Talent Of Language??

Last night I was talking to my dearest son about our capability of language.
“How many languages mom speaks?” I asked him.
”Two. Chinese and English”. (He actually meant Mandarin.)
“How many do you speak?”
”Seven”
“Really? What are they?”
“English, Chinese, French, Spanish, Japanese, dog’s language and sheep’s language.”
See, the answer is serious.
I held tight on my burst of laugh, “ Can you really talk in all these languages? I mean talk in the same way as you talk in English and Mandarin.”
After some silent, he came back with the answer “well, I can talk in English and Mandarin, I know some French words, I can count one to ten in Spanish and Japanese. I can talk a little in Dog’s language and sheep’s language.”
Very accurate!
“Well I guess you can speak two languages then, English and Mandarin, like me.”.
There was a bit disappointment showed on that little innocent face, and I can also see some hunger behind that face, the hunger for the knowledge, the hunger to be different.
I guess I had to continue the conversation “ Do you want to know more French so that you can really talk in French?”
”Sure.”
“Do you know how many languages can P speak?”
P is a family friend.
“How many?”
“Four. English, French, Hungarian, and Spanish. Oh, by the way I think he knows the squirrel language too.So that will add up to five.”
“Really?” The little one really carried the conversation with enthusiasm.” I want to learn the squirrel language from him!”

And the big agenda behind this whole conversation was for me to find out whether he would be interested in learning more languages, so that I can figure out whether I should put him into French program when time comes, which will be very soon.

It takes a lot of long range thinking and planning to be a parent, and who says it is a easy job?