Life goes on, in two languages

It has been over a year since my last post here. The lack of posts is due, as you suspected I'm sure, to stagnation in the language development process. It has been 8.5 months since I switched to primarily English with the kids. It started on vacation last summer. When bombarded with English from all sides, every minute of the day, it got even harder to keep up the Spanish. I thought to myself that I'd just use English for the duration of the vacation, and then when we went home, we'd go back to Spanish. That never happened. There were a variety of factors: my Spanish is not great, my last immersion was several years old and getting further into the past every day, my kids were growing and needing more complicated explanations for discipline and life's little lessons than my pigeon Spanish could support, etc. And so it happened. The majority language won.

Or did it? Several months went by and they had a little visit with a native Spanish speaker... I was very curious to see how much they had retained, and was pleasantly surprised that they still understood nearly everything she spoke to them. I was doubly pleased because she spoke quickly, and her accent is not like mine, and yet the kids seemed to comprehend, Annika more so than Keira. All was not lost, at least not yet.

During this time, I searched for a Spanish immersion preschool in the area. There was only one to be found and the cost was $12K per year, a mere 6 grand per semester. Yes, for preschool. My job doesn't pay very well and I didn't marry a millionaire, so that wasn't really an option. I chased a few wild geese, but didn't come up with much else. I did find a Spanish class for kids, ages 3+, on Saturday mornings for 1.5 hours. The location was not convenient, but the price was reasonable, and the teacher a native to Honduras, so we decided to give it a try. The first class or two the kids were VERY resistant to responding to the teacher in Spanish, so I began to have my doubts about how fruitful the venture might be. Being one of the youngest in the class, many of the things they studied were completely over Annika's head, but she loved the class and always looked forward to going, so we continued. As time went by, I really had no idea if she was learning anything. She spoke only a few stock phrases/sentences to me in Spanish, nothing new from the class. A couple of months ago, she surprised me with her knowledge of nearly all the letters in Spanish. I knew this had come from the class. Her comprehension of Spanish storybooks remained very good, and she continued to show interest in the language, asking how do you say this word in Spanish or English. She just didn't speak it.

This spring, I felt the need to get her into a preschool for the fall, as it will be her last year before kindergarten, and I have learned that classes fill early around here. With some more searching and few more wild goose chases, we ended up finding a Spanish immersion preschool that opened its doors this February. They were accepting students for April/May, as well as for fall. There were a number of strikes against it, but I decided to take the kids up there to see it anyway. We did and I was in for quite a surprise. The teacher and I spoke Spanish while the girls played, bringing us pretend tea and cookies, charging us imaginary money, etc... and Annika spoke all her play in Spanish. I was so impressed. She has never spoken that much Spanish in front of me before. Ever. The teacher was absolutely awesome with the kids, educated, a native speaker (Mexico), and has plenty of experience teaching Spanish to children. I could not have hoped for a better teacher. Long story short, we signed Annika up for the rest of the spring semester, and hope to continue in the fall with both girls. Annika had her first day of class today. She came home speaking bits of Spanish all afternoon, and so exhausted from her early morning, the evening culminated in a temper tantrum... in Spanish. I've never enjoyed a fit so much in my life.

Keira most definitely has less Spanish than Annika ever did. Being the second child, she didn't get as much devoted book reading time or vocabulary building time, and she didn't get as old before her mother bailed on her. She has not shown any particular interest or disinterest in it, and seems to understand most things I tell her in Spanish, but I know her vocabulary is not very large. If I ask her where an item is on the page, she points right to it. If I point to something and ask her how to say it in Spanish, even simple animals, colors, etc, she usually can't or doesn't tell me. I hope that with some classes this fall she'll catch up quickly.

And so it is, that our journey in bilingualism continues.

Progress Report

The struggle with speaking continues for Annika, now age 33 months. Everything I have read says that it is very common around 2 years of age for children to reject the minority language. We have better days than others, today happens to be a better day. She's spoken more Spanish sentences today than I've heard over the course of some weeks. Her resistance seems to have decreased somewhat and if I would be consistent in requiring it (i.e. waiting until the response comes in Spanish), her speaking abilities would improve drastically. It is just so hard, especially when I'm in a hurry. Which is most of the time. I have the patience of a gnat.

Recently we had a little discussion about politeness. How it is polite to respond to someone with the same language they address you in. I also told her how much I love it when she speaks Spanish and how happy it makes me and let me tell you I got a huge response to that. Our poor kids, they don't want to disappoint. They want to please. Their worlds are so simple, just looking for love.

I have tried very hard to make language the medium by which we learn and play, not the thing we learn. If that makes any sense. Sometimes people say, "Oh, you're teaching your kids Spanish." It sounds weird to me because really, I'm not. We live life in Spanish, we don't have daily lessons. Language is not something that merits disciplinary action and I feel very strongly that it should never be. Sometimes I'll request specifically or wait for a Spanish response, but if it doesn't come, we move on. Just like an English only speaking parent might not grant a request until it is asked in a non-whiney voice with the appropriate please, we make the same requirements in Spanish. In this case, the issue is courtesy, not language.

Annika is sorting out he/she and his/hers these days. We hear some funny things sometimes. "I talked to Grammy on the phone. He likes me." She's also working on matching verb conjugations with the subject. I notice this more when she speaks Spanish, working out "tú/yo (you/me) and tú fuiste, yo fui (I went/you went).

Keira's (15 months) vocabulary is growing rapidly. Her languages are very much mixed right now. It's all one language to her. Sentences like, "I wan ese" are very common. Her most frequently used words are "Ma" (más/more), "No", "Ga, ga" (Galleta/Cookie... this has extended to food in general. No, my kids don't eat that many cookies. Or do they?), "Mommy!" (accompanied by ferocious tapping of my leg), "Ny ny" (Blankie/bedtime... yes she asks to go to bed sometimes), "bom" (pan/bread), "bone" (chupón/pacifier). Her body language continues to be hysterically expressive and if you didn't catch her jumbled verbage, you'll likely understand the finger pointing, shoulder shrugging, and head bops.

I've been wondering lately if it might be time to switch language models for our family. That would mean I would continue to speak Spanish and Andy would speak English. Andy's level of Spanish hinders their relationship, and he doesn't always understand when she does attempt to speak something in Spanish, so in a way it may be discouraging her from trying. If we made a more clear distinction as far as conversations are concerned, Spanish only with Mommy, English with Daddy, it might help her. I think Spanish vocabulary building activities and storybooks with Daddy should continue as I think those are helpful. Any thoughts, fellow bilingual parents? I'd love to hear them.

This story has been entertaining us all week. Enjoy.

My mother was feeding Annika blackberries, which she's never really tried before. Mom turned to my sister and said, "She's really a picky eater." Annika doesn't miss a beat and asks, "Más pickies?" (Más = More)

Progress

More often than not, the journey seems hopeless. Then, all at once we make great strides.

She picked up a clothespin off the table and showed it to me. As I racked my tired brain, trying to remember what to call the silly thing, she said, "¡gancho!" Yes, that's right! Oh hooray, I didn't have to think of it myself.

She's also beginning to figure out that what works for Grandma, doesn't work for Mom. It's funny to listen to her pull on a doorknob and say, "Open da door?" *silence* "Open da puerta?" *silence* "¿abre la puerta?"

At long last I've extracted "ojo" instead of "eye", "leche" in place of "milk", "libro" instead of "book", and "abre la puerta" instead of "open the door". One evening when I wasn't responding to her english request, she tried, "¿porfa?" As much as we've worked on it, she's never said "por favor" or "please" before that. She'll also try an English color if you don't know what she's talking about. In case you might better understand that she wants a white napkin if she hollars out "Green!" or "Pink!"

I'm learning that in many cases, a simple, "I don't understand" will make her spit out a spanish word for something that she's never said before. It's all inside that little head, the challenge is getting it to come out.

Child development is so fascinating

The other day we were working in the spare bedroom where my mother slept the last time she was here, after Keira was born. Annika pointed at the bed and declared, "cama huella!" (Grandma's bed.) That was over 4 months ago and we've never talked about it. Annika remembered, even though at the time of it happening, she couldn't speak those words.

Annika and I had both of these conversations before 10 am this morning.

Context: I wiped a piece of yuck from by her eye.
Annika: "Ucky. Eye."
Mom (who pretends to not understand English): "Tenías ucky en el ojo. ¿Puedes decir, ojo?" (You had ucky in your eye. Can you say eye?)
Annika: "¿Papi hoho?"
Mom: Scratches her head.

Context: Mom discovers Annika eating a peanut off the table.
Mom: "Necesitas preguntarme antes de comer. Puedes decir, ¿Puedo comer el maní?" (You need to ask before you eat. Can you say, "May I eat the peanut?")
Annika: "Yes!"

Possession

I didn't hear this, but apparently Annika said to Grandma the other day, "House of Grammy?" Meaning, can we go to Grammy's house?
Grandma said, "You want to go to grammy's house?"
"Grammy's house?" She replied.

This is interesting because House of Grammy would be the Spanish grammar construction for possession. Usually she just adds an 's' for the English version.

Learning to sing

Our car rides often sound something like this:

Maybe I should clarify. They sound like that when we're not actually listening to "Estrellita" for the 396th time.

Do you know how to shut your sleeves or your knees?

Grandma was sitting on the floor with *gasp* her knees showing. Annika came over to help, pulling Grandma's skirt down and saying, "shut knees!"

This morning, she tugged on her rolled up sleeves and asked me, "shut?"

She's taking great pride in her latest knowledge of things like up/down, stop/go, open/shut, and on/off. As you can see, we don't have it all quite straight yet.

We're also experimenting with independence. When Mommy hands her a coat, she'll immediately say, "otro" (the other one) and head for the closet. Then, frantically searching for one in her size, she'll say something like, "one green, pink, yellow" Pretending to know exactly which coat she wants and what color it is.

Just a note

"Duice? Duice?" Annika asked this morning. (Juice)
"¿Que quieres? Mami no entiende." (What do you want? Mommy doesn't understand.)
"Jugo?" She responded immediately.

Time for an update

Annika calls Grammy "Gammy" in her presence. To us, she calls her huella. Which means footprint. She's trying to say Abuelita. This morning, the first thing out of her mouth as I picked her up out of the crib was, "Huella?" She's been with grandparents constantly for 2 weeks. Now she has to relearn how to play by herself.

Annika is making sentences these days. She put her pacifying equipment into the diaper bag after arriving home, without even being asked. I snatched it out when she wasn't looking, and a few moments later she returned to the bag, peered inside, and asked in clear, plain English, "Where ny-ny go?" (Ny-ny is her code name for blankie)

Más is More

Annika is big into the concept of "more" right now. "No más", she says when her plate is empty, when she knows she can't have another vitamin, or when she's done with her bath. "Más shoe" is what she says when she has one shoe on and is looking for the other. She could not be more pleased with herself than when we're reading a book and she finds a second picture of the object I'm pointing to. "¡Más barco!" She'll say as she points to another boat on the page. Sometimes she'll put "All done, No Más" together when it's appropriate.

At this point, the languages seem to be balanced evenly. She certainly knows plenty of English words, but she doesn't use them with me much. When she does, she doesn't get much response. Though, I couldn't resist a smile when she poked her head in the kitchen door last night, waved, and said, "Bye, Mami!" Then she ran around the corner. Ok, so I laughed too. I don't know where she thought she was going.

We're working on our manners over here too. At first she started in saying, "taytoo, Mami" and now it's almost always something approximating "gracias, Mami."

P.S. I won the ice battle. She now says hielo exclusively. And incessantly. She won't drink water unless it has a cube floating in it.

Annika will be 20 months old tomorrow.

Important Vocabulary Milestones

Well, ok, maybe they leave a little to be desired, but here is what's entertaining us these days:

1) Ya-yo Moo Caw. That's Annika-speak for "E-I-O Moo Cow." She's become a huge fan of Old McDonald and his farm.

2) Go Coke! That's Annika-speak for "Go Colts." Anything bright blue gets a hearty "Go Coke" cheer these days.

Two words for the same thing

Annika loves ice in her water. It comes out sounding like "eye". For you non-Spanish speakers, this sounds the same as the Spanish word "hay", meaning there is/are. So, one afternoon in an attempt to pretend that I don't speak English, I responded to Annika's request for "eye" with "¿Que hay?" meaning something along the lines of, "What is there?" She waved her hands and repeated herself a few more times, and so did I. Finally she squinted at me and repeated a little less enthusiastically, "¿hielo?" (ice in Spanish). This was the first time that she demonstrated her speaking ability of 2 words for the same object.