Disclaimer: So I wrote this about 2 months ago. Before we had our second baby. Already so much has changed - I am having a hard time studying. In fact, I haven't actually sat down and studied Spanish since Joaquín was born. I just can't find the time. I am hoping once things settle down Ill be able to fit it in my routine again. Im still talking as much as I can but have been using English a lot more as well, and Camila is starting to respond to more English and is actually starting to show that she understands multiple things in both languages - SO cool to see! I state below that her spoken vocabulary is 10-20 words. Well now its closer to 50 (I counted) and still almost all in Spanish (except for 'chair' and 'cheese'. Interesting.) Anyway, this will continue to evolve and change so enjoy reading for now! Sorry for the lack of pictures… :/
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Yea, its pretty strange. When I talk to my 15 month old daughter in English she barely looks at me. She goes about her business as if Im not even talking. But when I say the exact same thing in Spanish, or some grammatically incorrect variation of the exact same thing, she turns and looks at me intently. If I ask her to do something in English, no response. When I ask in Spanish, she immediately obliges.
My first language is English. I know it extremely well. I am a grammar nazi to others and a pretty good writer. And Im a talker. I love to talk, I love to read, I love to narrate everything my daughter sees and does so that her language base is rich and wonderful.
And yet…I pretty much only speak to her in Spanish. Which, to be honest, puts her at a disadvantage sometimes because, especially lately, I often times have difficulty explaining things to her in the rich detail and ease I would be able to if I were speaking in English. Don't get me wrong, I DO speak English to her, but not often enough YET for her to really understand and respond to it.
Let me back up a bit. My 'base' understanding of Spanish came from 4 years of Spanish in high school, and a desire to do well because I really liked my teacher. I built on that when I taught in a bilingual classroom during my student teaching year in a majority-hispanic neighborhood. Parent-teacher conferences were held in Spanish and the culture was so rich among the diverse families. I thought I was something special when I met my husband and could rattle off a few basic sentences with my "good" accent and when I bragged about the Reggeton music I listened to and how I couldn't wait to learn how to dance salsa (I of course, like most white Americans, confused all latin cultures and had no clue that my husband, as a Mexican-American, didn't listen to Reggeton and his family did not dance salsa at family parties - luckily, he forgave me for my ignorance. :) ).
As our relationship developed and my understanding of his culture was enriched, we eventually decided that when we had kids, we definitely wanted them to know Spanish. Language is an amazing way to pass on a culture, specifically a cultural IDENTITY. It wasn't until I was pregnant and ready to give birth to our daughter that I realized how badly I wanted this for her. Not just to know Spanish in an "I understand it all and speak a little" way, but to KNOW IT and feel comfortable enough with it to hold conversations and identify identify herself as a fluently bilingual individual. From experience and research I knew that the only way to achieve this was to ensure that our kids had a need for the language.
My husband and I easily decided that he would only speak Spanish to Camila - ONLY Spanish. We knew the importance of her associating a language with a face. You have all probably seen it - a parent speaking their native language to their child, and the child responding in English. This is BOUND to happen - we aren't ignorant to that. However the language-face association will HELP when we get to that point, because the moment our kids start to respond to Donovan in English out of ease one day, he can redirect them easily. How difficult or easy it will be to maintain this will be dependent on the personality (i.e. STUBBORNESS) of our kids, as well as how consistently he enforces it. We also obviously asked all of Donovan's family to speak Spanish to Camila.
Next step - mom. Yea that's me. What role can I play in this? "Minority Language at Home" is probably the most effective language strategy used that ensures full minority-language capability in children, but I was simply not there. Also, I want to know Spanish too! Yes this is about our kids but what about me? Ive always wanted to teach in a bilingual classroom again, or even in a Spanish-speaking country, and I really super-badly want to be able to sit at the table with Donovan's family and activity participate in the conversations and laugh at the jokes, but I need fluency in the language to be able to do any of that. I've always said "This year, I will be come fluent in Spanish!" Bahahaha, yea right. It never happened. I loosely used Rosetta Stone that my mom had so awesomely bought me but… Newsflash: Its HARD to learn a second language fluently as an adult. It takes discipline, routine, and a deep desire or motivation. Well, my motivation soon came. The simple desire wasn't enough - but when I got pregnant with my baby girl, I had my deep-seeded motivation.
Since Camila has been born I have talked Spanish to her as much as possible. My limited ability was just fine for her newborn stage. I stuck with Rosetta Stone until I reached a weird plateau - I was definitely learning with RS but the program didn't directly teach grammatical rules. So I would learn a phrase but would constantly be asking myself, "But WHY…" I wasn't able to take what I learned in Rosetta Stone and transfer it to new sentences or situations. So I went on Amazon and purchased a Spanish Verb Tenses workbook that had great reviews, and this has helped me TREMENDOUSLY. Once I understand a grammatical rule, I can then apply it to the verbs and nouns I know and form new sentences based on that rule. I study daily, usually at Camila's nap time. This is one of the luxury's of being able to stay home. Then I practice what I learn with her throughout the day. If I don't know a word, I look it up on my phone or in the dictionary. Or, I ask Donovan when he's home.
My speaking ability has increased dramatically since taking this approach and I have been able to keep up with Camila's language development for the most part. My general rule has been - if I know it in Spanish, say it in Spanish. If not, say it in English first, and then try to translate it. Until around now, I have been able to say almost everything in Spanish, and well. I say "until around now" because man, she is learning FAST. She understands SO much, follows basic commands, and can say about 10-20 words (almost all of them in Spanish), and responds yes or no to questions. In the past 2-3 months I have been finding myself needing to explain situations to her in more detail than before. For example, when we are at the pool and she is playing with another child and she hugs him or pets him too aggressively. I want to say, "No baby you need to be gentle. When you hit like that it can hurt. We don't want to hurt others. Look, touch him/hug him like this." Instead, what I am able to translate is more like, "No baby, don't hit. Gentle. Like this." Sure, I got my point across, but not as richly as I would have liked. And if I stop and think really hard and pull out my dictionary and my iPhone translator and JUST GIVE ME LIKE 5 MINUTES I could totally put together the phrase that I want. But by then the moment is over. My bestie gave me a great suggestion that's been working well for situations like this: take note throughout the day of situations like these where I feel unable to translate what I want to as richly as I could in English, and then work on writing and translating little paragraphs based on these situations the next day. So far Ive done a "El Parque (park)" paragraph and a "La Piscina (pool)" paragraph, and yes they both helped a lot! I was able to focus on some key phrases and situations and then plop those phrases in my back pocket (semi-literally) for the next time we found ourselves in a similar situation.
Another funny thing has started to happen - while I speak Spanish pretty darn well when its just me and my toddler all day, I pretty much suck at holding a decent conversation with my husband. Im also finding that my listening ability is actually DEcreasing. We will sit and watch a show together in Spanish and I want to cry because I can't understand a lick of what they're saying. And here I felt like a bilingual rock-star all day. It turns out my ability to read, write and speak Spanish are getting stronger while my ability to hear and understand Spanish is either staying stagnant or decreasing, because I haven't been working on those skills nearly enough. When watching a show in Spanish, I can understand more of whats going on if the Spanish subtitles are on, because I can READ spanish better than I can hear it. This is also why I feel so frustrated when Donovan and I have conversations in Spanish, because he talks too fast for me and it all rumbles together. I. need. to. listen. to. spanish. like. this. in order to understand it. And in reality, Donovan and I should be talking to each other a lot in Spanish, but we just DONT. We've tried "Spanish at the dinner table", and it will usually last a week or so before we revert to what's easiest, which is English. But yet we will both turn to Camila and speak Spanish to her. Its odd. Haha.
Anyway, I sit here at this crossroads, wondering literally every single day if I am making the right choice. I often get so discouraged and think to myself, "Im really gonna eff her up…she won't be able to speak ANY language well. I should just revert to all English before its too late."
BUT…if I can step back and try to view it objectively, I do know that there really is no wrong decision. She will grow and develop. She already is. at 15 months old she has a vocabulary of 10-20 words. Id say thats pretty good. Her entire environment is in English. In reality, if I stop trying to speak Spanish to her and speak all English, I would be doing us both a disservice. As great as it is that Donovan speaks Spanish to her and will continue to do so, I am the one that is home with her all day and so my language influence plays a bigger role. Also, almost more importantly, if I stop speaking Spanish to her, my own learning stops. Ive learned more in this past year that I have since high school Spanish.
My husband told me that, on a scale of 1-10 (1 being my dad who thought 'hello' in Spanish was literally said 'hole-ah' because he saw it written down - sorry to call you out pops but its true :) - and 10 being my Mexican-born-and-raised sister in law who learned English fluently only in the last 4-5 years and who is also a talker and a teacher) my language ability has gone from a 2 to a 4 to a 6 (our time frame measurements were when we met, when we married, and now). I really feel like thats saying something, and Im proud of it. :)
Another reality is that Camila's environment is almost all English outside of our home. And right now thats a good thing. She's picking up a lot of English from the little I speak to her, as well as playground conversations, listening to Donovan and I talk to each other, and conversations she has with her family that all lives here. And when she goes to preschool, thats going to influence her even more. My prediction is that eventually, Spanish won't be her dominate language. I think that she and I will eventually even out and I will end up speaking even more English to her, probably around preschool or Kindergarten age. I just think that, even if Im 10x better in the language by then, I will feel more comfortable talking through certain situations in English with her, because its the language I will always be more comfortable with. She will be conversing by then and will probably be coming home with stories about who hit who and what mean thing someone said to someone else, and I feel that those conversations, between me and her, will happen in English - not to mention the fact that her conversations in school will most likely be held in English.
Our hope right now is that we can at least give our children a solid base of Spanish, even if English ends up dominating in a few years. That solid base should set the tone for being able to switch between the two languages comfortably and easily as children, teens and eventually adults.
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