No Spanish? No Shoes? No Problem!

04/16/10

I’ve often been frustrated by the limited selection of high-quality children’s books available in Spanish (though it’s possible I just haven’t looked hard enough). So in our house, the ratio of English to Spanish children’s books is at least a 3 to 1.

(not actually me or my child) Photo by Trynes

It’s gotten to the point that I’ve actually written a couple of books myself (as gifts to my kids) though come to think of it, those are probably of much lower quality than the ones we’ve bought. But that’s just my children’s Karma and who am I to intervene?

Anyway, given the limited number of books in Spanish we have, bedtime with Gabriel is interesting (Sam is still too young for bedtime stories.) We keep about 10 books in Spanish in his bedroom, but he tends to ask me to read the same four books every night. I figure: as long as I expand beyond the words on the page by asking him questions about the story and conversing about it, the benefit is equal to what we’d get if we had a wider selection of books.

But it’s gotten even more interesting recently because Gabriel is now grabbing books he knows are in English and asking me to read them to him in Spanish. Initially, I thought this was just his Colombian sneakiness coming to the surface (I’m kidding!) or some unique developmental quirk that is simply a reflection of his resourcefulness. But as it often is the case with parenting, you just have to ask a couple of people and you’ll find that there is nothing new under the sun. I found the following post by Carrie from Nashville, my distant, kindred blogger:

“Los Zapaticos de Rosa” in ingles. No guay

And come to think of it, what a great exercise for both the bilingual parent and the child to page through a familiar book and hear the same familiar story told in Spanish. Keeps my rotting, aging brain a bit sharper with the simultaneous translation, and allows the child to make connections between words, terms, and whole stories between the two systems.

Now, back to the link I referenced above, there are of course instances where this exercise proves hugely frustrating, mostly for the parent, because there are certain stories, certain terms, certain concepts that are not easily translatable into the other language. Heck, American children books are full of badgers, fawns, gophers, and prairie dogs, and as I struggle to search in my iPhone for the Spanish equivalents for those words, I’m tempted to fully convert the stories into Colombian tales about man-eating spiders and pet crocodiles.

But even if all you can do is give it your best shot and get as close as possible to the original story, you’ve accomplished:

1. Preventing a tantrum

2. Enhancing your child’s vocabulary (and your own)

3. Saving a few bucks by unexpectedly having added a new “Spanish book” to your library

Everybody wins and Papá can go watch The Bachelor right on time.

Categories: Tips, Trivial Occurrences

X-Rated Innocence

04/14/10

Being bilingual is a huge privilege and a tremendous advantage, but it’s also quite a burden. A few months ago, I wrote about how being a juvenile parent secures a wealth of fun for said juvenile parent (i.e. me.) But with bilingualism, you have to deal with people in your vicinity and their individual feelings about not knowing what you’re saying (especially if you’re constantly pointing at them and giggling).

Photo by Merlijn Hoek

What I never accounted for, however, was for a word in your native language sounding like another (less family-friendly) word in your second language

Recently, my son Gabriel and I were at his grandfather’s house, where the family had gathered as they often do. I was in the process of asking my son in Spanish to put the toys away just like his little cousins around us were already doing. At some point in the conversation, my son protested and told me in Spanish that he had already “put the cars in the box”, but he incorrectly conjugated the verb “poner” (to put) and said:

“yo ya ponió los carros en la caja.”

A very common mistake — If “poner” were a regular verb, his conjugation would have been correct, but alas, the verb is irregular, so the past tense first person form is “puse.”

I proceeded to playfully correct my son by repeating emphatically:

¨Puse, nené, puse¨

At that point, I heard my brother-in-law jokingly calling from the other side of the room: “Hey, hey, watch the language!”

If you don’t know or if your mind is not as twisted as mine or my brother-in-law’s, you probably haven’t figured out that the Spanish word “puse” is pronounced “poo-seh.”

So I imagine that, after my brother-in-law left the room with his kids in search for a set of earplugs, he probably told them that Tío Rubén and cousin Gabriel were talking about kittens.

Categories: Trivial Occurrences

How do you say? Ah yeah…

02/10/10

My boy Gabriel is making this whole raising him bilingual really easy on his Papá. I just don’t deserve the smooth ride that it’s been so far (ok, you know I’m fishing so feel free to post something like: “give yourself some credit, you clearly have worked hard”).

For the last couple of months, when he gets stuck on a word that he knows how to say in English but not in Spanish, he very gracefully pauses, thinks for a couple of seconds, and if the Spanish word cannot be retrieved from that beautiful brain of his, he’ll ask me how to say it in Spanish.

Photo by ::d::

The first time this happened, it took me a few minutes to realize that I had struck gold. Why gold? Because if the boy feels that it’s OK to get stuck on a word and ask how to say it, my hope is that this will reduce any pressure he might feel to be as fluent in Spanish as he is in English and prevent him from going all Gringo on his old man and decide he’ll only speak English to me. At least for now. So even if our dialog is interrupted by the need to use Spanish words he doesn’t know or doesn’t remember, I make a big deal out of how fun it is to learn a new word and be able to say everything he wants to say in two languages!

This approach feels to me quite consistent with what I wrote in an earlier post about correcting in a playful way. It’s no secret that if you’re able to turn the action into some sort of game, you can get a young child to do unthinkable things, like brushing his teeth. So in that same spirit, I think the effort, concentration, and histrionics involved in making every “how do you say [word] in Spanish” an exercise in total awesomeness, is totally worth what you get in return: a child who is confident and comfortable with the language.

Now, the downside: Gabe is so comfortable asking how to say words in Spanish, that if he’s speaking with his mom and wants to relay something in the conversation to me, he will ask her (whose Spanish is limited) how to say certain words in Spanish. That’s where she needs to throw it right back at him and try:

– How do you say, “ask you father”?

Categories: Tips, Trivial Occurrences

Correcting

01/06/10

I don’t buy into the modern parental trend of rewarding children for trivial things like, say, existing or choosing not to bite me in the arm. I love my children to death and I shower them with hugs and kisses every chance I get (when they’re not pushing me away and asking me to keep it cool), and I also privately think they are the most remarkable children in all of the Upper Midwest, and quite possibly, the entire NAFTA region. But I’m quite comfortable telling my two year-old son, in a loving way, when he’s made a mistake.

Photo by willem velthoven

Initially, I was nervous about pointing out his mistakes in Spanish (“mistake” = using the wrong word or seriously mispronouncing it) because I feared this would erode his self-confidence and turn him off to the language.

But you can’t underestimate the power of silliness. So instead of being like my daddy, who could turn my dropping a pencil into evidence of my lacking a brain (yes, poor me!), or taking a more moderate, middle of the road approach (“Junior, your shall not pluralize the verb “haber” as it is indeed impersonal and not attributable to the sentence’s subject,”) I just go the silly route and roll around on the floor with him, tickling him, and turning the “here is what you said and here is what you really meant” into a game. I realize that this is a touchy kind of approach that should be used with caution (I don’t want to be passive-agressive), so I’m careful to let some mistakes go, but in general, Gabriel seems to utterly enjoy the process and in my non-scientific exploration of the results, it appears he does end up learning the correct words.

Obviously, this fun game can’t be applied to everything and I don’t expect to be rolling around with him on the grass, tickling him for crashing my car into the neighbor’s fence when he’s 17, but for this immediate, specific purpose, it works wonderfully.

Categories: Reflections, Tips

Oh, No, I’m Turning Into My Mother!

12/04/09

Raise your hand if you ever swore you’d never be like your parents….wait!, don’t put your hand down yet, I have a few thousand to count.

Photo by sean dreilinger

Here’s the catch for me: in order to teach my children about the old country, I sort of have to be like my parents. And how do I do that?

Speaking Spanish
Pointing at things with my lips
Flailing my arm to create inertia that makes my thumb and my index finger make a snapping sound to indicate that there is trouble
Neglecting to tame my uni-brow
Going around the house turning off the lights
Listening to music that deals with the following topics:
- life in the farm
- the drama and dishonor that is the loss of a young girl’s purity
- duels between the town’s tough guy and the aforementioned young girl’s secret lover
- Drunkenness
- the beach, the mountains, or beaches next to mountains

The subject of music is what makes the still latent but frustrated young metal-head in me feel defeated. And you know why? Because I actually like that old music from the old country and as it turns out, so does my All-American-Minnesotan wife and our two boys. And now that my mother is staying with us to help us with Samuel (our 4-month old), playing those cheesy tunes of injustice, betrayal, despondence, and vengeance livens up our lovely home during the harsh Minnesota winter.

Last night, while I was gently rocking Samuel in my arms to help him fall asleep, I had Pandora playing on my iPhone in the living room, set to a station that played just such music, and it took me a few minutes to realize that I had been inadvertently (but very enthusiastically) singing and dancing along to all those songs. And when I looked at myself in the mirror what did I see in my own, contented face? The black haired, squinty-eyed, thick-browed, 5-o’clock-shadowed face of my mother (yes, she is a beautiful Latin grandma who suffers, due to whatever percentage of Spanish blood we have, from what Jeffrey Eugenides called the “Hair Belt“).

We were all rocking out to the music that my mother has loved all her life and that I have despised for most of mine.

And my son Gabriel? He was busy doing puzzles and playing with trucks, and occasionally picking up words and chants from the music that he would then repeat out loud to me. And that is the biggest reward of all. Not only is there such communion among us through the enjoyment of my mother’s favorite music, but in that process, my sons are learning and living Spanish language, culture, dance, and I’m sure getting vibes of other, less tangible things like love and happiness.

I’m so old. But that’s OK.

Categories: Reflections, Trivial Occurrences

Gracias Por El Turkey

11/26/09

SAPPINESS ADVISORY: If you have a history of adverse reactions to excessive sentimentality, consult your doctor before reading on.

Photo by JP Puerta

I love Thanksgiving!

For me, as an immigrant, Thanksgiving is the most meaningful and enjoyable of all festivities in this country (even if I’m forced to watch football to prove my masculinity: “Go Yankees!…oh, wait..“).

The act of giving thanks for the bounty that this land continues to offer not only its native sons and daughters but also those who come searching for their individual version of the American Dream is a very special and beautiful ritual.

And even though every year I have to refresh my memory on the history of Thanksgiving (thanks, Wikipedia!), and even though the history between white Americans and American Indians is more marked by egregious injustice than it is by the compassion, respect, and mutual celebration exemplified by the origins of this holiday, and even though America is imperfect, every time I shove a spoonful of mashed potatoes topped with thick gravy topped with cranberry sauce topped with pumpkin pie crust and wash it down with sparkling wine, surrounded by a bunch of loving and delightful friends and family members, I can’t help but count myself lucky and privileged.

Naturally, Thanksgiving takes on a whole new meaning for me now that I’m a father and I certainly plan for future Thanksgivings to be opportunities to inculcate in my sons some of their old man’s appreciation for the celebration (my sons twenty years from now: “Do we have to listen to the old man’s whole Thanksgiving spiel every year before we can eat our grub in peace?” ).

My sons are still too young to sit through an explanation of the meaning of Thanksgiving. By the time I tell Gabriel that the Pilgrims were worried about starving he’s already flinging gravy at his little cousin sitting across the table. But looking at his chubby, mashed potato-covered rosy cheeks, I can’t help but marvel at the fact that this Colombian father and his Colombian-American offspring are not much different from those Pilgrims who sought only a sense of freedom and a warm embrace that this land was more than happy to give them.

The turkey wasn’t so lucky. Gracias, turkey.

Categories: Reflections

Spanglish

11/18/09

Americans think it’s the funniest thing to mock-speak Spanish by just adding an “o” to the end of English words (e.g. “take me in your el truck-o to the next el town-o”). And guess what? My sons are Americans so it’s kind of naive to expect any different from them. It must be something in the water… Come to think of it, Colombians are just as bad — we add “ation” to the end of Spanish words to turn them into English ones (e.g. amigo (friend) = “amigation”)

Photo by Vince Alongi

I’m kidding, of course. What I want to share is simply the dreaded reappearance of Spanglish in my boy Gabriel’s vernacular. In earlier posts I wrote about how very early on, when he was just beginning to speak, he was taking all kinds of linguistic liberties in creating hybrid words. But I had assumed that those days were behind us, especially considering how rigidly he seems to adhere to the language that he thinks he must speak with any given person. I was wrong.

Just the other night, I heard Gabriel crying very forcefully over the baby monitor so I went upstairs to see what was wrong. When I got to his bedroom, he was standing at the baby gate, still crying, and I asked him what happened. In a more subdued crying voice, he told me: “Droppó mi chupo” (“I dropped my pacifier”).

So, OK, the boy was tired so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. After all, just a couple of days earlier I got very short with my own mother (who doesn’t speak a lick of English) because I kept asking her in English to repeat something for me by saying “what? what? WHAT? WHAT?”, as the poor woman stared at me with a blank expression. But Gabriel was on a roll! In the couple of days that followed, he uttered sentences like:

– “Papá, fixa mi camión” (Papa, fix my truck)

– “Lávame las manos con soapa” (Wash my hands with soap), and somewhat related:

– “Estoy tomando soupa” (I’m drinking soup)….though I think I’ll cut him some slack on this one since soup is “sopa” in Spanish, so it’s easy to get confused.

And what’s perplexing about the examples above is that he knows the Spanish words for all of those terms that he morphed into Spanglish.

I’ve read many articles that explain how multilingual children will inevitably mix the languages throughout their development and that the language they speak for the majority of their day naturally ends up being their dominant language. But can you blame an earnest father for making an effort to raise his boys as better than average Americanations? No way-o!

Categories: Questions, Trivial Occurrences

Big Beard

11/16/09

I’ve often wondered if my children, by virtue of hearing me speak English to their mother and other, non-Spanish speaking relatives, will somehow adopt my sultry and exotic accent into their own English. But it never occurred to me that the same could happen as a result of other influences (and without sultriness).

Photo by Todd Huffman

Gabriel and I were paging through a picture book the other day when he started talking excitedly about something called “big beard’ (this, he said in English).

In my confusion, I assumed we had just flipped through a page featuring a venerable bearded man or a totally awesome pirate, so I flipped back to the previous page, but found no examples of such fellows. My boy, however, returned excited to his “big beard” refrain, which was even more vexing as he rarely uses English with me, and even when he doesn’t know the equivalent in Spanish of an English term, he somehow figures out a creative way to say it or simply changes the subject altogether.

What the heck was this “big beard” business? Well, the boy finally pointed at a drawing of a large, yellow beast that looked like Big Bird from Sesame Street and I felt like Bruce Willis in the Sixth Sense when he finally figured out that he had been dead through the whole damn movie. But there was still a bit of mystery to be solved – I immediately called to my wife to see if she had talked to Gabriel about Sesame Street or Big Bird (since we’ve been raising the boys Amish style -without TV- and we don’t have any Sesame Street books in the house), but she said no such reference had been uttered by her. So where the heck did he learn about Big Bird?

Last week, when I picked Gabriel up at daycare, he proudly showed me a sticker he was given for some reason (maybe he did a good deed or maybe he was awarded it simply for going a few minutes without being awful, like some modern child rearing methods seem to call for) and pointing at the sticker planted on his chest, he said “mira papá, Big Beard!”.

And…bingo. I realized that his mostly Spanish-speaking teacher had surely talked to the kids about Big Bird with her somewhat accented English, infused with a Spanish pronunciation of vowels. What’s surprising is that my boy wasn’t talking about “beeg beerd.” And now, no matter how firmly I try to refer to the character using the traditional pronunciation, the boy will firmly correct me and inform me that his name is Big Beard.

Hopefully when he’s twelve, we won’t be talking about “Ereek Cartman.”

Categories: Trivial Occurrences

Papá’s Thing

11/14/09

There is nothing more endearing and amusing than the candor of a child. And some times, there is nothing more embarrassing.

Photo by Argenberg

We have been trying for months to potty train our boy Gabriel but it’s been a slow go and though we’re not in any particular rush, we’re trying everything we can to make the experience, if nothing else, not a completely traumatic one.

The other day, it occurred to me that if I sit in the adult potty (i.e. toilet, for those readers over 5) as we’re having him practice going in his potty chair, my boy might feel more encouragement to follow suit. And being the compulsively honest person that I am, I felt like I should exemplify an experience as close as reasonably possible to the real thing, so I took my pants off before I sat in the toilet.

And what else could I expect but to have my boy catch a split-second glimpse of my pantless self and ask me- “¿Qué es ESO?” (“what is THAT?”). And thus I found myself unexpectedly dealing with the “body parts” chat, for which my compulsive honesty comes in handy. I nonchalantly explained to my boy that what I had was the same as what he had because we’re both boys, and for the remainder of the day, that new-found piece of data had the boy running around the house, announcing how both he and papá had penises. That’s the endearing and amusing part.

The embarrassing part is that the next day, my wife’s parents came over to visit, and as we’re all sitting down in the living room, Gabriel came up to my chair and asked me: “¿Papá, dónde está tu pene?” (“Papá, where is your penis?”). That was an important test to my compulsive honesty because faced with such a question in front of visitors, my subconscious mind betrayed me and I started to smirk and giggle and felt a wave of heat rush to my face. But I came through and answered him that my penis was inside my pants, which seemed to thoroughly satisfy his curiosity.

Now, in a different family, where everyone speaks the same language and partakes of a conversation in real-time, everyone gets an immediate chuckle out of this kind of display of candidness, and moves on. But because my son had asked me the question in Spanish and my in-laws don’t speak it, I had only a few seconds to regain my composure until I had to retell the entire interaction for them, in English. So I literally had to tell my in-laws that my penis was in my pants.

I could have very well made up some lie to steer the conversation away from my crotch area, but my in-laws are very cool and we have a great relationship, so we all laughed again. And the interaction made apparent yet another benefit of bilingualism — that if your kids ever utter embarrassing words in public, it is much more likely that you can keep it all “private”.

Categories: Trivial Occurrences

No Use for Dora the Explorer

10/23/09

Just to be clear, I think Dora and Diego are about the best thing that has happened to Hispanic people in this country since Ricky Martin made the entire nation shake its bon-bon the whole Summer of 1999. But it has been interesting to see where the concept of Dora and Diego fails when applied to the way I’m raising my sons.

Photo by Mike McCaffrey

My older son now has a very clear idea of English and Spanish as two separate systems of communication used by two different groups of people, and he understands that some people can speak both (like, say, himself – duh!). But in order to secure the best chance that in the future he won’t all of a sudden want to start speaking to me in English, I really harped on the fact that mama speaks English, papá speaks Spanish, so-and-so speaks this and that, and so on. What this created in the boy is a very strict sense of what each person he knows should speak and that’s why Dora doesn’t work for us anymore.

If you’re familiar with Dora and Diego, you know that they frequently intersperse Spanish words with their English dialog, and I couldn’t be any more pleased that the young, Anglo audience is not only loving and looking up to these beautiful, positive Hispanic role models, but that they’re also learning the language and the culture in the process. The Spanish versions of the Dora and Diego books do the inverse–they have mostly Spanish words with a few English words thrown in. And this is where my boy loses it (or simply gets annoyed and yells at me).

For instance, if we’re reading a Dora book where she is describing in Spanish how she and Boots are about to hop on a bus to go visit Diego at the animal rescue place and she excitedly exhorts: “Vámonos, Let’s Go!”, my boy will stop me on my tracks and yell: “No! mama says ‘let’s go!’“. You can do the math: 15 pages x 2 interspersed English words per page = 30 interruptions, and for each one, the boy will go through the effort of taking his pacifier out of his mouth just to set me straight.

So for now, Dora and Diego will have to indirectly benefit my boys in that the mainstream perception of Spanish-speaking, dark-featured kids is that they’re totally cool, adventurous, smart little people, and I’ll have to think about whether I’ve painted myself into a corner by laying out this rigid “we only speak Spanish to each other” dynamics. Otherwise I’ll never be able to be as cool as Diego, who is allowed to speak both.

Categories: Questions, Reflections