Photo credit: the00rig
It’s happening. My worst fears have been realized: my son is now answering me in English when I speak to him in Spanish.
Maybe he just forgot a few words and it’s easier for him to explain this subject in English.
Yes, he understands every word of Spanish. Yes, he can translate flawlessly upon request. Yes, he speaks Spanish with those who do not know English.
But why does he answer ME in English, when I’ve used 90% Spanish with him for 3.5 years??
This stresses me out to the extent that, every few days, I give Isaías a little test. Sometimes, we call his father or another Spanish speaker and I breathe a sigh of relief when he switches to Spanish automatically. Other times, I purposely say things incorrectly in Spanish so that I can feel reassured when he corrects me.
Ok, he knows Spanish. So why is he not using it?
What I realize, but can’t seem to fight, is that this worry is all about me and not at all about my son’s ability. It’s not as though he has a deficiency; if anything, he’s leaps and bounds ahead of most 3-year-olds in his communicative skills. Everything I wanted for him when he was born has happened. He’s a happy, healthy, bilingual child who makes me laugh every day. So why am I searching for ever more fluency? I must have impossible expectations and irrational fears.
Now, I’m paranoid about being one of those helicopter parents who is never satisfied!
Clearly, this thought process – which I create several times a day – becomes a proverbial slippery slope. I can fall so far into the abyss of self-doubt that I start thinking about decades into the future, when I’m reminiscing about the first few years of my son’s life, those long-lost times when he spoke Spanish beautifully. It’s a classic case of inventing my own reality, like a body-image delusion.
If I step back from what I’m thinking and pay attention to what I’m feeling, I know that a lot of my fears are about my own aptitude. No matter how often or how well I speak Spanish, I will never be a native speaker. I can’t change my culture or language, but I can always add to it. The additions will never be complete: I could never learn enough vocabulary or understand enough nuances to BE of Latino origin. I am just a speaker, not truly a member of this intimidating group. Part of me doesn’t want my son to ever feel this exclusion, this constant challenge of never truly sounding like he belongs with Spanish speakers.
The truth is: he is already better at Spanish than I am. He has a perfect accent (no accent) and understands idioms and subtleties. I will never keep up with him, and he will likely be one of those members of that group that I look upon from a distance. Instead of being afraid of his leaving me in the dust, I should relish his free will and broad proficiency. He can CHOOSE which language to speak from moment to moment, and that is the greatest freedom there is.
I aleáis enjoy your postings! They remind me of the way I feel and I am part of the Latino group. I learned Spanish at home and had to develop it on my own. Thanks for sharing this post…it motivated me to keep speaking Spanish to my bebita!
My daughters (2 & 4) always speak to me in Spanish and if ever they respond in English I still play dumb =) It seems for them to be more a matter of unconsciously slipping into English. It worried me for a bit but then I remembered my own journey with Spanish and know in the end they’ve got an incredible foundation and that they’re already bilingual. I tell myself to trust and have faith and let them be themselves. Thank you for this great post!
This is normal. Totally normal. I read that eventually, they don’t want to speak the “minority” language because they hear everyone else speaking in English.
My daughter went through this at 3 and she still doesn’t speak to me in Spanish very easily or naturally.
She understands it and speaks it well, but it doesn’t come out first.
So, we sing songs, read books, play silly games that bring out her Spanish. I make it fun, and not a chore.
You’re doing great!
Living in the USA and hearing primarily English spoken as well as knowing that you are fluent in English, will make it all that much harder. I have a 7 year old and a 9 year old whom we speak to all day in Spanish, most of our friends are Spanish speaking but yet when they started going to school all day (as opposed to preschool for a few hours, a few days a week), they both started speaking more and more English and now speak to each other in English which I vowed would NEVER happen. I have realized that they have a very strong foundation, perfect understanding and when they have to speak Spanish to those that don’t speak English, they do an excellent job. We are traveling to Spain this summer so that they can be immersed in the language and hope to continue this tradition every summer. I used to stress over their wanting to speak more English than Spanish but now know that they have the same ability I have, to switch back and forth, whenever necessary. I do want to make sure though, that they don’t have an accent when they speak in Spanish so we sometimes have to correct certain pronunciations.
Just thought I’d let you know our experiences: I am a native English speaker with very fluent Spanish, my husband only speaks Spanish, and our 4 year old son is totally bilingual, with the same level in both languages plus perfect accents in both. I usually speak to him in English when we are alone together, in Spanish when with Spanish speakers, and we also occasionally speak Spanish together when we are alone, or mix the two depending on the activity or the setting we are in. We have fun with it too, and he likes me to read to him in Spanish as well as English, which I have no problem with. He is totally comfortable switching between the two, has never shown a preference for either language over the other, and he is proud of the fact that he knows two languages. I am sure this flies in the face of all the theories and systems, and although I respect these methods, I have found my way to work as it is not restrictive, and my son never feels obliged to speak one or the other; instead, he gauges the situation and acts accordingly. He is also a great interpreter for his father! Perhaps we have been lucky with him, maybe he has a natural flair for language (I’m not boasting by the way, that’s not my style!), so it may not work for everyone. I have to say it has been easier than I expected to raise a bilingual child!
Yes, this is normal, for a child exposed to any dominant language, they will eventually want to talk more in the dominant language. This happens in Spain with English speakers as it does in USA with Spanish speakers and around the world for the “minor” language.
BE CAREFUL
In my experience ( we are monolinguals raising a trilingual in Mandarin/Spanish/English) from birth and she is now about to turn 11, those parents that made sure their children were ALWAYS speaking back to them in Spanish while living in an English environment ( and kept working the immersion with years of dedication) are the ones who ended up with fully bilingual children.
You do not have to speak perfect Spanish to give perfect Spanish to your child…but the child must be speaking, hearing, reading, writing & exposed to it daily. Other wise it is too easy to become recessive.
Children learn languages fast, but they can also forget them amazingly fast. I have even known kids as old as 12 who completely lost their mother tongues once they moved away from it at that age.
Many Native English speaking kids ( most from the UK or IRL) have lost some of their English and usually read and write poorly in their native tongue. ( Because the parents don’t help them keep up).
If you want to raise a bilingual child, you must keep them answering you. Then later when they are a tween or teen you must have them speak to you ( or another native speaker) about what they are learning in English so they know the Spanish terms.
It’s a long road to raising a bilingual – biliterate child. If you can, travel to places where the Spanish is dominant and do an extended stay. ( I’ve written on my blog about how to winter in Spain for very little)
http://www.soultravelers3.com/2009/11/lifestyle-design-a-winter-in-spain-extendedtravel-digitalnomad-miniretirement-4hww-travel.html
If you want your child to also be a fluent biliterate as well, then he must have enough Spanish fluency to do that and answering back in English weakens your efforts.
I wouldn’t worry about it, but I would be proactive in finding ways to keep him talking AND answering back in Spanish.
As hard as it is for fluent bilinguals, its that much harder for us without the language, but the work is worth the effort and one of the only PREMIUM “free lunches” one can give a child.
Chelsea,
I am also not a native Spanish speaker, learned it in my 30′s. My husband is Mexican. I speak to him and almost all the adults in the family in Spanish so it’s quite natural for me to also speak a lot in Spanish to my son (although not 90% like you– kudos!). However, my boy almost never says anything in Spanish to me.
In fact my husband and my brother-in-law both speak to him ENTIRELY in Spanish and have even tried to avoid having him hear them talking in English at all, but my son has figured out that they do know English, and he constantly tries to talk to them in English. We ask him to repeat himself in Spanish and he does –for now– he’s barely 3. So we’ll see how that goes in the future.
With the other adults, who don’t know English, he stays in Spanish.
I guess the moral of the story is that kids are very, very smart at figuring out stuff about you. Like you say, it’s important that he does have the ability to go into whichever language he chooses. As long as he is able to go into Spanish when the situation demands, and as long as his Spanish is strong, I think you have nothing to worry about. I will point out to you, as the parent of a 19-year-old, that no matter what you do, as he grows he’ll gradually have more and more input from other people and less from you, anyway. Just the way kids are.
From what I see around me here in Houston, my daughter’s friends, kids in the neighborhood, my nieces and nephews, as they grow the kids who stay STRONGLY bilingual are the ones who have BOTH their parents continuing to reinforce the Spanish AND strong inputs from people other than their parents. Examples: staying close with younger siblings or older aunts/uncles who don’t speak English, visiting with cousins in the “home” country, formal study programs or exchanges, if some kids at school are recent immigrants, or a group of friends who speak that language amongst themselves by choice (the other kids at high school mostly can’t understand, so it’s like their private club).
We move from Ecuador when our child was 3, now he is 14. We always speak Spanish at home, and at the beginning when he started going to school he only wanted to speak English with us. We played dumb until he got used to speak Spanish at home. I see many of his classmates are of Latinamerican origin and have lost a lot of the Spanish because parents at home, speak Spanish with them, but kids answer in English.
Even now at 14, my son will mix sometimes words in English and my husband will say, “the word you just said in English, is ___ in Spanish”, so he pauses, repeats the phrase in Spanish and continues.
He is going to high school now and did a placement test for Spanish, he was approved to Spanish Level 4 (there are 4 levels) and the teacher was amazed not only on the fluency but the level of cultural background he has.
I feel that at first it may be uncomfortable to tell the child to speak only Spanish, I remember the first weeks he would cry and say that I know English, that he know I understand him. I kept the pressure, without being rude, but I am so glad we did that.