2 Spaniards raising Eng-Spa bilingual children in Spain
Oct 20, 2017 21:36:13 GMT 9
Post by Raquel on Oct 20, 2017 21:36:13 GMT 9
Hi everyone!!
I love reading about all your adventures and I wanted to make myself more accountable by posting here about our progress with English, our ml.
My husband and I are both Spanish, born and raised, live in Spain, but we've spoken English to our children since the day they were born. We're using something close to ml@h, because hubby and I still speak Spanish with each other (although I'm trying to slowly transition to speaking English to 'daddy' too).
My daughter's first words were in Spanish (ML), then the summer she turned 2 started speaking English (ml) and only English until the age of 3, when she began wanting to speak with other children, that she started speaking some Spanish. At this point, English is still her first language, but Spanish is quickly catching up.
My son is only one and his first words have been in Spanish too (tsk, tsk). I hope he'll start speaking English soon! The only thing he says in English is "momma", but he also calls me "mamá" sometimes. I'm trying to teach him "water", but to no avail; "agua" (=water) is much easier to pronounce for a baby.
Fast-forward to today's news:
We finally found an English-native speaker (an American) who can come to our home once a week (Thursdays) for 1.5 hours and play with our children (4yo daughter, 1yo son) and my 2yo nephew. She works as a language assistant at my daughter's school, but only children attending primary school interact with assistants, so my daughter doesn't see her at school. I told my daughter she would come and hoped they would click. When the assistant arrived, my daughter went to her and said: "Hello, my name is...", then "I have toys in my room. Come!" grabbed her hand, and took her to her room. Success!!
My daughter was asking when she would come again this morning, so I guess it went well. At first the assistant was trying to use simple vocabulary with my daughter, until I told her English is actually her first language, so she needn't worry about that. The 2 little ones came and went, but I heard my nephew repeat some words in English, which is great too.
My son has discovered books!! I've been trying for a while, and always read them a book when there's time before school. He always ignored the cutest books for small children, but he really liked "Dear Zoo" yesterday, with all the flaps. He liked it so much, I can no longer find the book... my guess is he took it somewhere and we'll see where it turns up. Fortunately, we have a couple more 'lift the flap' books and he was already walking with one of them this morning. I hope he didn't hide this one!!
I love reading about all your adventures and I wanted to make myself more accountable by posting here about our progress with English, our ml.
My husband and I are both Spanish, born and raised, live in Spain, but we've spoken English to our children since the day they were born. We're using something close to ml@h, because hubby and I still speak Spanish with each other (although I'm trying to slowly transition to speaking English to 'daddy' too).
My daughter's first words were in Spanish (ML), then the summer she turned 2 started speaking English (ml) and only English until the age of 3, when she began wanting to speak with other children, that she started speaking some Spanish. At this point, English is still her first language, but Spanish is quickly catching up.
My son is only one and his first words have been in Spanish too (tsk, tsk). I hope he'll start speaking English soon! The only thing he says in English is "momma", but he also calls me "mamá" sometimes. I'm trying to teach him "water", but to no avail; "agua" (=water) is much easier to pronounce for a baby.
Fast-forward to today's news:
We finally found an English-native speaker (an American) who can come to our home once a week (Thursdays) for 1.5 hours and play with our children (4yo daughter, 1yo son) and my 2yo nephew. She works as a language assistant at my daughter's school, but only children attending primary school interact with assistants, so my daughter doesn't see her at school. I told my daughter she would come and hoped they would click. When the assistant arrived, my daughter went to her and said: "Hello, my name is...", then "I have toys in my room. Come!" grabbed her hand, and took her to her room. Success!!
My daughter was asking when she would come again this morning, so I guess it went well. At first the assistant was trying to use simple vocabulary with my daughter, until I told her English is actually her first language, so she needn't worry about that. The 2 little ones came and went, but I heard my nephew repeat some words in English, which is great too.My son has discovered books!! I've been trying for a while, and always read them a book when there's time before school. He always ignored the cutest books for small children, but he really liked "Dear Zoo" yesterday, with all the flaps. He liked it so much, I can no longer find the book... my guess is he took it somewhere and we'll see where it turns up. Fortunately, we have a couple more 'lift the flap' books and he was already walking with one of them this morning. I hope he didn't hide this one!!
I'm going to have so many options when looking for books in the ml, I'll spend hours browsing!! And that's a good thing! 
at the difference in prices!! Will definitely use it for my next purchases!
