Suzanne Garcia Mateus is the proud mami of a one-plus-year old little girl whom she is ambitiously trying to raise with three languages. Her research interests as a doctoral student in bilingual and bicultural education and life experiences growing up with Mexican immigrant parents inspired her to create a blog, Interpretations of a Bilingual Life, in order to better understand the rich nuances that living with multiple languages offers.
Twitter: trilingualbaby
When I started thinking about this particular posting for the Petra Lingua website, an online language program for children, I also started to think about who makes up the SpanglishBaby audience. We seem to be a group of individuals, a group of mothers, who have at the heart of our parenting endeavors to make sure our bebit@s learn another language, specifically Spanish. We are, in my opinion, a very distinct group of parents though, because we also want to makeRead More ...
I have made several moves to guarantee my daughter learns Spanish and French. To start, when I was pregnant I made sure to only buy books in Spanish or French. I was also happy to accept hand me downs of books, toys, or clothes from friends and family. One of the large boxes of inherited goods included books – very exciting, until, to my dismay, I opened it up and noticed they were all in English! I decided to keepRead More ...
If learning more than one language were a product, and some would argue that it is, I think the label would read something like this, Trilingualism: the key to the past, present, and future! My bebita has reached the phase (17+ months) where the use of language is supposed to take off. That being said, I have gotten a little obsessed with trying to count the number of words she can say or comprehend but does not verbalize, yet. IRead More ...
One of the reasons I love the Spanish language is because depending on the country you are from, there are a multitude of ways to say the same word. This coming week Sesame Street is launching an initiative to help children “Put Down the Pacifier.” In Spanish we would say something like the “dejar el chupón” initiative. Well, actually when it comes to the word chupón that would depend on which Spanish-speaking country you are from. The initiative could easilyRead More ...
What exactly is the role of language? Why do some of us only speak one, while others manipulate multiple languages in their everyday lives? I have been dwelling on the notion of whether language is considered innate or whether individuals make strategic moves to learn or acquire language(s). In the field of second language acquisition there exists the idea that language is either learned or acquired. For example, the first language a baby gets is considered acquired. Why? Well, becauseRead More ...
Bath time in our home has definitely taken shape since the early days of when we first came home from the hospital. I was the very nervous mami that bought and returned about six different tubs the first couple months of our baby’s life. In addition, my anxiety was so intense that the idea of speaking in Spanish to my bebita was beginning to dwindle away, which totally broke my heart. After receiving a little pep talk from my brother-in-lawRead More ...
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