There was a time in Isabel’s brief life that half of her understandable vocabulary was Spanish. That was also the time when she only knew about 6 words. Needless to say, she now says a few more words, and seems to be saying more words in English. But ask her something in Spanish, and she knows exactly what you mean, exactly what to bring you, or exactly what needs to be done (within the limits of a toddler’s comprehension, of course). However, we’re still working on fetching drinks…
Mrs. FWL and I both took Spanish in high school and again in college. I always had the lofty goal of becoming somewhat fluent. But as the saying goes, “if you don’t use it, you lose it.” I remember times when we would say to each other, “Ok, let’s only talk in Spanish,” and after about 30 seconds, the exercise was done. I never watched telenovelas, even though I always heard that was a fantastic way to learn the language, and my already limited vocabulary never improved.
I know that we’d love for Isabel to be bilingual. But I also know that the limited amount of Spanish she gets from the babysitter during the week, or her grandparents on the weekends, isn’t going to cut it. We speak to her in Spanish whenever we remember, and half the time I say the wrong word. I am fairly confident that she’ll be able to understand Spanish for the rest of her life because she will always be exposed to it in some fashion (Mrs. FWL is Mexican/Cuban, so it’s inevitable), but I would love for her to be a fluent speaker.
My Spanish vocabulary is severely limited, which is why I really enjoy reading to Isabel in Spanish, and it doesn’t hurt that this girl LOVES to read, and be read to. Recently, she’s even wanted to read before getting out of her crib at the break of dawn. Well, the other day she reached for one of her new books, an English/Spanish book designed for babies/toddlers, that we’ve read non-stop since we got it at the LA book festival.
I reached out to the kind folks at Lil’ Libros to see if they would be willing to share these books with my readers, and they kindly obliged. Enter below for your chance to win a three-pack of their bilingual, first concept books (that yellow one, yea, that’s the one I’ve read a million times already).
Also, be sure to follow them on social media, to learn about their new projects:
Facebook: @Little Libros
Instagram: @lil_libros
Twitter: @Lil_libros
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