Spanish

Alfredo speaks in Spanish to the girls. We hope that they will be truly bilingual when they grow up. However, they are definitely exposed to more English than Spanish and English is their more dominant language. We think both of our girls are smart and beautiful, but Ella seems to have a real talent for learning language. She was putting 2-3 words together at about 15 months and now speaks in complete sentences most of the time. She often uses words that surprise us.

On Friday, Alfredo took the girls to the mall and to McDonalds for lunch. They drove past a large building and Alfredo pointed to it and told them to look at "el edificio grande". Ella immediately repeated "edificio". Michelle tried to say "edificio" but didn't pronounce it quite right so Alfredo repeated it again and told her to try it again. After a couple tries, she got frustrated and told Alfredo to "stop talking that made up language and speak a real language."

Later on Friday, Alfredo used the word "righteousness". Michelle said, "Daddy, I told you that I don't speak Spanish. Talk with real words... in English." :)

Michelle speaks/understands more Spanish than she lets on. And she can roll her rrr's like no other. In fact, as a baby/toddler, I could always tell if it was Michelle crying even from another room because she did this cute trilling of her r's when she cried. She's lost that cry now that she is older, but she can still roll her rrr's as well as any native Spanish speaker. Mirielle, with all her ability to learn vocabulary, can not roll her rrr's at all.