Why your child should start NOW

infant benefits from early second language exposure

Few things offer as many benefits that a child gets from learning a second language .  But to maximize these benefits, a child must start young, preferably as an infant.  Research shows that an infant's brain comes pre-wired to learn language, and children begin to build their language skills from birth, using the sounds of the speech they are exposed to.  They can actually differentiate between different languages long before they can vocalize them themselves, and there seems to be no limit to the number of languages a young child can acquire.

It doesn't get any easier

Young children the world over effortlessly pick up whatever language or languages they are exposed to. Researchers say that when you are young, you aquire language, rather than having to learn it. If you wait until you are older to start, language becomes something you must learn by rote and memorization. It then becomes work, and few people who start late with a second language ever succeed in becoming fluent with good accents.

Building a bigger, better brain

When it comes to language, infants are pre-wired to learn. They actually form connections and grow new brain cells to process the particular languages they are exposed to. Bilingual children tend to actually have measurably larger brains with denser grey matter than their monolingual peers. This extra brain power has been shown to give these children an advantage later in life in such areas as logic and math. (Note that similar advantages have been shown to result from early music exposure.)

The Window of Opportunity

As the child gets older, the brain's ability to restructure itself in this manner diminishes, and by a very early age (between 6 and 9 years old) the window has virtually closed. This is why young children the world over can learn one or more languages almost effortlessly, while older children and adults struggle to learn a second tongue and rarely become fluent or develop good accents. Furthermore, these latecomers experience far fewer of the brain functionality increases that the kids who started early enjoy.

Don't wait

We really hope you choose Music Lingua to help lay the foundation for a second language for your child. But whatever path you take, please start as early as possible!