Would it be a good idea to teach my 7 y/o son Japanese?

[griffinflores77]

Hello. I've been studying Genki (text books, vocabulary is more focused for college students) combined with AJATT (immersion)
and other stuff for a while now, I'm not very fluent or anything but try my best. In my home we watch a lot of anime, my husband always put it in english dubs, but when he's working I change it to Japanese, and I usually change the netflix and disney+ content into japanese too (mostly star wars content, and some abc series I grew up with), and almost all the music, articles and podcast are always running on background with a speaker while I'm doing stuff at home, my son is in 2nd grade of school, he is in a private school and his classes are online (zoom) with his teachers, just 3 to 4 hours a day, then he goes to play his video games, but my stuff is always running on background. I've seen him very curious, and is always asking what is the meaning of certain word, then he goes and I can hear him practicing the pronunciation and after a while he comes back and ask me is that its correct, he keeps looking at my switch constantly asking how that game is called in japanese (my switch is in Japanese language)

We are a fully Spanish speaking household, all the movies and everything we read is in english, he in school takes spanish and english, its a bilingual school, so he is always practicing both of them.

I found on amazon some children books that teach first the hiragana writing practice with some basic words, and short sentences, would it be a good idea to take maybe 2 or 3 hours a weeks, maybe 30 minutes a day for 4 or 5 days for it? Would it be bad for him? I don't want overwhelmed him with a lot of things? Would this be too much?

And if anyone has some method I could try I'm very open to suggestions!! Thank you in advance!!

 

[zhuru523]

@griffinflores77 I don’t think it would be too much necessarily, but I’m not sure how happy your son would be if you replaced video games with more studying (but it seems like he’s interested anyway).

Do you speak Japanese? the only problem I would see is that he wouldn’t have a native speaker to practice with, which will deteriorate his Japanese over time so it might be wasted effort. If you do speak or have someone he can speak with then that’s a different story imo

 

[griffinflores77]

@zhuru523 We have friends and other people we know that are native to the language.

Maybe I could try it for just a few days a week. The last 2 or 3 hours of his day he spends it with me in bed watching anime until my husband arrives from work.

 

[aldredian]

@griffinflores77 If he's interested, then it's not too much.

My parents hired Japanese tutors right around the time I was 6. I learned hiragana and katakana fairly quickly and really, the Japanese teachers just comes and teach a few topics but mostly just talks to me, read or play with me in Japanese. Very fun and low pressure.

Then she gave me a manga in Japanese to see if I could read it. Back then, I struggled a bit. Then the teacher brought Sailor Moon mangas cause they saw I had them in Chinese and we would compare the two and then I started doing that to learn that way. Then I picked up that manga they gave me when I was around 7 and I realised I could now read it. The teacher then just brought me monthly Ribbon magazine and we would go through them and study it and learn new stuff. On the side, I continued watching anime. I've always watched my animes in Japanese with Chinese subs and I absorbed more vocab that way.

Anyways, my point is, you can teach languages in a very fun way. If they're interested, it won't feel like a burden. My parents did nothing. I was interested and I naturally found ways to learn myself while the tutor was there to help reinforce.

You can just explain to him as you're playing games or watching animes together. And then maybe ask him if he wants to learn more and if that's a yes, then go from there.

 

[smolders]

@griffinflores77 Why not if he expresses interest. As long as it’s not tou pushing your interest on him. Kids need time to do their things too? They usually study enough but if he finds it fun.

I would question the usefulness aside from understanding anime. Japanese is mostly only spoken in Japan so it’s not the most useful language and it is a fairly hard one to master if you wanna learn kanji and levels of politeness on the long run.