Summer has arrived.

Young children need to spend lots of time outside, away from television, computer, and telephone screens of whatever sort.

Yet they can’t spend all of their time outside.

So what to do when they come inside?

Here’s an idea: Begin to learn a foreign language.

That’s right. Begin to learn a foreign language.

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This isn’t only for school-age children.

Those who aren’t yet school age can do this too.

Although it’s never too late to start, the earlier the better.

This columnist once bought a foreign-language program for a six-year-old and wondered if six was too early.

You’d think that a former foreign-language teacher would have known the answer to that: Although six years was fine, six months would have been even better.

Think about how most infants learn their native language. They start hearing language from birth and eventually begin to mimic it.

One advantage of starting at six months is that the speech patterns aren’t yet formed, so an infant may be more likely to learn a second language without, or at least with less of, an accent.

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One good children’s foreign-language program–Muzzy, a British Broadcasting Corporation, or BBC, production–comes in multiple languages. Each version has a series of videos and a workbook.

The German version opens with a character singing, “Guten Morgen, ich bin Norbert.”

Norbert begins by teaching children basic greetings to use throughout the day.

A story with other characters develops from there, yet the focus remains on learning the language.

While the program is produced for younger children, teens and adults can enjoy it too.

It’s that good.

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Those who live in the continental United States, a country with vast oceans to the east and west, have long lived with the mistaken belief that foreign languages have little use to them.

The growing predominance of English throughout the 20th and into the 21st century has reinforced that belief.

So has the mistaken tendency–throughout American history–of many new arrivals to shed their mother tongue and not pass it on to the next generation. Think about it: Did that happen in your family too?

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Learning foreign languages is helpful even if one never uses them directly.

At a more general level: It teaches those who learn them to think outside the box. Not everything has to be the way you’re used to it.

At a more specific level: It enhances one’s understanding of one’s mother tongue.

English grammar, for example, is much easier both to appreciate and to understand when one learns the grammar of a foreign language. Think of nouns’ genders, cases, plural forms, and possessive forms. Think of verbs’ conjugations, tenses, voices, and moods.

English pronunciation is another matter. For those learning German as a foreign language, pronunciation is easy, because words are always pronounced as they’re written. Always.

Not so in English.

First, a letter or combination of letters can have different pronunciations.

Think of the o-u-g-h in bough, cough, tough, though, and through.

Think of how the pronunciation of u-s-e depends on whether it’s a noun or a verb: “For occasional use, use only as directed.” The difference is whether your voice box vibrates when pronouncing the consonant.

Second, English has homonyms. Think of t-e-a-r, the drop of liquid from your eye, and t-e-a-r as in “rip.” The former rhymes with “rear.” The latter rhymes with “rare.”

Third, English has homophones, such as its and it’s; they’re, their, and there; and to, too, and two.

Is your head spinning yet? Now imagine you’re learning English as a foreign language.

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All of this only begins to explain the advantage of teaching foreign languages to children, not only in school but also at home.

Teaching them well also counsels in favor of teaching them both a Germanic language and a Romance language. That is, one from northwestern Europe and one from southwestern Europe.

Such learning, like much learning, can best begin at home.

Dr. Randy Elf taught English at Landheim Schondorf, a Bavarian school in Schondorf am Ammersee, and taught German at Southwestern Central School.

COPYRIGHT ç 2023 BY RANDY ELF