Daily Blog

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 ...

After almost 18 months nurturing SpanglishBaby into the incredible useful online resource for those raising bilingual and bicultural children it has become thanks to all our readers, I tend to think that everyone knows about the myths and misconceptions associated with bilingualism (or multilingualism). I guess after such a long time reading, researching and learning about the benefits of bilingualism, it’s easy to forget that not everybody is aware of them. So I was bit surprised last week when IRead More ...

All parents are familiar with physical exhaustion, but some of us are even better acquainted with mental fatigue. My son, now almost 29 months old, requires more and longer explanations each day, and he is stretching my Spanish abilities to the max. Living in Orlando gives me plenty of practice with conversational Spanish, but spending every waking hour explaining the world in every grammatical tense and with as many particularities as an inquisitive kid requires drains me, to say theRead More ...

As soon as the plane landed in Miami last Wednesday, I called my niece who was waiting for us at the airport and asked if she could takes us directly to Pollo Tropical so I could get my fix of Caribbean fast food. She thought I was kidding because, as they say, you don’t know what you have until you lose it. But I wasn’t. When my husband and I left Miami for the Rocky Mountains four years ago, weRead More ...

It’s inevitable. Someone is bound to “curiously” question our intentions behind raising a trilingual baby. They want to know, “Why? Why have you decided to pursue this unpredictable and challenging path?” It’s an honest question. After all, it’s not like we live in Barcelona where there are two “official” languages in the autonomous Catalonia. It’s not like I’m from Germany and my husband, Marcus, is from France and we are living in an English speaking community. So, why? Why French?Read More ...

My daughter is nowhere close to learning how to multiply, but who says she can’t learn the basic 1 x 10=10 listening to Miliki’s “La Tabla de Multiplicar?” Enjoy this simple math-tune with your kids that are already at that learning stage. Miliki + Las Tablas de Multiplicar-La Tabla del 1 httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azf8J7CSdqs&feature=related ...

My daughter, Vanessa, is always curious about what languages other people speak. I didn’t teach her that. Neither do I go around introducing people to her by announcing they speak English, Spanish or both. Yet, it’s pretty usual for her to want to know. Once she finds out, she likes to make all aware that she speaks tres: español, inglés y francés—which she doesn’t, but I love that she thinks that way. The little French I’ve exposed her to, hasRead More ...

As the parent who speaks the minority language to my children at home, it’s occasionally tempting to dwell on the fact that it can be hard.  After all, the task of keeping the Spanish going at home falls squarely on my shoulders, right?  I’m the one who has to be so disciplined and intentional (my new favorite buzzword) when doing something as simple as speaking with my children, all the time.  The pressure, I realize, is self imposed, but itRead More ...