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Dear Nekane,

Please keep going with what you are doing and remember this is a long term project. Kids do NOT have speech delays from being bilingual, but it's also true that they may not develop with the same speed in both languages at the same time. Our son has always understood both Spanish and English equally well, but starting from when he first began talking he would always say certain words only in Spanish and other words only in English. He just flat refused to say them the other way although when someone said those words to him he did understand perfectly. This went on for about a year! I found out through Spanglishbaby.com and other research that this is actually completely normal but it was still extremely frustrating for the adults of his life, since I'm the only one who is fluent in both languages– the only one who could understand him, and I work full time so he was spending most of his time every day with his father and aunt who only understood a small part of what he said– not even half because he was very much dominated by English, which they don't speak that well (especially not with baby pronunciations). Our little boy never seemed to get frustrated by this but I admit I was a bit worried because it just seemed to go on forever with no progress. Then suddenly one day about a year ago my sister-in-law and me were chatting when he ran up to us with a bug in his hand yelling "Look Mommy!!! Mira Tia!!!" From that day on it was completely different with him. He still sometimes gets confused about which language to use when, but then if someone didn't understand he will repeat what he said, in the other language. He even walks up to a kid at our neighborhood playground and says something in English, then in Spanish, then in English again, then in Spanish again, over and over… funny when I just heard this very small other kid and his mom talking in Chinese & he's not getting this at all, but my son just keeps trying both languages he knows :-)

I started out speaking to our son all in English but when we realized English is so dominating for him, I starting speaking, singing, reading with him more in Spanish. It would be the reverse situation for you, encouraging more toward English– but my point here is for you to remember that you can always adjust what you are doing as you go along. Don't worry too much that your son doesn't talk as well in English right now, because he's still in the early days, but you can still do many things to encourage his learning that will pay off later. Check out this link for some really useful posts on Spanglishbaby.com about this: http://www.spanglishbaby.com/2…..-language/