Comments on: Watching in Awe As My Son Becomes Bilingual

By: Angela

Angela — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 12:45:42 +0000

I’m so happy to see this post, Roxana! My husband and I are planning on raising our children in Germany (we are both native English speakers), where English will be a minority language, and were planning to use the ML@H method. I was starting to worry that our children would struggle with German when they started preschool, but your post has helped me relax about that. ¡Muchas gracias!

By: Maria Jose @verybusymama

Maria Jose @verybusymama — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 05:32:33 +0000

Roxana, the same happens to me. Matías spends all of his time with me and we only speak Spanish. My husband travels quite a bit and the rest of the time we are with my parents who only speak Spanish to him. A few weeks ago I was a the playground with him and without realizing it an hour passed by just listening to him talk in English with other kids and I wasn’t used to it! It sounded strange to me. Even my mother said “es raro oírlo hablar en inglés”. But again, it’s amazing and I just want to shout about how proud I am of him. His bilingual upbringing is completely different to mine, but so far he is proving it is possible to keep the language alive.

By: Roxana A. Soto

Roxana A. Soto — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 02:50:05 +0000

Yes, it’s amazing what even minimal exposure to English will do to their Spanish. I too had a nanny until recently, but one of the requirements that I had when I hired her was that she spoke Spanish, ideally as her first language. I’m convinced that helped a lot to ensure my kids spoke and were surrounded by Spanish most of their waking hours.

Lucky you that your neighbors are Spaniards. Make sure you continue to nature that relationship! Thanks for visiting!

By: Roxana A. Soto

Roxana A. Soto — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 02:48:00 +0000

Thanks, Diana! It’s just crazy to see how quickly and easily they learn English even when they don’t hear at home, like in my case. I, like other parents, used to worry about how my children would survive in preschool without knowing English, but they figure it out fairly quickly.

I think that just like you said in your guest post what we should be most worried about what their exposure to English will do to their Spanish…

Good luck with your son’s preschool and I hope you share how that goes!

By: Jaskayahaira

Jaskayahaira — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 01:23:31 +0000

I also agree that we have to work more with the Spanish. I have a three year old that speak Spanish and English very well. But my son is only 23 months old and he speak to me in English. He doesn’t care that we use at home Spanish. He does not go to the pre-school but I have a sitter that helps me 6 hours a week and speak English. I am glad that my neighbors at Portland, Or are from Spain and encourage my kids to use Spanish (at least my daughter).

By: Diana

Diana — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 17:17:10 +0000

i love your post, Roxana! I completely agree. it’s Spanish we have to worry about! Kids will always pick up English, and will want to default (rebel) to it later! (i know i did!!)
Thank you for sharing this, because as I worried about what preschool would do to my son, I decided that I would begin by sending him to school part time, twice a week, at about 2.5 … let’s see how that goes! but thank you again for sharing!
love that Spanglish baby is such a great resource!
Diana