2 Spaniards raising Eng-Spa bilingual children in Spain
Jun 26, 2018 21:18:35 GMT 9
Post by Raquel on Jun 26, 2018 21:18:35 GMT 9
Thanks, Undraa. That's because any time spent with my husband is also time spent in the ml, so that helps a lot. On the other hand neither of us is a native speaker and we don't have any family in ml country that we can visit or speak with regularly.
I wasn't able to finish my post yesterday, so here comes the rest:
Son's speech: Both my children love pretending to bring us food. My son has learned this game from his sister. He's now saying much more: "Pasta. It's hot." It cracks me up when I say something and he replies "okay" (more like "uh-kay"), because he's so little but he looks like he knows what he's talking about. I'm lately hearing 3- and 4-word sentences, which is great!
Daughter's speech:
Spanish: I keep changing my mind, but having heard her speak with her friends and my mom the other day, I think her Spanish is at least as good as her English, if not better. I'm happy about this!
I think my daughter used a word I don't know the other day. I wish I could remember what it was!! I understood because of context, but didn't know the word. In fact, I had to ask her to repeat what she was saying.
Reading: I can tell my daughter has learned some words that she doesn't need to sound out anymore. Because of it, her reading is faster these days. It's still very slow, but not having to sound out the words she recognizes makes it less slow. I like seeing improvement, not just her learning new sounds, but moving from just letters to some words.
My son slept last night with the book "A Taste of the Moon". He dropped it the other day in the hole between the elevator and the floor, but we got it back yesterday. He wasn't interested in reading it, but he wanted to have the book at all times after that, open it and look at the pages.
I wasn't able to finish my post yesterday, so here comes the rest:
Son's speech: Both my children love pretending to bring us food. My son has learned this game from his sister. He's now saying much more: "Pasta. It's hot." It cracks me up when I say something and he replies "okay" (more like "uh-kay"), because he's so little but he looks like he knows what he's talking about. I'm lately hearing 3- and 4-word sentences, which is great!
Daughter's speech:
Spanish: I keep changing my mind, but having heard her speak with her friends and my mom the other day, I think her Spanish is at least as good as her English, if not better. I'm happy about this!
English: She's still making many grammar mistakes and mispronouncing words, but I believe she's doing well.
The American who's babysitting in July came yesterday, to meet the kids and discuss everything. She used to come home weekly, when my daughter was between 1 and 2. Yesterday, she kept saying she was in awe to hear my daughter speak the way she does. She also mentioned I had nothing to worry about when she went to day camp in the UK, which is nice. My daughter was very excited to meet her and play with her. I think she needs these interactions with native speakers.
Later, my daughter wanted to tell me some stories, and she made up 2: one about bears eating Little Red Riding Hood, and new Little Red Riding Hoods coming out of their mom's belly (she's intrigued by death these days, as are her friends) and the other one about a girl who kept running from wolves and bears, but whose father (I believe it was the dad because of the name she used that I now can't remember) always saved her by fighting the animals. Even though the stories were chaotic -she's 4 after all- I was impressed by the things she can come up with on the go in English.
Reading: I can tell my daughter has learned some words that she doesn't need to sound out anymore. Because of it, her reading is faster these days. It's still very slow, but not having to sound out the words she recognizes makes it less slow. I like seeing improvement, not just her learning new sounds, but moving from just letters to some words.
My son slept last night with the book "A Taste of the Moon". He dropped it the other day in the hole between the elevator and the floor, but we got it back yesterday. He wasn't interested in reading it, but he wanted to have the book at all times after that, open it and look at the pages.