AdventureDad

Casa AdventureDad is like few others.  A Mexican from the world largest city with a Swede from  the Arctic Circle meeting in U.S.  20 years ago. Amazingly, and against all odds, still a couple. We've traveled the world on crazy vacations and now our son is included in the adventures.  We've grown up mostly in the U.S. but also in Mexico and Sweden.  Just image the culture clashes we and our families have!  As many know we are raising Daniel to be tri-lingual from the very beginning.  Not because it's cool, but because it's part of our everyday lives.  As Daniel grows older we hope that his excellent language skills will be very helpful.

I speak only Swedish with Daniel, Sandra only Spanish, and then we speak English with each other.  This solution was reached by talking to other people in similar situations and checking out all the great resources on the net to find what multi-cultural couples do.  So far things have worked out very well but our tri-lingual chats tend to confuse the hell out of people around us.  The only "drawback" with this solution is that Daniel speaks a little later and also less than other kids his age.  But we don't see this as a disadvantage since we are aware of the immense benefits down the road of being tri-lingual.  Daniel understands most things, especially in Swedish and Spanish, and him babbling a few months later than his friends is of no concern to us.  His speech has improved dramatically in the last few weeks, just after we got back from Germany, and he has now started to speak in different languages to me and Sandra.  Previously, he just said the same mixed Spanish-Swedish phrases to both of us but he has clearly come to the conclusion that the languages should be used differently.   He now speaks almost exclusively in Swedish to me and in Spanish to mommy.  I just can't describe how cute and weird it is to hear him explain things to us!

To kick it up a notch  we moved from tri-lingual to quad-lingual during our two weeks in Germany.  I speak pretty good German although I have forgotten some since I don't use the language much anymore.  I've been focusing more on Spanish instead.  But my German is still in the back of my head and it came back very quickly. Daniel is used to us speaking three languages at once but  moving on to four is perhaps a bit of a stretch.   We stayed with some very good friends during our recent visit and they have three young children who speak  little English.   So I was of course speaking German to the children.  I would ask Daniel something in Swedish and Sandra would add something in Spanish.  We would at the same time be chatting  to each other in English  and I would also be speaking to the German kids sitting next to Daniel in German.  In the beginning, our son would look at me in a funny way as  I spoke German. He would chuckle, laugh, and say "Pappa, Pappa….." the first day as to point out that I was acting strange. But it's simply amazing how quickly children adapt.  After a day or so he was used to it. I wish I could still adapt at the same pace as my son!  Daniel even picked up a few German words during our two week stay which sounded odd but very cute.  It's completely normal for me to juggle three languages at once without thinking about it.  I do it every day. At first, I kept thinking in Spanish when I tried to speak German but that quickly changed.  I think it's great to force my brain to do some different things as I'm getting older and more set in my ways.  But the reactions of the people around us in Germany was one of astonishment.  They were impressed/scared/wanted to call children's services, especially the older ones, because we were using all these languages with our son.  99% of the people in Sweden  speak excellent English and they are rarely surprised over someone using two languages with their children.  They tend to react when we use three languages but are always supportive and point out how great that is for our son.    The reactions in Germany tend to be more muted and it's not very common that  a family uses several languages at once.  Hardly surprising since the Germans are hopelessly conservative and at least ten years behind the rest of the world in many areas.  When  mentioning internet, email, credit cards, stores open on a Sunday, or a global economy the Germans get that puzzled look in their eyes.  What, are you saying the world is not exactly the same as  30 years ago? Well, we don't care, we refuse to change! They are even worse than the Swedish at handling change.  And that is very scary.

How many of you use more than language in your daily communications within the family?   I bet it's quite a few of you.  The world is becoming so much smaller and families are moving around more than before.  Not only that but because of the workplace becoming more global people tend to more often fall in love in people from other countries or continents.  This complicates things but a good relationship can usually handle many difficult obstacles.  The long term outcome of our language experiment with Daniel is still unknown but we feel very confident it will work out well. We are expecting our second child any day now, a little baby girl, and we plan on exposing her to the same barricade of languages as Daniel.  Now that we are "experienced" parents we have no doubt she will handle the challenge like a true multi-cultured child.  In other words great.

Have a nice tri-lingual week:-))!

Categories: Daniel, Family, Sandra, Tanditas, Travel, Tri-Lingual
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