Sabrina Marie Mateus
One of our amazing contributors, Suzanne García Mateus, introduces us to her beautiful baby girl.
Baby’s Name: Sabrina Marie Mateus
Parents Names: Suzanne & Marcus Mateus
City where you reside: Austin, Texas
Languages Spoken: We are speaking Spanish and English simultaneously with the intent of merging towards Spanish only. Still getting the hang of the life with a newborn and it makes our language goals difficult.
Age of Child: Almost 10 weeks. Born June 8th, 2010.
Languages spoken: Our bebita is exposed to Spanish, English, a little French.
We hope that by exposing Sabrina to three languages she will benefit socially and cognitively, while at the same time having fun becoming trilingual.
————————
Send us a picture of Your SpanglishBaby and we´ll feature him/her right here. We’ll feature one SpanglishBaby per week.
Email your good quality picture to madre@SpanglishBaby.com with the following info:
- Full Name of child (or children) and parents
- City where you reside
- Age of child
- Languages spoken
- In which way has speaking more than one language already been of benefit to him/her (a short sentence)
Can´t wait to meet them all!
Congratulations for the new baby! I have two sons and they are both bilingual. We live in the LA area. From my experience and from what I have read, the best way to raise a bilingual baby is making sure each parent sticks ALWAYS to one language. We learn a language without knowing we’re learning it (goes without saying) your young baby won’t be able to tell when you speak to him/her that you’re using two different languages so they will mix them up. But, if each parent speaks one they will know that mom speaks one, and dad speaks another one, and they won’t mix them up when they start talking. As simple as that. Makes sense, right? Enjoy bringing up your bilingual kid. And remember: expose them to your Spanish culture (I am from Spain). Make sure you take him/her back to Mexico, Guatemala, Bolivia or whatever country of origin you are. If they don’t see a use for speaking Spanish, they won’t want to learn anymore by the time they hit 5/6. My sons realise that if they want to play with other children in Spain they need the language. They have NEVER asked me not to talk to them in Spanish. When I am around they always use Spanish, even to play with each other… I hope it helps.
Thanks Silvia. It has certainly been an adventure so far. We plan on going to Ecuador this coming summer and go to different French and Spanish speaking countries other subsequent summers.
Thanks for sharing your story….I love hearing how other people go about doing this.