On the list of things I worried about but shouldn’t have is their speech development.
I read a lot about children who are born bilingual and the best approach to this in the early years. It was really important for both of us that they learnt the two languages from birth as both are always going to be part of their lives and families. My conclusions from all that reading were non-existent apart from “learning” that bilingual children are often late to speak (worry alert!), and may present a slight speech delay. I just decided to go with it and I spoke to them in Spanish when my husband wasn’t around, and we spoke English when we were all together. Plus, they were also exposed to Spanish when around my family.
I did find that, during the first days of their lives, it didn’t come naturally to me to speak to them in Spanish. I don’t know if it was because at that point I had lived in Ireland for 8 years and had been working with children for the best part of that time (and mainly spoken English to them), or because during the first weeks my husband was around and we spoke English, but it took me a couple of weeks to feel comfortable speaking Spanish to them, which felt quite weird.
Fast-forward 4 years and they’re both completely fluent in both languages with not a sign of speech delay in either. If anything, they were early talkers, especially my little man.
Their ability to speak both languages in full, knowing what language to use with each person they know, and switching from one to another without the minimum effort, is something that I truly enjoy watching and makes me really proud.
There is no communication barrier with either side of the family which is really amazing, plus they will always be fluent in two languages that go a long way all around the world.
Since they started talking there hasn’t been a second of silence in our family. They’re very chatty, they love to talk, they love to tell stories, they ask lots of questions, they prefer play and games that involve talking, it’s non-stop.
It’s also really funny to see how they mix the two languages sometimes, even though they know which is which and they will even use different accents for each language, sometimes if they’re talking really fast or are excited about what they’re telling and can’t think of the word fast enough, they’ll just throw it in in the other language and assume it makes sense.
They also take certain pride in speaking two languages, they will correct my family when they mispronounce words in English and think it’s hilarious when papa says something in Spanish.
Another aspect that I find very interesting is that they speak English to each other 90% of the time. Even though they were home with me for the first years and when it was just the three of us we would speak Spanish, they play in English when it’s just the two of them, and they always have.
The best part of their language development, though, is that despite having two languages, they can also fully communicate without saying a word and without anyone else around knowing what’s going on. Since they were very small they would often look at each other and laugh or play purposefully together without making a sound, just looking at each other. The past few months, they hum or make sounds that we don’t understand but make complete sense to each other. They incorporate this in their playing time and, of course, in the times that they’re doing something they’re not supposed to be doing. To be fair, my innocent little man normally uncovers the mischief by saying “mama, we’re not doing _____”. Can’t keep a secret!
If I could go back I would have loved to know all this so that I didn’t spend any time worrying about their two-language development, but looking forward to watching them develop this third twin language, which at the moment is the most valuable.
Add comment
Comments