Guadalajara, Mexico: Part 9 Learning a Foreign Language

My two children back with they spoke allot of Spanish with grandma and grandpa Pittman

Both my children had childcare in the home of a Spanish speaking family with the childcare provider speaking almost always in Spanish out of necessity and with the permission of my wife and I or both speak Spanish. This was their world from 9am to 5pm from the ages of 16 months to two or three years old with some of their first words spoken in Spanish. As result both children became bilingual and I would often speak to them in Spanish to further their language skills. They then transitioned into an English language childcare and they stopped speaking Spanish accept on occasion with me. I am sure that they have not lost what they learned in their earlier preschool days and prolonged time spent in a Spanish language environment with their peers and adults for several months would draw out what’s in them already. In addition, interesting enough my daughter who spent more time at the day care than my son, shows greater interest in the Spanish language and regularly asks me to read the Spanish language parts of the bilingual children's devotional bible that we read to them on a daily basis to her. She also loves speaking to me on the phone when I am away on business trips in a make believe foreign language that play along with her. She will go on for a long time in this language if I role play with her. So in short, I should have started the journey to learn Spanish many years earlier than my decision to start doing so in Guadalajara, Mexico in 1992.