“Twinkle twinkle” or “Estrellita”

I try not to be the strictest dad with OPOL, so although I do try to keep languages as separated as possible, and not to address my little one in Spanish, sometimes, whenever there is a “group song” in Spanish and Grandpas, Mum, and other members of the family are singing, I just can´t help it and eventually join in. Until now I had the feeling that I could do this without my boy realizing that I was actually singing in Spanish. Unconsciously, I´ve been stepping into the dark side during the last month, and I joined mum in some action songs in Spanish, this time just the two of us (all his songs at daycare and with grandpas are in Spanish so even though mum and I have learnt a quite respectable repertoire of nearly 30 English songs, lullabies and nursery rhythms, the competence is fierce…).

Yesterday Mum and I were singing “La casita” (the little house) in Spanish, because he loves it so much, and then we followed with “twinkle twinkle little star”. Suddenly mum just went creative and invented a Spanish version “Estrellita” (literally “little star”). Once Mum had finished the song he asked PAPI to sing the new Spanish version “PAPI, zteyita!” but I refused to sing it in Spanish, and I insisted I only knew “twinkle twinkle”. He kept asking me for it, but this time more firmly, almost upset I would say. I could see he was disgruntled, and his face was like “I know you know how to sing this one like Mum, so why don´t you just sing it?!”. In the end I managed to drive his attention to another English songs and games, so I skipped the Spanish singing.

I think I have to realize that he is reaching two years old, and it´s about time to stop thinking that he doesn´t understand or that you can fool him because he´s little. If you try to cheat, he´ll catch you, and apparently sooner rather than later! Any trace of inconsistency will hit you back like a boomerang! I think I have to be more consistent with my OPOL approach, but I don´t like the idea of missing some fun when Spanish gets inevitably in the way, or I should rather say anywhere around us…

2 words sentences and BEING with him:

2 words sentences:

My cute little bilingual man is almost 21months old, but I get the feeling he is taking huge steps! I guess this is just that he´s growing, but oh God! he is growing so fast! People with babies know what I´m talking about. You see him doing things with some difficulty, and suddenly he does the same task but this time is flawless, quick and absolutely under control! And you realize he won´t be this little cute baby anymore, but a little big boy…

This applies exactly the same way to bilingualism. He has recently started to translate (his) words effortlessly. Example:

How does YAYA (granny) say “kitty”? – GATO!

How does PAPA say “gato”? – KITTY!

And then mum in Spanish (she speaks English sometimes too, and he apparently accepts this mixing)

¿Cómo dice PAPA “vaca”? – COW!

¿Y cómo dice la YAYA “cow”? – (V) ACA!!

It´s something amazing and almost magical from a late language learner perspective, how we (people raised monolingual) have to stop and think how to translate something, because our brain connections were made way after puberty, and for him, even though his brain tissue is still completing the early development phase, it has this connections in place already. It looks like everything in his mind has a mirror image and he is getting used to look for 2 corresponding words for each concept… Let me say that PAPA is terrified for not being able to provide the image sometime in the future.

Back to the subject that I wanted to review, he´s started to produce really funny phrases, formed by 2 words (subject+verb), and sometimes 3 words (subject+adjective+verb), like when we get home and wait for the garage door to open, and he says “DOO! OPFEN!” or other times when he uses a quality of the object, such us “ZMALL! or YEYOW! (he is struggling with “L” sound). The only thing is he picks words from either Spanish or English to build the phrases and it´s really difficult to understand if you don´t know him very well. Even though he spends most of the working days either in the nursery (mornings) or at grandpa´s (afternoons), his mum and I are the only ones that understand what he means 100% of the time, and I must say that this is kind of cool.

BEING with him:

I think that trying to raise him bilingually has caused a very good effect in the quality of the time that we spend with him. We are both very focused on the final objective (raise him as a competent user of the 2 languages), we know the possible difficulties that we might go through in the future, we are prepared to be flexible when the time comes and he refuses to speak the language or he seems to be lacking vocabulary in one of the languages, or even more serious issues. I think that apart from the special care and love that any parent has for his/her baby, this extra thing is leading us to try to maximize the time (length and quality) that we spend and actually share with him. Down to the field this is translated into things like getting home, changing our clothes in approx. 10 secs, throwing things up in the air to wherever they fall, and running insanely fast to our little man to spend as much time as we can playing and enjoying his company, even though that means having to tell him NO! to something or give him the “serious look” when he starts a tantrum.

It´s like somehow we dedicate all our available time to BEING with him. I mean there´s nothing wrong with sitting on the coach watching tv or reading a book while he plays with the blocks by himself, but what we usually do is to keep the tv off and play with him, trying to talk and interact as much as possible.

And now being selfish, one of the positive effects as a non-native speaker of the language, is that we have improved our English skills. I have improved the ability to switch languages back and forth, and my vocabulary has been increased, mostly with baby related vocabulary, but also with terms that are sometimes applicable to my daily conversations in English at work. I spend lots of time using the translator and vocabulary apps in my Android phone (God bless smartphones), or checking words and expressions with a couple of native workmates, and this is making a difference. You don´t realize how much of an improvement it is in only 2 or 3 weeks, but if you look back 1 year ago, it´s huge. My wife has noticed also an improvement in her listening and speaking skills, and she says she even finds words sometimes quicker in English than in Spanish, so even if it´s unconsciously, she is integrating most of the things we use at home on a daily basis.  

As an funny example, this is the list of songs that we´ve learnt since the baby was born (we only knew happy birthday to you previously), I don´t know if the title is right, I just wrote something recognizable from the song.

1	You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
2	Over in the meadow
3	Bingo (the doggy)
4	The wheels on the bus go round and round
5	If you are happy and you know it
6	Row row row your boat
7	10 little numbers (youtube)
8	A is for Apple… (ABC song, youtube)
9	Happy birthday to you
10	Somewhere over the rainbow (gay, I know…)
11	Old McDonald had a farm
12	5 little monkeys jumping on the bed
13	Ladybird song
14	5 little ducks were swimming one day
15	Incey wincey spider
16	Danny boy (adaptation that I made up for him)
17	The tale of the sun and the moon
18	Twinkle twinkle little star
19	Santa claus is coming to town
20	The elephant song
21	The animal sounds song
22	I love you, you love me (that pink Dino, too sugary)
23	The duck song
24	I´m a little Teapot (I look completely gay singing this one)
25	Head shoulders knees and toes

So the question today would be: what is the impact of raising your baby/ies bilingually on your family/work/life? I´m especially interested in those of you guys who are non-native, live in their homeland and are trying to promote early bilingualism too.