¡Ven!

So, I was out of the country for a week and usually when I'm out of the picture for a while Laniña uses markedly less Spanish. This time, however, things were markedly different:

Laniña and her mother were in the playpark and chanced to meet another young chap from Laniña's nursery class. They have had an ongoing competitive game going for a while of the "My x is better than yours" sort of thing. So they ran around a bit and then Laniña wanted her friend to come over, so of course she shouted, "Come over here!" and then, out of nowhere, she declared, "and I can speak Spanish: ¡Ven! ¡Ven!" Which is, of course, completely correct.

There was also the incident where she made her mother pretend to be me and mother had to say "Hola, ¿qué tal?"

Her pronunciation of Spanish is notably improving. While she still doesn't use or be exposed to at all as much Spanish as I would like, at four-and-a-half years old she at least does seem to be aware of herself as a bilingual person. And that's good.

Politics at Breakfast

Strange conversation at breakfast, don't know what sparked the original question:

- Where Bak Omama live?
- ¿Cómo? Oh, Barak Obama?
- Yup.
- En América. En la Casa Blanca
- Yup and in English is the White House!

So, we googled it and showed her a picture of the White House and she said "That's like holidays"
If only our hotel was ever that nice!

School and fairy tales...

Well, 4th birthday came and went and with it came SCHOOL! Well, sort-of school. It's called a reception class and is in a school, but they really just play and it's only for a couple of hours each day. But, goodness, Laniña´s English has rocketed! Chat chat chat...

Well, for over a month I swear she didn´t speak a single word of Spanish. I told myself to stay cool... Time passed. Then I booked our summer flights to Spain (just a 5-day trip!) and we were talking about it and how all the kids there will only speak Spanish. And suddenly it started to come back... just a word here and there. Then spontaneously alone with me one morning she shouted "¡Mira esto!" (look at this) as she showed me her hopping. It was only thinking about it later that I was able to link the renewed interest in and use of Spanish with the mention of a return to Spain.

She has also begun to ask for a Spanish bedtime story again sometimes. At the moment I think she uses it as a strategy to get an extra story before bed because she knows I won´t refuse a Spanish request!! At the moment she is convinced that the leñador (woodcutter) who rescues Red Riding Hood (Caperucita Roja) is the father of Hansel and Gretel. The pictures aren´t particularly similar, but she spotted that it´s the same word and is very excited about it!!

And I can say it in English!

Sometimes I wonder, especially when picking Laniña up from the nursery, do other people think I´m mad. There I am, speaking foreign to a child who is resolutely answering only in English! What on earth, they must think, am I doing?

But then, like today for instance, as soon as we get into the car she´ll say, "Look Estrellas!"

Today she went on to add, "An I can say it in English - it´s STARS!"

So that became a wee game: I would say montaña and she would say "Mountain!" (or whatever)

It only lasted for a few minutes, but left both of us feeling very pleased with ourselves!

Laniña will be 4 soon; she´s not a "balanced" bi-lingual: I don´t think she has a productive ability at the same level in both languages. But, and most importantly, I´m content that her English is fine. She´s not doing too bad. Not too bad at all!

Pronunciation

Laniña´s pronunciation has become pretty good. Clear and distinct, where a year ago she might have mumbled or otherwise failed to pronounce certain sounds or words correctly. This is in both English and Spanish, I mean.

But now she seems to have most sounds pretty well mastered in both languages - and she´ll not be 4 until December! Some more tricky words still cause difficulties, of course, but she´s doing OK.

One thing is still causing a noticeable difficulty, though: She still can´t to the "rr" tongue-trill which is so important and distinctive in Spanish. I´m not too bothered at the minute since I have read that this can cause even young native Spaniards trouble and some are 5 or 6 years old before they master it!

I have recently received one good piece of advice - thanks (you know who you are!). And it is to practice it my imitating the sound of a car: brrm brrm!!

I started this the other day and Laniña enjoyed it very much!!

(She still can´t do it though!!)

Storyplace

If you´ve got kids, you´re very likely already aware that Nickjr.com has some simple online games featuring their key characters like Dora, Diego and the Backyardigans. Over the last few weeks, Laniña has grown to like these very much - possibly too much!

I had been frustrated in not being able to find a Spanish version of any of these games, and in a sudden flash of inspiration I gave up on Nickjr and decided to look for other online games for kids. I did a google on "online games spanish ninos" and after a few clicks got to this:

http://www.storyplace.org/sp/storyplace.asp

It´s great! Simple stories in Spanish, with simple online activities as well as follow up craft ideas for doing at home. I love it!

El alfabeto

This was a tricky one - I really didn't know how we would sort this out at all, and in fact I guess we're still in the middle of it, and may well be for a while yet!

Laniña had been becoming increasingly interested in letters - without any pressure from us, I may add - and has been able to sort of write her name for a good few weeks now. And then there was the alphabet song which she must have picked up from her day nursery: for a while she was singing A B C D S I O with great confidence (very cute) but she seems to have the right version now.

So we got out the big alphabet poster and put it on her door and she likes to find the letter we say - but this is where the trouble arises: not only are the names of the letters different in Spanish, some of them sound like the names of other letters! E and I and A are particularly confusing.

So, what to do? Well, I didn´t really know so out of pure inertia I simply ignored the problem and on only a couple of occasions so far has Laniña made a mistake based on taking the letter from the other language and I´ve just said something like "yes that´s E in English, but in Spanish it´s I" and Laniña just sort of shrugs and gets on with it. So, not so much of a problem after all!

If only all problems went away just by ignoring them!