We moved heaven and earth to teach our children french. We are American English speakers who speak fairly good french--enough to watch french news, but not good enough to be more than odd man out in a free-wheeling discussion with a group of french people. (When we try to tell anecdotes in french, we get a little tangled up.)

We tried: Videos (Muzzy, the BBC language program), au pairs, classes, bi-lingual schools, conversation with us, cartoons and movies in french.

What did NOT work: au pairs (they want to practice english) classes, conversations with us (kids see no reason why they should communicate with their parents all of a sudden in a language neither of you speak very well.)

What DID work: Bilingual schools--if you're up for the investment. Muzzy was great--we used to sit around and imitate it for fun. But the big hit was french cartoons, after Muzzy. The rule in the house was, only french cartoons during the week and english cartoons could be watched during the weekends. Oh, and we had no cable, no TV. Only videos until the age of ten or so. It pretty much did teach them a lot of french.

At the age of eight after a year in france, french kids thought our son was from france.

I would say our kids needed the contact in the beginning. After a certain point it didn't matter. But it was/is hard to get hold of french kid's cartoons. And you can't give american children free choice--they will just opt for American cartoons. So that stuff is over by age ten or so. At that age they on't sit still for a week of french videos.

So I don't know if this argues for or against your point or not.

Daisy