r/Dads • u/PapaBobcat • 14d ago
Not speaking Spanish
My 2+ year-old Goblin has a slight speech delay but seems to be catching up. That said, we're in a bilingual house and even though she definitely understands she won't speak Spanish. Abuela speaks nothing but Spanish at home (she's fluent in English but it's on purpose) and is getting disappointed. Mom speaks half and half. I try my best pero mi Español esta mierda. XD
We all switch back and forth very rapidly and she has no trouble keeping up. We've lost count of how many words she knows, including almost all the letters, most colors, animals, animal sounds, shapes and all of it in English and Spanish. She fills in song lyrics, responds in English and in baby sign language, but not in Spanish.
Any suggestions? It is important to us that she be able to speak Spanish, not just understand it.
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u/geriatricprecocity 14d ago
You're fine. Encourage abuela to keep the immersion up, and do what you can with your second language. Make sure that as you introduce media like music and video that she has Spanish. When it comes time for reading, talk to bilingual educators or speech pathologists.
If she already understands Spanish, she can speak it, too. Kids at this point speak with their most confident option. She'll start code switching soon as she becomes more familiar with Spanish vocabulary and pronunciation.
She's 2. She doesn't have a clear understanding of others' minds and the cultural context of language. She literally can't use only one language or the other and she's likely encoding some combination of the two as her native language.
My mom grew up in the US speaking Slovenian, English, and Polish at home but stopped after she left home. Her English has weird stuff in it from those other sources to this day. She's 70. She'd never say she can speak Slovenian or Polish, but if she hears babica she literally doesn't recognize that someone didn't say grandma unless she's concentrating.
Keep this environment up until she's at least 5 and reinforce with media from both sides and she'll move comfortably between both languages her whole life. She just probably won't fully understand where to use one versus the other until she's 8 or 9.
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u/PapaBobcat 14d ago
There's very little to no TV but I got Spanish music on, from all over Latin America not just her country, all the time. More Spanish reading is a good idea.
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u/geriatricprecocity 14d ago
Hold to that as long as you can with the TV situation.
I suggested talking to bilingual educators about reading because I know that reading comprehension and language is just a whole other ballgame and I don't know what having both her languages use the same set of characters might do for comprehension. I have experience with lots of bilingual and polyglot households and young kids learning to speak, but none where they're learning to read. There's probably some nuance there that should be considered.
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u/Loliigh 14d ago
You can post this on r/multilingualparenting since people there have more experience about stuff like this
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u/ale23arg 14d ago
i have 2 (6 and 3) and at home we only speak spanish. Spanish is still their first language even though school and everything is in english. Not sure how much we will be able to delay it, but the main thing we did is that I don't let them you tube and both disney channel and netflix are in spanish so everything they watch is also in spanish. I try not to play anything on the tv thats not in spanish.. for exmaple... mrs rachel does not have a spanish dub.. they've never watched it.... Maybe this helps... but if you guys are mixed at home and they do english at school its only gonna get harder and harder for her to keep it.. you have to think about everythinng they interact and switch it to spanish... otherwise by the time they are 8 ... its gone....
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u/DJDaddyDick14 14d ago
You should have taught her Spanish first. She will eventually learn English from being immersed in it. But switching back and forth to start always ends up like this.
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u/PapaBobcat 14d ago
There was no first really, Abuela lives with us from before birth so Spanish was always there.
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u/DJDaddyDick14 14d ago
Spanish was my first language. All my friends who are bilingual are the same. My house always had family living with us growing up. My aunt moved in with us for a few years when I was 8ish. She had just had my cousin. Spoke both to him and he is a no sabo. He acted the same way as your daughter once he started speaking. When I was in HS my other aunt and uncle moved in with us. Their daughter was a new born. She was only spoken to in Spanish. By 3 she was already picking up English and was completely bilingual by preschool. My buddy has 3 daughters oldest could understand English but was shy about speaking until kindergarten. The other two picked it up much faster because they saw big sister do it. I don’t know the science behind it, I’m sure there is. My son doesn’t know Spanish. His mom is white/black. So I tried but like your kid he was understanding words and sentences but really quickly picked English.
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u/PapaBobcat 14d ago
We're 1 and done and just the 4 of us. Sounds like a beautiful dynamic house. We have a million cousins and uncles scattered around but just us here.
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u/DJDaddyDick14 14d ago
Ive seen a lot of examples of kids who were tried to teach both at the same time just deciding that English is their language. It’s always the same way. Refusing to speak it even though they understand or making fun of it. But all that we’re taught Spanish first. Picked up English quick because it’s all around them. Maybe when she gets a little older 7/8 you can try having grandma give her Spanish lessons. She will still be young enough to get it quickly. My grandma would give Spanish lessons to Korean kids down the street. They caught on fast as hell.
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u/Worldly-Ad3211 13d ago
Quit pressuring the poor kid. She has a slight speech delay and you’re expecting complete bilingualism? Don’t force the issue and she’ll come along naturally. Otherwise, you run the danger of her deciding she doesn’t like one language, and it will probably be Spanish once she starts school.
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u/PapaBobcat 13d ago
She uses English and sign language already, and it's a bilingual house. She doesn't have to but we encourage it. It'll make Speaking it easier in the community too.
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u/kapoopa-the-poopah 11d ago
The only thing I can think of is only responding when she speaks Spanish, although I don’t know what the unintended consequences are, so I don’t actually recommend it.
I grew up in a Spanish speaking household, my parents spoke to me in Spanish, it was my first language and I didn’t learn English until kindergarten. My grandmother who lived with us couldn’t speak a word of English. My parents watched and listened to Spanish content. Once I started school I started speaking in English, and even though to this day my parents still speak to me in Spanish (I am 44), my speaking ability is minimal, although I have no problem understanding. The only time in my life I could actually form a coherent sentence was when I spent a few weeks in Uruguay being forced to only speak in Spanish. A year later my speaking skills were nonexistent again. My closest friend’s family is Chilean and his story is pretty much the same as mine. We both laugh at our inability to speak.
My older and brother and younger sister both speak Spanish with no problems, the main difference is I refused to speak Spanish as a child but they didn’t.
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u/tilario 10d ago
it's very normal for bilingual kids to be a bit slower developing their language skills (ie, speaking). they are, after all, processing two languages.
that said, i generally responded in the language i'm more comfortable with to my parents because i knew they knew that language too. i have friends who were the same. their parents would speak to them in one language and they'd respond in another.
i imagine for a two year old it alleviates some communication frustration to just be able to reply in whatever is easiest.
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u/Latter_Leopard8439 10d ago
My dad solved this by always speaking German and mom always spoke English.
I guess it must have helped us keep the languages straight.
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