With the proliferation of communication devices, young people today are exposed to a more diverse range of languages than other generations have seen before. Turn on a local radio station and hear Spanish programming. North American DVDs usually have a French soundtrack for the benefit of our Canadian friends. And of course, on the Internet, all it takes is adding a .de or .br to the end of a link to find an entire new world to be translated.

Most of us monolingual speakers are lucky that English is still recognized as the default second language for many cultures around the globe. But as our kids enter adulthood sometime in the next 20 years, that could change. That Tower of Babylon isn’t going to be rebuilt any time soon. And the sooner they get started learning a new language, the more likely they’ll remain bilingual.

In fact, you can start teaching your infant a new language now. According to a study authored by a University of British Columbia psychologist and a linguist at the Paris Descartes University, babies as young as 7 months can use pitch and the duration of spoken words to tell languages apart. The study, which was published in the journal “Nature Communications” earlier this year, suggests that babies can keep languages separate and develop strategies that their monolingual counterparts don’t.

Children learning two languages at once aren’t going to be as vocal at first, says Melanie Maldonado, Public Relations Director for the Arkansas Foreign Language Teachers’ Association. But “later on, they catch up and pass other students.”

So why is it so important to begin language lessons so early? Young children are able to become fluent in new languages with much less effort than adults. Where grown-ups have had years of practice hardwiring their brains to function efficiently—making the shortcut between the word “cat” and a picture of a furry feline within a nanosecond—a toddler’s brain is much more of an open canvas. Adults can pat themselves on the back for quickly recognizing the word for cat, but those same ingrained brain patterns can inhibit learning that the same animal can also be called a gato or chat or even a neko. Kids’ brains, on the other hand, look like the current state of the Big Rock Interchange on I-430. It’s much easier to add another lane to that evolving project now than it will be 10 years from now after everything’s been finished.

So how do you start molding these young minds at home? Of course, it’s easier to teach the child if one parent is a native speaker of the second language. In fact, the Intercultural Development Research Association recommends that one parent speak English to the child and the other parent speak the foreign language, almost exclusively. Hearing certain words from one certain voice is much less confusing to them than hearing it coming from all over.

Learning a second language doesn’t follow a straight line, says Dena Yancey, an English Second Language teacher for the Pulaski County Special School District. Speaking, reading and writing are the three areas of language that students develop, with much of the education happening concurrently (though writing the new language is usually the last to develop, as is common in single-language learners).

“Kids learn by listening and imitating,” says Yancey. Their proficiency will depend upon their progress in knowing their first language and in how well their teacher knows the second language.

For households without a speaker proficient in a second language, there are still many ways to prepare your toddler for an eventual formal education. Exposing them to a friend, neighbor or family member who speaks a different language is helpful. There are plenty of books and CDs available for young people to learn languages, as well as interactive computer programs.

Yancey says there are advantages to introducing your child to a new language besides just being able to communicate with people from another nation or culture. “They’ve shown that some parts of the brain are lit up brighter than others,” of children who are bilingual. Even if they stick to their primary language as they grow older, their ability to comprehend and express themselves will be magnified.

Spanish 101
Which language should you teach your child, barring any cultural or religious influences? If you’re in a household where English is the primary language, Yancey suggests Spanish. Here’s why:

  • It's a Romance language. English and other Germanic languages are difficult to learn due to changing pronunciations and spellings. (Imagine what it must be like to encounter the sentence “You ought to know that’s enough dough.” for the first time.) Spanish sounds always remain the same, even the vowels.  
  • The alphabet's the same. You’ll come across an ñ or an á in Spanish, but that’s much more familiar to most American English speakers than Cyrillic or Japanese characters.
  • It's a bigger part of our culture. In the Western Hemisphere, only Brazil, Canada and the United States speak primarily in languages other than Spanish. Latinos and Hispanics make up the fastest-growing population in the U.S. Unless your child plans extended stays in Montreal or at LSU tailgating parties, Spanish trumps French as the No. 2 language in North America.