Secondo’s days of excessive repetitive motions involving toy vehicles are for the most part over, but he still has a tremendous passion for airplanes, buses, cars and trucks. The centerpiece of the boys’ room is a rug made up of an intricate design of roads, runways and parking spaces. It gets a lot of use, so I finally remember to throw it in the washing machine one day. I hang it up to dry, though, and forget to bring it back in.
Secondo, of course, notices immediately when we go into the bedroom to start our bedtime routine. Mama, he asks, ¿dónde está la…?—a pause as he struggles to remember the word–¿carpe–? And although usually I’m gentle when correcting mistakes, this time I interrupt him before he can even get the whole word out, because I know where this is going and he’s about to be guilty of using my biggest pet peeve ever. ¡No! I yelp. ¡Se dice alfombra! No se dice carpeta.
Secondo looks at me, surprised. No se dice carpeta, he repeats, bemusedly. And then I decide that as long as I’ve come this far, I might as well go all the way. I pull his homework folder out of his backpack. Esto es carpeta, I tell him, faux sternly. I point at the rug I’ve put back on the floor. Eso es alfombra.
And then, they both start to laugh. For about the next fifteen minutes, they laugh so hard they can hardly get the words out. ¡Carpeta es folder! ¡Rug es alfombra! ¿Cómo se dice rug? ¿Cómo se dice folder? They find the whole thing hilarious, and I’m laughing as hard as they are.
We’ve talked about Spanglish before. Hey, ¡estás hablando Spanglish! I’ll say, if they make up a word. I’ll use it with them in fun, sometimes. Eso está full. Vamos pa’ la house. And my favorite, the one I grew up using, ¡let’s gómonos! To which they’ll reply, laughing, Mama, eso es Spanglish.
Language is flexible and ever changing. Language is fun, and learning two languages means you have so much more to play with. We talk about what things mean, and other ways to say them, and how English and Spanish are different. They’re still deep in their questioning phase, constantly asking me how to say things in Spanish. I want them to remain curious about language. I want them always to have fun with it. But I could not let the carpeta incident slide.
And while I was at it, I told Primo that actualmente does not mean “actually.”
{Photo By Robert Brook}
My husband is from Mexico and has lived in the US for about 14 years. He uses the word carpeta for the carpet. I was taught to say ‘alfombra’ in school, but switched to using ‘carpeta’ because he always used it. I had no idea it was wrong. You’d think he would know that!
LOL Jessica, that’s my life!!!
This is actually a big challenge I face.
There are so many words people are using deep in the heart of Mexico that are actually English words. Then here in Houston people can get by for years without learning English. People in our family mostly don’t speak English & don’t know what’s “Spanish” and what’s “Spanglish”.
Examples:
Sueter = a coat or jacket for use outdoors (but ironically, an actual sweater that you’d wear indoors is an abrigo…)
Wipers = baby wipes (and don’t try to say wipers when you can’t remember the word for car wipers, I already tried that, and they had no idea what I was trying to say)
My stepkids, nieces, nephews speaking English use the English words sweater or wiper — but with the Spanglish meaning. I guess (hope?) they will figure it out as they get older. At their age their circle doesn’t reach much beyond their neighborhood and school, where the other kids are doing the exact same thing.
Recently I was asking my two brothers-in-law if a friend of theirs still wanted to buy used pallets because I had a client wanting to get rid of some. They didn’t understand me and said, Que son tarimas? Now, I’ve worked with shipping internationally for years, and I know that’s the word. I was lost, but my husband came walking up and said, Quiere decir paletas. Ah, they said, Si. I laughed — popsicles??? But yeah, of course… paletas = pallets. At work I talk with people all over the Spanish-speaking world, and they’re coming from a different perspective.
So to me, that is the point. Nothing against Spanglish per se; I even think it is really cool. But I would like my son to learn the words that will allow him to communicate with anybody, not just in the neighborhood. It is challenging to get him exposed to those words when my husband is the only native speaker who is actually able to speak like that (and has to remember to do it).
Kudos to you, Kim, for being able to turn it all into a laugh. I have a hard time with that sometimes. It almost makes me physically cringe, some of the stuff I hear. I get anxious about whether my boy will be able to get beyond it. I know I should give him a bit more credit….!!!
This has to be one of my favorite topics..it’s so fun!
My girl is stuck with several words. One of them is “tochar” for touch and today she made up the funniest one so far: Palepop for popsicle/paleta!! We really laughed with that one!
The word I cannot get my son to correct is “bringar” instead of traer. In the reverse, he tells my husband in English that salsa “piques” him and my husband has now adopted it.
¿Quien sabe?
My absolute favorite favorite that I actually encouraged was when he started talking about “Salsa Clause” at Christmas when he was barely 2 years old. This past Christmas he kept correcting me like I had gone crazy: “How could mom get Santa Claus wrong?!?”