The Gift of Language

October 26, 2006 · Filed Under Uncategorized 

I’ve been thinking lately about exposing our child to the Spanish language at a very early age by speaking to them only in Spanish from the day they are born. Why would I do that? There are two reasons: to give our child the advantage of being bilingual, and to get me back up the level of fluency with which I once spoke the language.

My Spanish accent was once very good, and there were occasions on which I was mistaken for a native speaker. Though it would still be flawed, our child’s Spanish accent would be much better than that of many non-native speakers who learn Spanish later in life. The big decision for me will be whether to teach them Castilian or American Spanish. By “American”, I mean any variety of Spanish not spoken in Spain.

How crazy does this sound?

Comments

3 Responses to “The Gift of Language”

  1. Karlana on October 26th, 2006 10:40 pm

    I dno’t think it is crazy it all. I am kind of torn between wanting to do it to give my children the advantage of being bilingual speakers and also getting myself back to a fluency I once spoke in and then the simple fact that there are people who truly need a translator, and most just demand it and why should we when they should be learning our language if they plan to be here??

    Let us know what the final decision is!

  2. Rob on October 27th, 2006 8:33 am

    Hi there! Thanks so much for the comment. I still have about five months to decide, but that’s not all that long.

    I was thinking more about it last night after I posted this, and it really is a complicated decision with more questions than answers at this point. It’s much more complicated than “Gee, what dialect do I teach them”?. What about other family members who don’t speak Spanish? That’s huge? People raise bilingual children all the time, but if I go through with this, I will need a lot of guidance.

    I’ll be sure to provide updates as the time to make the decision approaches!

    Thanks again for the comment. I’m curious as to how you found this site. I just went public with it last evening, so it hasn’t been available for very long. I must be doing something right!

  3. Julia on November 6th, 2006 5:05 pm

    Uh, unless you plan on teaching Kandis Spanish at the same time, you might want to have a backup plan. I think you need to find some Spanish speaking friends to hang out with who have children the same age as yours and let them all figure it out together.

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