Expert: Ernest Tufft - 1/29/2008

Question
My daughter is part african.  Her father is from Kumasi, Ghana.  I would like her to learn her fathers language along with myslef.  Is there any board books or toddler books ie. animals, colors, shapes in their language so I can start to teach her the basics?  She is 19months and right now it is the perfect time to have her learn the language.  I have looked on line, but I can not find anything.

Answer
Hi Jessica,

Although I have experience teaching 2nd language skills to adults, I have no skills in Twi, or of teaching toddlers.  In general, languages are learned within the context where they are used and become manifest by a need to communicate in the given channel or language.  So if her father speaks Twi, he should communicate with her in basic ways expecting her to catch on and reply in kind.  But, even then, chances are she won't really learn the language because most language learning is via one's peers, not their parents.  In your case, although adult classes may be offered at the university, chances are greater that they are not available, and so you will need to actually live in Ghana for a year or two focusing on ways to avoid using English and finding situations where Twi is necessary to be successful--such as at the marketplace.  The same is ultimately true for your daughter.  If she is mixed in with same age group native Twi speakers, she will begin to learn right away.  Of course, full native language learning continues through adolescent, so she can't be expected to learn and retain so much as you might think within a year.  Young children are not academic learners who consciously understand the process of language learning like adults do.  However, unencumbered by previous learning, she may aquire pronounciation skills and an ear for the vowels and consonants of a language faster than an adult learner would, only to forget these skills once back in the USA.  Thus, a year or more, or perhaps several summers, in Kumasi would be necessary to learn functional use of the language for either you or your daughter.  The game cards for basic vocabularly that you might buy or create would be mainly for entertainment or in preparation for real language experience because much of language learning is not simply memorizing vocabularly.  I hope this helps.  Your desire to acheive this yourself and your daughter is certainly a commendable goal.