I just found out my kid's kindergarten class is teaching Russian 40 mins per day.

[DFW]

208. In some countries here, especially small ones, they start as soon as school starts

It's no accident that Americans visiting Holland or Scandinavia are astounded that 11 year old kids can guide them around in correct English. It is also no accident that those countries that dub foreign TV programs and films are those where foreign languages are not widely spoken, and when they are, not with anywhere near the universal fluency of the smaller countries.

My wife and I spoke ONLY our native languages to our children from day one. At first they answered my English with German, but they understood everything I said. When my parents and siblings, whom they liked tremendously, visited, and they noticed that their German was not understood, they quickly started answering in English--unnatural to them at first, but they quickly undertood how important it was. One is now married in New York, and the other got a dream job (now makes 7 figures a year in Euros) in part because she was completely bilingual. My nephews are still angry with their mother that she did not always speak to them in Japanese, as fluency in Japanese is a get in free ticket to many dream jobs for an American. They see their cousins--our daughters-- switching back and forth in mid-sentence, and are jealous. This kind of fluency is something that can only be learned in the earliest formative years. In this age of being able to be almost anywhere by plane in 20 hours or less, I don't consider it absurd at all. But that's just me. I have lived it in person, and someone who hasn't won't have my perspective on the subject, which I accept.