A friend posted a link to this news article by the New York Times - Hearing Bilingual. I though it was an interesting read for all bilingual parents whose babies and children come in contact with more than one language on a daily basis.
In our household, we speak Spanish most of the time but living in NJ, we have to speak English as well. Thus, Eli is constantly in contact with both languages. The question always is: which language do we teach her first? According to research studies, bilingual babies can distinguish between languages at a very young age. When reading the article I went back in my head thinking about how Eli reacts to both languages and I think the research might be into something. She in fact does react differently to when it is us speaking to her in Spanish as opposed to someone who is a native English speaker. She will pay more attention and open her eyes real wide to the English speaker as she comes in contact with it less.
So I guess, we will keep talking to her in Spanish all the time and let her come in contact with the English in other settings. Hopefully, she will be bilingual at an early age.
Here is the link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/health/views/11klass.html?_r=2&emc=eta1
Nose dime tu!
ReplyDeleteMy cousins grew up in a Greek/English household that lived in Italy. I was always amazed that they kept all 3 languages straight and who would understand them in which. Other than a few times Alex tried to talk to me about "gelato" in Italian as a toddler and I didn't understand. Some friends: http://livinglikethekings.com/ is a family that is having the mom speak in Russian and the dad speak in English, and http://hiraganamama.wordpress.com/ is a Japanese-speaking mom/English-speaking dad
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