Bilingual Dreams
Raising bilingual children, I realized my own dreams
I always dreamed of being able to speak several languages and move effortlessly from one to the other, code switching in everyday conversation. So I studied languages in university, and by the time I got to Barcelona, I could do this (quite well) with Marcelo, one of my best friends at the time. With three languages between us, we simply blurted out the first word that came to mind, sometimes in Spanish, or German, or English. Out of our mouths we flung phrases full of American and Spanish slang, and we used our German to send a quick message that we didn’t want anybody else to understand. Not a large percentage of people in this world would have fully understood this fraternal patois. Those conversations hatched devious plans, put us on the trail of countless parties, and allowed each of us to properly rehearse the phrases of the day in our young minds.
In today’s world, the ability to communicate with as many people as possible is an advantage. A smart ice-breaker would be to learn and perfect a phrase in as many languages as possible. At least, this can work well for extroverts like myself. Back then, Marcelo could also squeak out some pretty good Swedish and had a few phrases in the Basque language of Euskera. When a guy from North Africa tried to lift my wallet one night on the streets of the Barrio Gótico, I grabbed him by the collar and shouted k’ay fah anta? ( How are you doing?) in Arabic, a language I dreamed of learning at the time. My go-to Greek phrase is I want to take a bath. Though it might sound like I was unsuccessful with too many Lonely Planet phrasebooks, the point is that knowing a foreign language brings people together, except of course, those who try to steal your wallet.
After Barcelona, Marcelo and I followed separate but not dissimilar paths. He married an Austrian, who we met one famous night on Plaza Catalunya, and I married a Chilean, who I met at a bus stop in the middle of the desert. So both of us continue to sharpen our language skills, even when we feel too old to bother with textbooks or classes. In terms of cross-cultural love, language can make or break a lasting relationship. If you’re lucky, you can speak your and your spouse’s language, thus allowing a wider choice of phrases for the right mood. In my house, my wife uses Spanish when she’s angry. As rare as that happens, but when it does, you can expect a barrage of high-pitched, chilenismo nastiness. However, she reverts to English when she’s trying to get my attention. As for me, I also switch back and forth depending on the mood and the nature of the conversation. I speak English when I’m in a hurry, and of course Spanish when I’m seducing her after the kids have gone to bed, kiss kiss, wink wink!
And now he and I are each raising bilingual children, giving them opportunities we wished we had: access to two languages through two doors opening to extremely diverse cultures.
Elisa is six and in addition to her English and Spanish, campervan travel has given her a notion of other languages like German and French, which she has heard along the way. A monolingual kid might just ignore all foreign languages, but her ear is attuned to whatever is being spoken.
Lucia is three, and for her, the fact that we speak two languages is now coming into focus. I took it as a good sign when she asked how to say pedo in English the other day. Farting is such a natural occurrence for her lactose-intolerant, wheat-allergenic body, clearly she wants to know how to express this with as many words as possible.
Being bilingual is not just about being able to speak two languages but also how developing two forms of communicating impact you. Here, you get to see how the brain evolves from trying to remember which words go where to how one language influences the other. It’s correct to think that this increased brain activity goes beyond language.
From both girls, I’m always hearing why for because, because in Spanish it’s the same word.
Why are you doing that? I say to Lucia every day.
Why I want to! She cries back.
Elisa continues to translate the English without as consin instead of the correct sin, because the word without begins with with (con). In effect, each language begins to resemble the other, and in the bilingual mind, the brain has created multiple ways to solving a word.
Bringing up bilinguals is also fun, and you get to see them combine language in ways before unthinkable like this example when Lucia combined the gerunds from each language:
Elisa, tienes que estar holdingándote! ( You need to be holdingándote!) Lucia said to her sister while she jumped on my back the other day during the morning session of smash-and-tickle.
Yes, bilingual children take more time to speak, read, and write. Their minds are sorting out a larger load of language particles in a pile of words and sounds. We’ve met younger children who can speak better Spanish, and others who speak better English, but none that could speak both quite like Elisa.
Traveling across South America in a campervan in these crucial times of language development is not confusing at all, it’s edifying and it’s beautiful. Spanglish is already a verified dialect in the US, and soon Elisa and Lucia will be members of the movement. And for me, that’s a dream come true, because language is the most successful way to reach understanding in our world.
Originally published at https://nicoparco.com on March 5, 2020.
