Daily Blog

En el nuevo año, vamos a hablar más español. Vamos a cantar canciones en español. Vamos a leer más libros en español. En el nuevo año we are going to bring español into each part of the day, even if it means we are speaking Spanglish, even if it means we are little bit confused, even if it means we have to consult Google Translate. It is so easy to forget to speak Spanish when I am the lone native speakerRead More ...

“Nena, aquí es donde vas aprender inglés, pero con mami y papi vas a seguir hablando español, ¿okay?” (This is where you are going to learn English, but with mom and dad you’ll continue speaking Spanish, okay?) “Mami y Papi español.” (Mom and Dad Spanish.) “Si, en la casita de Sabrina hablamos español.” (Yes, at Sabrina’s home we speak Spanish.) “Casita español, mami.” (Little house Spanish, mommy.) I had a knot in my throat and my eyes were beginning toRead More ...

There are a ton of things I miss about my birth country, but the food and the Pacific Ocean are probably the two I miss the most. The only way for me to solve this is to travel back home, but since it’s been almost two years since our last trip there, I have to settle for the “encargos” my mom brings with her to Denver every time she goes back to Peru. Through the years, the list hasn’t reallyRead More ...

Bilingualism and language learning has been in the news a lot more than usual since 2013 started. Take a look: Bilinguals Have Faster, More Adaptive Brains When They Get Older, Study Finds from ABC News — More proof that the benefits of being bilingual last a lifetime. You can also read Ana’s take on this study on her Babble post. Babies Seem to Pick Up Language in Utero from The New York Times — We knew babies learn to recognize theirRead More ...

It’s no secret my passion is to convince everyone I can that exposing your child to a second language is one of the most amazing and beneficial gifts you could ever give him. The benefits of a bi- and multilingual brain keep receiving praises on national news as more and more scientific research keeps coming out exalting the pros — and practically no cons! — of growing up being able to effortlessly switch your brain from one language to another.Read More ...

I began to learn Spanish a bit in grade school, and then in high school began the typical Spanish classes an hour a day. When I was a freshman, I traveled abroad for the first time to Peru with my dad to bring home my newly adopted brother and sister. This trip changed my life in uncountable ways: experiencing and living the language in bustling Lima and magical Cuzco cemented my love of Spanish and Latin culture. In college, IRead More ...

I take my boys to a weekly Spanish class. The majority of the children have had some exposure to the language, which makes this the ideal class for us. My sons always use Spanish with me, and it is the language that they use with each other. During the art session of this class, one of the mothers started to ask me what I have done to get my kids to be so fluent in Spanish. I rattled off theRead More ...

I’m not a huge breakfast eater — unless I go to the French bakery by my house, which is run by a couple from the south of France who moved to Denver five years ago. I don’t know how I got so lucky, but the bakery is on my way to Santiago’s preschool and so I stop in there regularly to devour freshly-baked croissants and the best baguettes I’ve ever had outside of France. But one of the other reasonsRead More ...