Make Your Own Language Rules!
By Monica Barretos

Marrying someone outside of my culture (whichever one that is) was probably inevitable, given my upbringing. That is the subject for an article in itself.

My mom Esperanza was born and raised in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and left Mexico for the US in 1952. My dad James was born and raised in New Brunswick, Canada, and left for the US around the same time. They met and married in New York City, and so my sister Lucina and I grew up in the Big Apple. Being the product of a mixed marriage made me different way back when it wasn't so easy to be different, but New York City was the place to be different. Although my mom didn't teach me Spanish, I learned it on my own at the age of 13, and have been speaking it ever since.

I met my husband Guillermo (from Lima , Peru) in 1989 in Washington, DC. Within 5 months we were married, and soon after he became an American citizen. Our first baby, Renato Alonso, was born in 1992, and we decided to speak only Spanish to him. Even though Spanish is not my native language, you would not know that to hear me speak. I have no accent, although a native speaker will notice some grammatical flaws if speaking to me long enough. This plan did not go well with my well-intentioned parents, who thought we were going to mess Renato up for life! For some reason, I knew they were wrong, so I set out to prove them wrong.

I spoke to Renato in Spanish until the age of 4. He was enrolled in a bilingual program, so was learning both languages, but his accent in English was so heavy that I thought it best to change. Guillermo continued speaking in Spanish to Renato, and to me. Around the same time, in 1996, his brother Andoni Ricardo was born, and again, we spoke only Spanish to him. That made for very interesting dinner conversations, since Guillermo and I spoke Spanish to each other, I spoke English to Renato and Spanish to Andoni, and the boys spoke Spanish to each other and to their father. Read on…it gets even crazier!

When Andoni was 7 months old, his dad quit his job to stay home to care for him. Andoni was not exposed to English the first two years of his life, and when we would go to church or some social event with non-Spanish speakers, Andoni would try and talk to everyone in Spanish, and get very upset that no one understood him. I then made the difficult decision to switch to English with him, when he was 2 and Renato was 6. The boys, however, still spoke Spanish to each other, and to their father. Andoni learned English within a couple of months, and spoke it perfectly, without accent or errors, almost right away.

At some point, probably when Andoni was 4, the boys started speaking English to each other. At first, it became their language of play, and a year or so after that, it became their default language. However, they still spoke Spanish to their father, and to other Spanish speaking members of the family.

But wait…there's more! I figured that if they could learn two languages so easily, and at such a young age, why not more languages? When Renato was 2, I tried to find a program or class for him to be exposed to Japanese (or some other difficult language), but was unsuccessful in Washington DC at that time. Instead, I found plenty of opportunities for French, and since I had studied it since high school, Renato began being exposed to French around the age of 4. He went to a French summer program two years in a row, and I would read to him in French, and he watched videos and listened to tapes. When Andoni came along, I decided that instead of spending the money on French summer camp…why not go to France? I found a house in a little village in the south of France , and we went for two months. The boys were enrolled in a local summer camp, and we had a lovely time. Check out our France blog here for a description of that first month.

In 2001, I started a new job, and we were posted to Tunis, Tunisia . At this point, Renato knew a lot of French, but had never spoken it in my presence. Andoni was 4 ½ years and a language sponge, so we made the decision to put him in a Tunisian private school. Over the next two years he learned French, Tunisian Arabic and a bit of classical Arabic. Renato also studied French and Arabic, along with his regular studies in English.

We had such fun those two years with languages. Latifa, a woman who helped us in the house every day, only spoke Arabic and a very basic French, so Andoni would speak to me and his brother in English, to his dad in Spanish, and to Latifa in French and Arabic, all in one conversation. He did it seamlessly, seemingly unaware of his accomplishment. When my mother heard that, she admitted that the children could indeed learn multiple languages without it affecting their development.

When we moved to Honduras, Andoni was put in the French system, and has been doing well, learning in French and Spanish, and receiving tutoring in English after hours. On top of that, after hearing some of his friends (sons of a Japanese mom and an American father) speak Japanese to their mom, Andoni asked for lessons in Japanese, so has been studying Japanese at home for over a year, and loving it. Renato, on the other hand, decided he was tired of French, and so has started learning German.

So the bottom line is that if exposed to different languages in a fun way, children will learn the languages. But we as parents do put a lot of effort into it, and people do think us a bit crazy, and it is tiring at times. However, we feel we are giving our children a benefit that they will profit from the rest of their lives, whether it in the form of always being able to get a job, or being able to fit in easily in other countries, or just being more aware of the people around them.

We are now off to Buenos Aires, Argentina this summer, so will continue Andoni in the French system (and he will continue with Japanese classes), and Renato will be in an international school, where he has agreed to take up French again, along with his Spanish and English studies.

My only wish is that we adults could pick up new languages so easily. Guillermo and I are still struggling with our French!

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