accent

When my twins were 18 months old, and I was waiting for them to turn babble into words, I still wondered: would they say agua or water? Más or more? Thinking back, it was a preposterous thought. My husband Adrian and I had spoken only Spanish to them since they were three months old. Having English-speaking toddlers was a linguistic impossiblity. Yet I, an Irish-American who learned Spanish as a second language, doubted whether I could really pull this wholeRead More ...

One of the challenges of being a not-so-perfect Spanish speaker teaching my toddler Spanish is that I am self-conscious of how I sound in public. I really liked Susan’s blogpost last week about being complimented on her accent and her point that accents are nothing be ashamed of.  However, I was born in El Salvador, and as a Latina, people often expect me to speak Spanish well.  The fact that we immigrated here before my first birthday is really notRead More ...