What does it mean?

Any Spanish used in blog posts is hyperlinked to its English translation.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

English!

The kid's English is exploding by leaps and bounds, though of course her productive vocabulary is smaller than normal. She definitely knows more English than we think she does, though. Tonight she told me:
"Give me another one balloon!"

That is a longer sentence than usual for her in English - her English is still phrased via memorized chunks of speech (she can't conjugate on her own, for instance). Things like "See you soon!" and "I want [noun in Spanish or English]" and "I have [noun in Spanish or English]" make up most of the English that we hear at home. She includes words like "more" in appropriate or close to appropriate spots.

This last weekend I had told her in Spanish that my dad was coming to take her to Trader Joe's (so she should go potty, get ready to go, etc.) When he called to say he was on his way, she heard his voice on speaker phone and started marching around shouting at him (over the phone),
"I'm go Trader Joe's! I'm go Trader Joe's!"

She's also an adept translator. If she says something in English, she can absolutely say it again in Spanish. Or, if she hears us say something in English - she often repeats it back to us (or otherwise follows up) in Spanish.

We spend time each day talking about languages. If she asks us something in English (I want more blueberries) we'll say something

Last night we played "camion" for more than 20 minutes. She put her kid chairs in a row and handed me a fake hamburger bun while grabbing a plastic plate for herself and sang "The Wheels on The Bus" in English - though all the other conversation ("Sientate aqui. Maneja tu! Yo me siento aqui con el oso.") was in Spanish. I kept calling it "Los Wheels on the Bus" which is wrong anyway because they are "LAS Ruedas del Camion". I'm sure she will correct me one day soon.

She knows the song in both languages so she'd occasionally repeat the verse in Spanish after singing it in English - it was just fascinating to listen to her use her languages and move between them so freely.