About: Ana Flores

It’s starting to happen. English is slowly creeping into our house. My almost four-year-old is consistently using more and more English. She never fully speaks solely in English to me, but whereas before she’d say an English word or two in a sentence, lately she’s been known to say full sentences. I know there’s nothing wrong with this and I was expecting this would start happening, but it seems like it’s happening a bit faster than I anticipated. I can’tRead More ...

The following post was originally published on September 18, 2009 under the title “How To Create a Perceived Need for the Minority Language.” My 18-year-old goddaughter, Veronika, was recently in town for the weekend and I noticed something pretty interesting that I’m still trying to figure out. Although she was raised bilingual by my (Peruvian) sister and her father, who is Cuban, (but moved to New York as a toddler and thus speaks more English than Spanish,) ever since IRead More ...

The summer is right upon us. I love this time of the year. Both my children where born en el verano, so we’ll be celebrating two birthdays in the coming months. But summer also means vacation, so it’s easy to forget about the importance of reading during this time. In an effort to give you plenty of recommendations for bilingual books you can read with your children, ReadMe, our literacy and author interview series, will be coming to you twiceRead More ...

I used to be pretty harsh on myself if I couldn’t finish a sentence without going back and forth between English and Spanish when speaking with other bilinguals, an action commonly known as code-switching among linguists. Like many bilinguals and monolinguals alike, I simply believed this was wrong. I thought it meant I wasn’t really proficient in either language—even when I knew this not to be the case—or that I was simply forgetting my Spanish. I was wrong! In theRead More ...

Iconic British illustrator, Quentin Blake, just published a new Spanish/English bilingual book that is adorable for its simplicity: Ten Frogs/Diez Ranas. It is simply a book about counting in English and Spanish with his beautiful illustrations of animals. The book is completely unpretentious and reads like a piece of art. I recommend it for parents with babies who can sit in front of the book and just be mesmerized by the animal illustrations; for bilingual toddlers who are learning toRead More ...

Every four years an excellent opportunity arises to expose your children to the various cultures of the world when 32 nations unite in one country to vie for the FIFA World Cup. Starting next week on June 11th,  seven Spanish-speaking countries will be amongst the 32 qualifying teams competing in South Africa during el Mundial:  Honduras, México, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile and Spain. In my house we are rooting for both México and the U.S.A.  We are counting the daysRead More ...