LANGUAGE LEARNING AT AGE 4

I first started learning Spanish when I was 4 years old, when my family moved to Paraguay to work in church planting there. I don't remember not knowing Spanish and I don't remember learning it.

That said, I have definitely had to brush it up since moving to Mexico, as the Spanish pronunciation and some grammar is different than in Paraguay, and I had also been living in Canada for some years before we moved here and wasn't speaking it nearly as often. I did take one semester of Spanish as a brush up before we moved here, while Dallas was taking the full year.

So, I can't really say what it's like to learn a language from scratch, but while we were at language school I really had to respect those that were learning for the first time! That included Dallas, who had taken a bit of Spanish before, but learning it to speak it fluently is another matter. It's much more difficult doing it as an adult (but do-able).

Fast forward to this last year, when our newest addition, Salomón moved in with us at 4 years old last July!

When he moved in he had never heard English before. He arrived not understanding anything and so we spoke mostly Spanish in our house so that he would adapt to our family without having that barrier in the way. Bit by bit we started talking half English and Spanish and just let what came out, come out when we were together as a family in the house.

Kids pick language up naturally when they hear it a lot, and we had seen our other 3 boys learn Spanish and English simultaneously, as they were living here when they learned to speak. So we knew that Salo would eventually pick up English just by living with us and hearing it often. But I thought it would take longer!

Over Christmas break is when we really saw how much he speaks already. We had two sets of visitors from Canada over the break and so he heard a lot of English, and he said that he wanted to practice his English.

He is now talking in sentences and it is so cute and amazing.

For sure he still speaks Spanish better than English, and we still talk a lot of Spanish with him, especially when talking directly with him about something he's feeling or something that happened or just to connect better with him as he can express himself better in Spanish. But, he is doing so well and enjoying it.

It's fascinating the way our brains work, and it's fascinating to watch someone learn a language without even having to really try!

The best example of learning this way was the other day when he asked me, "Can I go grab a sweater?". He's using our expressions and sayings (grab) in context and without thought.

So, it's been fun to watch this.