Language transfer, when someone applies knowledge from their native language to a second language, is typical in budding bilinguals like my daughter. Although in her case, she really does a lot of the transferring the other way around, from what I like to think as her second language (English) into her native one (Spanish). Of course, it could be argued that in a case like hers, where she has been exposed to both languages pretty much since birth, it’s hard to pinpoint which of the two languages she speaks is the native one.
Either way, I find this process fascinating and so I’ve been keeping notes on some of the things she says. The most typical language transfer has to do with putting the adjective before the noun, which she does indiscriminately in both English and Spanish. So we constantly hear her saying stuff like “chiquitos carros” (instead of carros chiquitos) and “blanco unicornio” (instead of unicornio blanco), for example.
Here’s another type of language transfer she does all the time: “Quiero ir al baño muy mal” as in “I want to go to the bathroom really bad,” when the correct way of saying it in Spanish is: “Tengo muchas ganas de ir al baño.”
We recently caved-in and bought our first video game console and Vanessa has been pretty hooked on it, even though we only let her play with it for a little bit at a time on the weekends. Anyhow, just like she says she want to “ir al baño muy mal,” I’ve now also heard her say “quiero jugar Wii muy mal.”
And then, how about the language transfer going on here: “No espero para jugar ese juego nuevo de Wii con papá“? She was trying to say she couldn’t way to play the new Wii game with her dad, but she should’ve said: “No veo la hora de jugar…”
What to do? I usually find it pretty funny when she says stuff like this because I understand what’s going on, so I just repeat what she said using the correct form/words. My husband has tried to explain that in Spanish the adjective usually (because there’s always an exception to every rule) goes after the noun, but I don’t think she really gets it right now. I’m hoping it all just fix itself the larger her vocabulary becomes in both her languages, but sometimes I worry a little because I have heard bilingual adults saying the same kind of things my 5-year-old is saying.
Do your children do this? Can you share some examples? What have you done to correct it?
My daughter is only 1.5yo so she isn’t doing this yet but as a language teacher I can tell you that research says the best thing to combat language transfer is more exposure to the target language. You don’t need to correct her explicitly or try to explain why she should say it a different way (as your husband was doing) but just say it again in the proper way, as you were doing, and know that with more exposure to the language she will eventually acquire the proper phrasing and grammatical constructs. Hope that helps.
Oh, the examples are countless!!!
The 8-year old: “Papi I winned you!”
The 3-year-old sitting down with me at McDonald’s: “Mommy you forgot to get towels.”
(Where my husband is from, servietas are to wrap tortillas in, and napkins are toallas.)
The 10-year-old to her brother: “Stop molesting me!”
I think it’s inevitable and also not a big deal. After I’m done giggling I have to explain to the child what the correct version would be, but only because they always want to know what was so funny. Unless it sounds really obscene, it’s not a big concern to me, any more than when my monolingual daughter used to say strange things when she was little, like “this homework is complicating me.” She’s very articulate and always has been. It’s just something that happens when they’re learning.
My German coworkers put courteous formal endings on their emails that don’t exist in English — normal English words but used in an odd way — and I have noticed two of my American coworkers (monolingual) put the exact same endings on their messages too. This has been happening for years, since before I even got here 10 years ago. My guess is people probably just think it sounds nice. And I do too!
My 3.5 year old son is doing this. He speaks Spanish with me and English with daddy. The more common language transfer is this one: “Que es esto para?” (What’s this for?). I always repeat and say “Para que es esto?”, and he usually corrects himself, but lately, he’s starting to say “Para que es esto para?”! Another one is something like this: “Esto es papas” (this is daddy’s). :0)
My son for some time added “ing” to verbs in Spanish…so we heard him saying things like: “estoy canting” or ” estoy corring” (estoy cantando o estoy corriendo). Also, he says “Peoples” “fishes” and “mices” ….
Like ALU, we get, “¿Qué es para?” or sometimes, “¿Para qué es para?” as well as, “Es Papi’s,” when describing possession from our three year old. Now and then we’ll get a, “Es para tú.” Hearing that someone else’s child close in age doing the exact same thing makes me feel a little better.
We also hear literal translations like, “¡No puedo esperar!” In what is likely just Spanish development, she also says, “No conozco,” when she means, “No sé,” and, “¿Qué es ella?” when she means, “¿Quién es ella?”
Which is her native language? When thinking about my own 4 year old daughter, I ponder the same question? In my opinion she has two native languages, two mother tongues, as she is a bilingual baby from conception. Her father speaks in Spanish and I in english and our daughter speaks to us in both…As she rises in the morning…”Quiero Chocolatemilk plllllleeeeaaasssssee. Quiero ir al bano, NOwwwwww!” “Fui a nadar en la Pool!” I am seeing that she tends to start speaking in spanish and ends her sentences in English.
I love reading about language in relation to bilingual children especially those from birth. I think it is important to continue the OPOL, so that the child will have consistency at the home in their language development. One thing I do with our daughter to reinforce the English, is repeat something she asks in Spanish to English, especially since her schooling is mostly in Spanish. Also, I love to see and observe her interaction with cousins when we are in the states as you really begin to see the the Bilingual fusion come through.