“My husband and I are expecting our first child in May 2010. My husband’s native language is Spanish, while mine is English. We mix the two languages all the time at home–often in the same sentence. Although I speak Spanish and am fairly fluent, I think I would prefer communicating with my child mostly in English. I am a little worried though that our child would not hear enough Spanish if only my husband speaks in Spanish. Also, if weRead More ...
One of our main goals when launching SpanglishBaby a year ago was to create the kind of community where parents raising bilingual kids could come and get useful and relevant information. Although we sometimes think we might have the answers to everything, as Ana Lilian likes to point out, motherhood has humbled us and now we know we don’t. Enter our most popular category: Ask an Expert. We always envisioned having a panel with respected and trusted experts from variousRead More ...
This week’s Ask an Expert question was sent by Katherine Chavez. “Hello. I am a Hispanic mother who lives in the USA. My husband and I speak Spanish at home, and I heard that teaching Spanish as a first language is convenient for my 2 year-old daughter. They said (friends of ours) that she will learn English at school. Since I am a Spanish journalist I have a passion for the language. I am trying to teach my toddler toRead More ...
Today we welcome yet another new expert to our ever-growing Ask an Expert panel. Please welcome bilingual educator and founder of the Boca Beth Spanish learning series, Beth Butler. Christine, mother to one girl, sent us this question: “I am very fluent in English and probably about 75% fluent in Spanish. Although I am a native speaker, I lost most of my Spanish when I moved to the US at age 6, and only brushed up once a year onRead More ...
Today’s question was sent by Maite, a Spanish-speaking mom that is concerned her daughter is not learning enough English since they use the ml@h (minority language at home) method. “My husband and I are native Spanish speakers and we have a girl of 3 yrs 9 months. At home we only speak Spanish and have been very consistent with this practice, since we both want our daughter to be bilingual and be able to communicate with our family. She’s beenRead More ...
This week’s Ask an Expert question was sent in by Leticia and I am so happy she did because I just recently started wondering the same thing. Vanessa is totally into the alphabet and wanting to know “¿qué dice aquí?” all the time. “I would like to teach my kids to read in Spanish. Any suggestions on materials to use? Thanks.” Hi Leticia! I love your name! Leticia is one of my favorite cities in Colombia – it’s in theRead More ...
Today we welcome a new and amazing expert to our already great Ask an Expert panel. We count ourselves lucky to be able to wrangle Dr. Naomi Steiner, most well known as the author of the very useful book 7 Steps to Raising a Bilingual Child. To find out more about Naomi Steiner and to send her, or any of our experts, your questions please click here. Today´s question was sent from England by Monica. I’m an Italian mum ofRead More ...
Today’s question was sent by fellow blogger Gabriela: “Since my oldest son (3 years) was born we decided to speak to him only in Spanish, figuring that he would easily learn English later on. My plan was to start teaching him English gradually sometime after his 2nd birthday. However, I started noticing a speech delay around his 2nd birthday. At 2 1/2 I took him to be tested and he was found to have a speech delay. However, the testingRead More ...
