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We are trying to raise a bilingual baby.
My in-laws speak Spanish as their first language and English as their second. They are both retired now and only hang out with other Spanish-speaking friends – so their English skills have begun to fade.
I’m not going to get into the long history lesson about why a Japanese family speaks Spanish, but it involves World War 2.
My husband’s family in Japan speak Spanish as well so they can speak to their family in Peru and America. (Again, long story.)
The truth is that if we don’t teach Niko how to speak Spanish, he will not be able to communicate with my husband’s side of the family.
I promised myself about 3 years ago that I would brush up on my rusting Spanish skills. When I lived in Chicago I was quasi-fluent, but that was almost 15 years ago.
I can catch the verbs of what my in-laws are saying, but I don’t know the nouns. So I mostly sit nodding my head and giving half-laughs when I think I have figured out what they say.
The ride home from any family event involves quizzing my husband about what I missed.
My husband’s cousins came in for a visit this weekend and I once again caught myself sitting in the room with a stupid grin on my face. The conversation was spirited, but in Spanish so I had no idea what they were saying.
Another year, another broken promise to myself to learn Spanish. My early New Year’s resolution for 2010 is to re-learn Spanish.
Any other bilingual families out there? Anyone else marry into a bilingual family and not know the second language?
2 words of advice...Rosetta Stone. I would listen to it, then just play the entire lessons at bedtime for your son, instead of classical music (that I know my son loves), it would just play automated in his baby brain.Lol this sounds so familiar. My bf and I are in the same situation. He only speaks to our kids in spanish and since my spanish is rusty too I do most of my talking in english. My dd now 4 understands spanish completly but get a little confused between languages when she speaks it. You really dont need any software, Keep sitting in the room, watch the lips for pronunciation and dont be afraid to repeat words. Im chicana, but we never grew up around spanish so we never caught onto, I was always afraid to speak my broken spanish for fear of messing up but I know its key to getting words right and sentences going. One rule we have is anyone who speaks spanish must speak to our kids in spanish, Bf's other rule to me is words I dont know I have to look up. Try Alta Vista's Babel Fish. You can Translate english into any languages you choose.Does knowing technobabble count as being bilingual? If so, hubby is fluent, guess I'll just stick to English.My husband would sooooo sympathize! I speak French and we are also raising our daughter bilingual. When we leave my parents every year, he always commits to becoming fluent. We have Rosetta Stone, but there are challenges if you take into account the slang and dialect differences. My best advice is to just keep trying!!! The more words my daughter learns, the more my husband learns. In a way, when he teaches her, he teaches himself. He has been reading some children's books to her that my Mom gave us (en Francais). These are great because they are entertaining for her and easy to read for him. There are also some sing-along language learning CD's out there that are kind of fun. Bonne chance!
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