Our Language Journey

The Origin Story
Waaaay back in 1985 my family moved to Germany for a year for my dad's job. I attended an International, English-speaking school there and took German as part of my schooling. This was the first time I remember being exposed to a language other than English. Kids in the school and in our neighborhood spoke such a variety of languages; some were fluent in German, others in French or Hindi. The kid across the street was only 11 but spoke five different languages! I thought it was so cool...and so unfair that I didn't speak anything other than English. I remember crying at my parents' feet one night asking why they hadn't bothered to bring me up bilingual. This might have made sense if my parents weren't monolingual. Ha! I was even angry at them for not learning a foreign language to teach it to me natively. 

The next year (2nd grade) we moved back to the States and I started taking Spanish classes in school. I continued on throughout my elementary, middle and high school years. I wanted my children to be bilingual and I swore I would do whatever it took to make sure my kids spoke Spanish, including finding a husband that was bilingual. 

Fast-forward a few years in my life and you'll find me newly arrived in Puerto Rico starting an international* teaching experience, sitting in the staff meeting of my new school...where I did not understand anything. I honestly could not even tell where one word ended and the next word began. I was floored. How could I have taken over 10 years of Spanish, THINK I was practically fluent and not even be able to pick up basic conversation?? It terrified me. My Spanish did grow while I was there but I actively avoided using Spanish if at all possible because I finally understood how much I didn't understand. 

Becoming A Family
I met my husband while teaching at the school and because he was fully bilingual and I wasn't, we started our relationship in English. El Cantante joined our family about 2 years later and my dream of raising bilingual children was finally happening - we used (mostly) OPOL and El Cantante could point to body parts and follow directions in English and Spanish. I was so proud of my little guy and barely before we could blink, Boneripper and Bella joined us as well.

Right after their birth we decided to move back to the States where we had extra family help and so we picked up and left our lovely life in PR. We had started to notice some problems with El Cantante because he wasn't talking at all and then he started hurting himself out of frustration. We started with a Speech Therapist who told us we needed to drop the Spanish to help him and like any parent who's baby is in pain, we listened to the "expert." (Are you groaning yet?) We dropped Spanish, he started talking and life progressed without any problems. Lil Poundcake was born and it seemed like everything was right in our lives.

Except...
Except there was a niggle in the back of my mind. A reminder that I wanted my children to be bilingual. Images of them in the future crying at my feet asking why we never taught them. But we wouldn't have an excuse, Hubby was bilingual and I knew enough to support him and their journey. But the kids were young and I knew we still had time so I talked with Hubby. It didn't really go as expected. He didn't FEEL bilingual. He only had a 2nd grade education in Spanish. He was surrounded by English speakers all the time. The kids didn't understand him when he tried to speak to them. He was working an hour away from the house and saw them so little. They were all valid reasons we weren't teaching them Spanish but I still hated it. We decided to put them into a Spanish-speaking immersion school. El Cantante started kindergarten and I was thrilled that he was finally learning Spanish. The first two years of his life seemed to come flooding back to him and he grabbed on with everything he had. 

Nope, they didn't learn Spanish from school. Because we started noticing some new problems with El Cantante. Behavior problems at school trickling into home life. Problems we couldn't ignore and Spanish was pushed back to the shelf when we decided to homeschool him. We sent Boneripper and Bella to school at that point and they got a year of Spanish before we decided that homeschooling would be best for everyone. 

The Change
You would think we would have continued building on the Spanish they learned at school but it just never happened. And one morning I woke up SAD for what my kids were losing. I was watching El Cantante's friends from school act in plays in Spanish on Facebook and hearing their monolingual parents tell me how great it was that their kids were becoming bilingual. Three years had passed between pulling our kids out of school and that morning and none of them could remember any Spanish. Lil Poundcake didn't know a word of Spanish. And I was so sad that I cried in my bed that morning. And that morning I broke. I finally decided that I could not blame their monolingualism on anyone else because I could only change myself. And that morning I did.

I took a very, very deep respiración y empezé a hablar solamente en español. 

My kids were shell-shocked because remember, they didn't understand anything I was saying. I acted out EVERYTHING. El Cantante was 10, Boneripper and Bella were 8 and Lil Poundcake was 5. I lasted 9 months speaking only in Spanish (except for school topics I couldn't explain or when I got really, really frustrated), even to Hubby. And at the end of that 9 months? They actually understood pretty much everything I said. My grammar was atrocious, I made up words occasionally, I carried my Spanish Dictionary app with me everywhere, but they were understanding. 

That 9 months was when our real Spanish journey began. I love speaking Spanish. It's the language of my heart even if I can't always express myself. I have spent the last 5 years improving my own Spanish, encouraging Hubby with his Spanish, actively seeking out friends from Hispanic countries and encouraging a deep love of the language and culture in my children. I am still my kids' main source of Spanish language learning and so I spend an incredible amount of time learning and creating opportunities for my kids to use their Spanish. 

This blog is for people like me that I know are out there. People who wish they were bilingual, or wish they had started their kids' bilingual journeys when they were newborn, have ever cried for what their children (or grandchildren) are missing. Those of us who are clawing back against monolingualism with every fiber of their being. 

How Is Their Spanish Now?
El Cantante is 15 and loves speaking Spanish to other people. He's not thrilled when he has to talk to US in Spanish because we correct him more, but he's actually quite good if he'll just get to the point. He often corrects my vocabulary mistakes.

Boneripper is 13 and understands and reads well but mostly chooses not to speak unless it's necessary. He has been shy most of his life and is just starting to come out of his shell and talk to people in English, so I'm hoping Spanish will follow.

Bella is 13 and also very shy with new people. I honestly think she understands more than I do in Spanish and will often correct my grammar. Her vocabulary is amazing because she has committed herself to reading 30 minutes during the school day in Spanish. She will also only produce the language if she can't avoid it.

Lil Poundcake is 10 and still learning Spanish. He easily understands everything I say and pretty much anything his dad says, but he struggles when we're watching a TV show in Spanish if it's too fast. He reads quite well in Spanish for a kid that hates reading and he's JUST starting to produce it when we ask him to. He gets frustrated easily because he "knows" a word but can't think of it when he's talking. 

If you ask me about my Spanish, I'll tell you "I'm not fluent, I'm conversational" in Spanish. Many of my native speaking friends tell me to quit saying that and admit that I'm bilingual but there are SO MANY WORDS that I still don't know and so much grammar that I just can't grasp. So I'll probably keep saying that until the day I die :)