Celebrity Parents: Eva Mendes & Ryan Gosling Are Running Into Trouble Teaching Their Daughters Spanish

By Bonnie Griffin

In the latest celebrity baby news, celebrity parents Eva Mendes and Ryan Gosling are discovering that children learn the language they hear the most. According to EOnline.com, Mendes, who is Cuban, wants her children to learn Spanish, but the actress is finding that what the children are actually learning is Spanglish. Mendez told The Talk that she speaks “Spanglish, and that’s what they’re picking up. So it’s adorable, but it’s technically not a language.” Even celebrity children say the darndest things.

Even celebrity parents have issues with various parenting efforts! What are three tips for teaching your child a foreign language?

Cupid’s Advice:

Teaching children a foreign language can be difficult, but if you start when they are young and remain consistent, you can teach them to be bilingual. Cupid has some advice:

1. Start teaching them while they are young: Young children have minds that absorb knowledge like a sponge. If you teach your child both languages from the beginning, they will learn quickly. When children are first learning to really speak, typically at ages 2 to 3, they can learn words quickly, even in two languages.

Related Link: Parenting Advice: How to Manage Being a Working Parent

2. Teach them one word at a time: While formal lessons are an option, they are not a necessity to teach your child a foreign language. Use pictures and objects to teach them one word at a time, teaching them that the object or picture can be called two different things — one in each language they are learning.

Related Link: Celebrity Parents: Inside Kate Hudson’s Co-Parenting with Exes Matt Bellamy & Chris Robinson

3. Communicate with them in the second language: Choose specific times throughout the day where you communicate using the second language. Another option for this method is to have one parent communicate in English while the other communicates with their child in the foreign language they are learning. Consistency is key when your child is learning another language.

What are some methods you may have used to teach your child a foreign language? Share your thoughts below.