Poly what?

Polyglot
1. A person having a speaking, reading, or writing knowledge of several languages.

Z has be interested in foriegn languages since she was a toddler. She used to have this thing where we had to say Good-Night to her in English, Hebrew, Spanish, Japanese, and French. :)
Also when she was 2 she could count to ten in 4 languages and say Goodnight, Goodmorning, Hello, Goodbye, Yes, No, etc.

From 2 1/2 on she insisted on me teaching her Spanish. I know a little so I could check out Spanish language children's books from the library and read them do her almost everyday. Z's library storytime also taught us songs and more words in Spanish and we got into Jose Luis Orozco through the library too. Soon I got an online Spanish language program that along with the reading and singing got Z pretty proficient.

Along with Spanish she was still picking up Hebrew at home and when she went to a Jewish preschool. She was still very interested in Japanese and we hosted four students from Japan, for short periods, throughout her third year.

This year I found a Japanese tutor and Z and I started taking lessons together. It is a very hard language but Z is always eager to learn more and I swear she had nicer handwriting in Hiragana than English.

When Z gets more proficient in Japanese (maybe another two years??) I want her to start back up in Spanish and she will also start Hebrew (maybe at age 8?.) But Z doesn't want to stop there. She also wants to learn French, German and Italian (she told me about the latter two today.) And we have told her that we want her to study Latin and Greek. And now that I think of it Chinese really seems practical these days...

I have been thinking about this the last couple of days and it is hard to know what to spend my time and effort on with Z when she has so many interests. But I think it is great that she is so interested in languages and I think being a polyglot can only add value to whatever career path she chooses. I feel more committed than ever in support Z in this.