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[Luna Chica]

Has anyone got experienc with raising children with two languages? I am Aussie and at the moment my son speaks english with only a few spanish words such as - hola, ven, te amo, chao, como estas etc. We are moving to Peru next year (he is two) I dearly want him to be bilingual and he will be of an age that he should be able to pick up Spanish pretty quickly. Has anyone had any problems with having bilingual kids, or any advice?

Previously I lived in Japan, which is a terribly racially snobby country, half-caste children (is that the PC term?) are often treated badly at school and looked down upon in general. What kind of experience could I expect in Peru?

[Guy Courchesne]

[lozwich]

Sorry for the personal questions Luna Chica, but I'll explain why I'm asking them in a second...

Do you have a significant other? What language does he or she speak?

Aside from enrolling your child in a bilingual school, I have met lots of families where one parent speaks Language A to the children and the other speaks Language B. I used to work in the Basque country, where the mother in a family was English, and the father was a Spanish/Basque. So, the parents spoke Spanish to each other, the mother spoke English to the kids and the father spoke Basque to them.

I think bilinguality (is that a word???? ) is the greatest gift a parent can give their kids - wish my parents had.

[MELEE]

My daughters can say mama in both English and Spanish.

But seriously, there is lots and lots and lots and lots of information on the internet on this (outside of Dave's ) do a google search. I mostly speak English with my 1 year olds. The day care is in Spanish, the nanny speaks Spanish but has a surprising grasp of English (she has shown that she understands what I say to them) my husband, who unfortunately lives on the other side of the country speaks English (his second and a half language) to them. My mother-in-law, uncle-in-law and great-aunt-in-law speak Mixteco to them. One sister-in-law understands most of what is said in Mixteco, but doesn't speak it, the other sister-in-law doesn't understand Mixteco at all. Oh and the nanny's mother is from the village next to my mother-in-law's village so she also understands much of what is said in Mixteco. My husband and I speak Spanglish to each other (for years we've been trying to change our language from English and Spanish, but it is extremely difficult to change those types of habits).

So far the girls have clearly demonstrated that they know the following vocabulary:

turn on the light/inciende la luz
turn off the light/apaga la luz
quieres comer
give me a kiss/dame un beso
give me five
play patty-cake
do you want a cookie
ten tu chupon
solita
guapa
bye bye/ adios
poopy pants/popo
zangudo
upstairs
take a bath

Unfortuantaly I can not vouch for them understanding any Mixteco up to this point, and they only hear Mixteco on the weekends, but do here it some of every weekend.

[Michael Smith]

Children soak up pretty much everything, and if you're living in a Spanish speaking country and speaking English at home your child will be bilingual a long time before you are (if you don't speak Spanish already that is!)

I have a wee girl who'll be three in a couple of months, she hears English at home and Spanish everywhere else, and has no problems understanding both. When speaking she tends to favour Spanish, probably due to spending more time in that language, at least from Monday to Friday, and occasionally mixes the two up (Mira! Doggy coming aqu�!), though I've been pleasantly surprised in recent weeks to hear her distinguish between the two depending on who she's talking to. We'll be going to Scotland in December to spend time with my folks, it'll be interesting to see how she reacts in a purely English speaking environment.

Just remember that children are much more intelligent than any of us are, if they grow up in a bilingual (or trilingual) environment they'll learn everything they hear.