Daily Blog

When my husband and I met our daughter’s preschool teachers during orientation last year, we made sure we let both of them know we were raising her bilingual using the mL@H method. We explained that although, at first, it would seem as if Vanessa was not very verbal, the truth was that her vocabulary was much more extensive in Spanish than in English, since we only speak to her in the former. We just wanted to make sure that theyRead More ...

Spanish in Japan! I never thought that I would be using Spanish while working in Japan, but Spanish was more common than I ever imagined it to be. My first job out of college was teaching at a Japanese high school. Having worked so hard to learn Spanish, I was determined to keep my language skills while teaching English and studying Japanese. I had feared that while in Japan my fluency in Spanish would diminish, but every now and then,Read More ...

A curious thing happened this weekend as I was paying for a sandwich at a local eatery. The cashiers had been cooing at my baby son, marveling at his big, expressive brown eyes when all of a sudden one of them asked me: “What nationality is he?” I was so taken by surprise that it took me a while to respond.”American,” I said, but her puzzled look made me feel it was necessary to explain further. So I added, “HisRead More ...

When I reflect upon “dialect” in English, I think of regional accents. Although vocabulary also shifts as one travels from Alabama to Wisconsin to London, England, this is not as apparent to me as the contrast of dialects in my second language: Spanish. My journey con hablando español has been mottled. In middle and high school, I learned grammatically correct Spanish, with a heavy emphasis on the particularities of el idioma de México y de España. As tends to beRead More ...

“Swiper the Explorer” clip from NickPress on Vimeo. These days my daughter has grown a sweet spot for Swiper, the sneaky fox Dora and Boots are always watching out for.  She was jumping up and down when I put in a preview copy we got of the new primetime special “Swiper the Explorer”, because, this time, Swiper is the star.  Dora and Boots are on a mission to find a baby fox´s mom and Swiper, showing his soft spot, enlistedRead More ...

I forgot how much we enjoy it… It’s totally true what they say about second children being a bit neglected. I’m guilty. I remember I started reading to my daughter, Vanessa, a few days after we brought her home from the hospital. Unfortunately, such has not been the case with my son. I could go on to list the myriad of reasons why, but I guess the most important thing is to just change it. I do have to sayRead More ...

In the last year, both Ana Lilian and I have shared a lot with you about how we’re raising our children bilingual + bicultural—joys and challenges included. Although we’ve shared some details, one thing we have not really done is tell you the how we grew up bilingual ourselves. In honor of SpanglishBaby’s first anniversary, we figured we’d get a bit more personal and allow you to get to know us a little bit better… Roxana’s Story: A Multicultural UpbringingRead More ...

Where to Start? We’re celebrating our first anniversary this week with lots of new features and awesome giveaways. We know many of you have been following us from the beginning—and for that, we are extremely grateful—but for some, SpanglishBaby is a recent discovery. Regardless of which category best describes you, it’s never a bad idea to get a refresher on some of the great content we’ve covered since inception—after all, it has been a whole 12 months! If you’re brandRead More ...