Do you ever wonder what it’s like growing up bilingual or raising bilingual kids? Do wonder if it’s hard or easy? I grew up in a house where my parents didn’t speak English very well and to this day, they still don’t. I had to learn English when I came to the United States 20 years ago. My parents brought me to the United States when I was nine years old. The only language I spoke was Spanish. I remember my mom telling my father that it was going to be a challenge for me to learn a new language. I had no choice. If I wanted to succeed in this country, I needed to learn English.
My father enrolled me in school and I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember walking through the front doors of the Elementary school with my father. I remember him telling me “please, don’t cry”, “you will be ok”, “you are not alone.” I remember going into the classroom and sitting in a chair all by myself. I wanted to cry; I wanted to cry so bad because I didn’t understand. I remember two hispanic girls talking to me and telling me that it was going to be ok, they were going to show me around and how things worked. That made me feel better. My cousin went to the same school so everything was really ok. It was just going to take time.
I was put in a special classroom for kids that did not know English. I honestly don’t remember the name of the class back then, but I believe now it is called ESL (English as a Second Language). I remember the teacher teaching me the basics, kind of like starting Kindergarten all over again but using both languages. My cousin was a little younger than me but my parents would tell her to talk to me in English to make sure I learned and she did. I picked up English pretty easily as I heard from my parents. Is my Spanish/English great? Probably not, I would say. Meaning, I probably won’t be able to translate this paper for you. I still get stuck on words that I may not know how to translate from English to Spanish or Spanish to English. You can say that I know more English than Spanish and I still struggle in saying things professionally so I do use references to make sure I am saying it right.
Now let me tell you how it’s like being a mother of four kids and trying to teach them both languages. People always ask me how I do it and whether I introduce them as babies or when I decide that they need to learn both. To be honest, I don’t have a routine. I just speak to them in both languages. My husband speaks all Spanish and I speak all English so our kids get a little bit of both languages. My parents only speak Spanish so the kids can only speak spanish around them. Sometimes they throw their Spanglish around and it’s something we try to avoid, but sometimes it’s hard because if they don’t know how to say something, they will use whatever language to describe it.
I have known families that have kids born here in the United States and they don’t teach them Spanish and it’s kind of sad to see that. I am not judging anyone and you may have your reasons for not teaching your kids, but I believe that if you are born into a hispanic family, you should know some Spanish. Kids need to know their roots but most importantly, their language. My kids are no experts at speaking Spanish, but in our house we have a rule. They speak Spanish to dad and English to mom. If they come across something they can’t say in Spanish or if they are saying it incorrectly, we teach them the right way to say it.
A few years back my mother in law came to visit us. Keep in mind that she doesn’t speak English. My eldest was probably around nine years old and my youngest was around two. My youngest didn’t know how to communicate well so he would use English to talk to grandma and that’s when I realized that it would be beneficial if my kids spoke both languages because they could communicate with their grandparents. Knowing a second language is beneficial for everyone. There are more opportunities available for them in the job field. You don’t have to have it in your roots to speak it. I have known Americans that speak better Spanish than me and I am so amazed at the effort they had to go through to learn it. Kudos to them. You can learn any language as long as you are willing to sacrifice a little of your time.
