and read and write later.
Have them isolate the 500 most used phrases and words and teach them to the child by using patterns naturally present in the language. Teaching by pattern gives anyone a natural feel for the language, and that's even more true for a child. With one hour a day, he would be at a highly advanced level by the end of a year. By 1.5 or 2 years, he will practically be fluent to a native level and already picking up expressions and idioms and such and be able to use them easily, as well as have excellent pronunciation. After that he may lose his accent completely.

Nascairreacht,

I am trying to teach my daughter who is NT, although some of the parents here did warn me that she is exhibiting some ASD traits.

I will check out fluentin3months.com for advise and look forward to getting more helpful links from you. This language has alphabets, not pictograms. It has a sentence structure that is also markedly different from English's, so it takes a while to get used to framing sentences in this way. It also has many sounds that are not used in English.

So far, she only knows about 100 nouns and about 20 verbs. She seems eager to learn, though, and I want to my best to help her become fluent at it. But there are significant challenges, too.

The first is that its usage depends on the cicumstances under which it is used, the (status of) individuals spoken to, and the (relative status of) the individual doing the speaking. Then, there is the ancient version, the current classical / literary version and the colloquial version, and natives are very strict about when to use which version.

The ancient version is so very different from the modern classical version that it almost sounds like a completely different language. But the bulk of their literary works are in the ancient version and most natives memorize entire poems and writings, although they don't have the foggiest clue what they just memorized. I don't want this for my child - I want her to REALLY learn, not just memorize, so she can appreciate the true richness of its great works of poetry and literature.

One uses the modern classical version when addressing an assembly, talking to older people, people of higher status, in courts, in literature, in official / legal publications, in newscasts, etc. it is extremely disrespectful to use the colloquial language under these circumstances.

Conversely, you will be laughed at and mocked, if you use the classical version during the ordinary course of the day, when talking to a person of lower status (than you) etc.

Furthermore, the way you speak (accent, choice of words etc) determines your social status. The language of the lower strata of society is very different from that of the upper rungs.

I just don't know where to start. Without proper role models demonstrating the correct usage under different circumstances and modified according to the status of your listeners, I am worried that I might set her up for humiliation by speaking or writing in a way that compromises her position in that society. Unfortunately for us, there are few native speakers around where I live, so there is very little chance to practice and perfect her skills.

Wow, thank you so much for this gift of hope, I would love for my daughter to become fluent in the langauge in another 2 years !

Also, I never thought of teaching by patterns ! ! Thank you !

My son is hyperlexic, which means he is obsessed with letters, numbers, logos and symbols, super high fluency, lagging comprehension. He is teaching himself Japanese. The only Japanese I know, is from the fact that he is teaching me, b/c he talks about it most of the time. He watches a lot of videos on YouTube and goes to websites, and finds grammar rules and all of that. We also bought him very visually oriented books. I wish I could find more.

I don't know if your daughter is hyperlexic or not. If so she will do a lot to the work by hyperfocusing on the alphabet. if their is an ancient version and a modern version she will be able to keep them straight pretty readily. Grammar and such might take longer, but they are patterns like math, so it won't be hard once she focuses on it.

If she has any reading comprehension/communication issues they will follow her into the 2nd language. If so, that is OK. Don't overwhelm her, or she might switch off the special interest. if she does that, she will have to cycle back to it on her own. My son has had to cycle back a few times b/c of people at school discouraging it (He was writing his name in Japanese, and they thought it was affecting his penmanship in English---which is bad for other reasons.)

The main thing is let her be in charge, give her access to resources, encourage, but do not push. That is the best advice I can give.

Hi HisMom,
fluentin3months.com is aimed at adults, but a lot of the advice is applicable to anyone. This link http://www.fluentin3months.com/phonetic ... d-quickly/ is about learning alphabetic non-Roman scripts. You can search his site for your language. He has done articles on many languages and the forums have advice on languages he hasn't dealt with.

http://en.bab.la/news/top-100-language- ... 013-voting is a list of the top voted blogs for the year. You might find something useful there. Amongst the blogs for parents and kids are http://www.multilingualliving.com/ which has an interesting looking 100 days challenge, but I haven't checked it out yet, and http://babybilingual.blogspot.com/ . There may be more for kids, but I haven't gone through them all yet. They all have interesting tips, and you can pick out what seems relevant. They may even have one in the language you're focusing on.

Irish also has a different sentence structure (Verb, Subject, Object) from English (Subject, Verb, Object). One game I have for my son has words printed on long strips. The strips are in different colours. So let's say all verbs are printed on blue card, green for subjects, and brown for objects or nouns. He learned pretty quickly that the order is blue/green/brown for normal sentences. You say she has some nouns and verbs - could you put some of these on strips of paper with different coloured writing?

Actually, I would agree with Kjas that phrases are a good way to go start with. Phrases would mean she'd get the correct order first off. Then teach her how to substitute words into the sentence; e.g. The boy ate the bread/the boy ate the sweets/the boy ate the apple. Each sentence or phrase is a framework used for many other possible sentences/phrases. Then maybe show her the coloured strips, and she'll probably know it already!

The versions problem is not one I've ever faced with Irish. Maybe you could try let's pretend. Let's say you're asking for a cup of tea. You could make little character cards (in English, to start with). You could have a set of cards with typical people of various statuses, and you each choose one. Then you say whether it should be a more or less formal sentence. So let's say she picks a little girl card and you pick a venerable granny card, she should use a classical version. Or if granny asks little girl, that should be the colloquial version. If she is to use a form to address a crowd, her dolls could be the imaginary crowd. She'd probably find it funny to be the 'big' important person addressing others as if she were in charge. Little kids often like knowing hierarchies, as it makes the world easier to deal with, and they are working so hard in their heads at categorizing the world anyway. You could make a set of scenario cards too. That way you keep it to scenarios for which she has suitable vocabulary.

I'm not sure what to do about the ancient version, but I suppose you couldn't start this until she has a bit of the classical and colloquial forms anyway. Maybe you could make it a really cool time for reading some of it. If you could find some really short bits of ancient poetry, or verses that can stand alone, and keep some treat that is only for reading this ancient version. You could light candles/get a special food or drink/get out the best tablecloth/set out flowers - just make it a really special (and uninterrupted) occasion. You'll know yourself what'd best catch her attention and make it special. Then go through the short verse, explain if it relates to what she already knows in classical or colloquial, say how beautiful it is, have the food treat, draw a picture of the verse (special drawing book? special cool pens?). Make it REALLY short to start with, and she'll see it as a real pleasure. If you start with bits that are too long, it'll be a bit of a chore, with the treats only just making up for the tedium. You can work up to longer bits, or if it's a story, she could go through it verse by verse, and be waiting to find out what happens in the end.

I've gone on a bit, sorry! It's nearly midnight here in Ireland, so I'll finish by saying ignore all the above if you think it's not quite right for your situation, but maybe it'll help you with thinking creatively about what would be appropriate. Good luck with it.