Se habla español.....

So the other day I was talking to Eli about learning Spanish and why she should.  We live in Puerto Rico, honey; people in Puerto Rico speak Spanish.

People always ask me if our kids speak Spanish fluently; and when I tell them not really, they wonder why since they were born in Puerto Rico and have lived there all of there lives. Learning another language has so many different stages:  the everything sounds like goballygook stage, the oh he just said house cool I know that word oh know now I missed the rest of the sentence stage, the I can carry on a one on one conversation with a person speaking slowly stage, the i understand everything being said stage but have a hard time speaking stage, the only speaking in the present tense stage, the i'm tired so I can't even speak English stage, the I'm afraid to make a mistake so I won't say anything stage, and the list could go on and on.....  Ben, Eli and Logan are in one or another of theses stages depending on the day, their attitude, who their with or any number of other things.  

I am convinced that most language learning is a result of being surrounded by speakers of that language. Eli is helping me to prove this idea true. Lately we have had a lot of Spanish speakers over to play, and she has suddenly adopted some new phrases. The part I find the funniest is that she not only picks up the Spanish, she picks up the Puerto Rican attitude...the volume level, the hand motions. So fun to watch and hear. ¡Me encanta!