Bilingual Girl

Here's a recent conversation I had with Trinity...

Trinity (pushing open the office door and running toward me - one of her current favorite games while I'm working and her babysitter, Lili, is watching her): Mamá!!!

Me: Sí, que quieres? (what do you want?)

Trinity: Teta! (bottle)

Me: Quieres teta? (do you want a bottle)

Trinity: Siiiii! (yesssss....)

At which point she ran out of the office to find Lili, who would help her get a bottle from the fridge.

This was the first entire conversation in Spanish that I've had with Trinity, although I have heard her communicating to Mexicans in Spanish. She started talking just a few months ago, and her list of English vocabulary is about the same length as her list of Spanish words.

I have to admit, it is very cute to hear baby-Spanish coming from her. It is often garbled and a little mixed up, pretty much the way other 19-month-olds might speak English.

Trinity seems to understand both languages very well. When she speaks, however, she usually learns a word in either English or Spanish, and then sticks with it. Ask her if she wants to put on her zapatos (shoes) for instance, and she'll respond with "shoes!" Or ask her if she would like some water, and she might answer by saying "agua."

But her learning is progressing well. Just this week she came up with her first official bilingual word. She now says both "cow" and "vaca" to refer to the black-and-white farm animal she sees in one of her favorite books. We're excited to see her growing in both languages, and are looking forward to having more bilingual conversations in the future.