Last week I posted about how bilingualism can apparently be promoted even before babies are born. Introducing a second language at a young age seems to be a very popular idea – a mother in Scotland has won an international prize for teaching French to babies.

Fiona Moffat and her company, Lingobaby, aim to introduce a second language at a young age, and run sessions for children from birth to five years old.

“There are no expectations that they come out with French words, but often you can hear babies of about 15-16 months say bits of words like ‘bonjour’, ‘merci’ and ‘au revoir’,” she said.

Ms Moffatt said there were “huge” benefits to babies and toddlers learning foreign languages.

“If children are exposed to the sounds of a language before the age of nine months, they’re much more likely to pick the sounds out at a later age,” she said.

“We’ve also had a lot of comments from parents who are coming to classes that it just makes language learning normal.” (Source: BBC News)

I wonder exactly how much of the language these children actually pick up, or whether it’s more about laying down some foundations for learning in later years?