A Before and After Story

One mother muses on the bilingual adventure ahead, first while pregnant, and then four years later.

By Kate MacVean

Before:

“Hablando del rey de Roma, por la puerta se asoma.” A German colleague at the language academy in Madrid asked me yesterday how to say this in English. I hadn’t heard the expression before: “If you talk about the king of Rome, he’ll pop his head in the door,” but I assume he means “Speak of the devil...” When I say this, his face lights up. “Oh, like in German!”

Lately I’ve been thinking about these things—idiomatic expressions in English that native speakers just know. I wonder about my son Pedro, soon to be born, who will grow up here in Spain—how will he learn them? I plan to speak to him in English, we will read books and watch videos and play games in English, we will make trips to the States as often as our budget allows; yet it seems inevitable that so much richness of expression will be lost. My husband will use Spanish, as will most everyone else we see regularly, and I can’t help noting that every book read or interaction had in one language takes time away from development in the other language. I built my vocabulary in large part by reading, but if I had to divide my reading time into two languages, would I have twice the vocabulary, or half, in two languages?

Walking home, I am about to cross the street when a car comes barreling down the road in front of me. Barreling, I think. What if this word never comes up in our books or videos? What if I never think to use it in front of our son—what will he say when he needs this word? The car was going very fast? I don’t remember the first time I heard it, or indeed any of the times after that. Like so many others, it was just there, part of my language environment, and somehow I picked it up.

Of course there are other things more important than vocabulary. Pedro will be able to communicate in two languages, which will be an asset for work, leisure, and building relationships. He will be familiar with two cultures, even if, as I fear in my more anxious moments, he feels only one of them to be truly his own. These are gifts we will give him, and that is no small thing. Yet I can’t help but mourn somehow the small losses that will accumulate along the way. As a writer, it is a personal bias, similar perhaps to the parent who is fascinated by the rigors of science and mathematics, but whose child gravitates instead to the world of art. Or the professional musician whose children don’t want to learn piano or violin, and instead spend their time playing football, basketball, hockey.

I suppose that if Pedro feels drawn to words, he will naturally find his way there. Maybe he will even add a few more languages into the mix! If instead he is intrigued by other things, that is fine, too. I will do my best to expose him to the world and its words—museums, concerts and plays, walks in the woods, computers, whatever I can. And I will trust that what I give him will be enough—and what he does with it will be up to him.

After (4 years later):

Now, all that angst seems a little bit silly to me (pregnancy hormones, anyone?). After four years as a parent, with two of those years as a mom of two, I’ve come to realize that whatever we hope for our kids is just our vision, and as individuals, each one will end up finding their own way. I knew that before, on some level, (as evidenced by the last paragraph above…) but now I really know it, or at least I’m slowly finding it out. Does the scientist really mourn that her child is an artist instead of a chemist? Probably she is just thrilled to see him find his own passion. Does it really matter if Pedro knows the word “barreling” when there are so many other words, in both of his languages, each with its own layers of meaning?

Still, I have yet to develop the philosophical attitude of some multilingual families, that language is just a tool, and each one will be used in as far as it is necessary for the purpose at hand. To me, language is much more—a vehicle for passing down a culture, a way to share special moments: reading the classic children’s books, reciting nursery rhymes, singing the songs of my childhood with my own kids. And I do all of those things, but when they are older they will be the ones choosing what they want to read (and if they even want to read at all, though I’m doing my best to ingrain the habit!) Ultimately, it is up to them, and that’s okay.

Indeed, Pedro has been a child with his own agenda from day one. He liked being read to—for about thirty seconds—but then was always up and running off to do something else. For him the many bookcases in our house have been more attractive as climbing structures rather than repositories of knowledge. He was a boy of few words, preferring to explore other areas of development instead. At two, a large part of his vocabulary consisted of the full repertoire of animal sounds, and a few key words thrown in here and there.
Now, at four, he has calmed down quite a bit. Visits to the States and exposure to English at home and through books and videos have brought his English up to speed, though he is still somewhat stronger in Spanish, the majority language. He sometimes enjoys a quiet moment sharing a book, but other times he is still impatient to get up and move. He does like pretending, though, and loves to hear me tell stories, so I do-- and then we act them out with his collection of toys. And finally he is starting to appreciate word games like the opposite game, “I say hot, you say …” and the like.

There are times when he is saying something, over and over, and I still don’t understand. Finally I ask him to explain what the word means, or to tell me in Spanish, and usually that helps, but sometimes he just keeps repeating the word, earnestly, urgently, waiting for understanding to dawn. And when I finally get it, “Oh! You mean xxxxx!” instead of an exasperated, “Yeah, so what took you so long?” his whole face lights up with the joy of communication.
And it is fun to watch him use language creatively. The other day he was playing with his stuffed rabbit and said “Now I’m going to put it into the not-escaping thing.”

“You mean a cage?” I asked. “Yes!” he replied. I just had to smile. While he is not as verbal as some other kids his age, he often blows me away with his imagination that can transform anything he finds lying around the house into an elaborate game.

On the other hand, my younger son, Elias, who is now two, has an impressive vocabulary and often speaks in complete sentences. He repeats whatever he hears, and manages both languages well. He is also drawn to books, and loves to point out letters and numbers when he sees them somewhere, even recognizing a few by name. Yet he learned to walk at fifteen months to his brother’s twelve, and thus far has shown little interest in scaling the furniture. It just goes to show that each child is different, or as they say in Spanish, “cada cabeza es un mundo,” each head is its own separate world. Right now I am optimistic about both children’s future language abilities, and I am excited to see where their worlds will take them.

Kate MacVean lives in Spain with her husband Santi and their two boys. She is a former columnist for Literary Mama. You can find the archives of her column, Mothering Abroad, here: www.literarymama.com/columns/motheringabroad/archives.html.

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