Multi-Lingual Child

I love other cultures and languages. This is a love that runs in my family and has been cultivated by my family. For instance, my mother's father could speak 6 language fluently and could get by in maybe 5 or 6 more. My mother's mom's speaks Italian, and her mother came over from Italy. My mother majored in French in college and has picked up a decent amount of Italian, Spanish and German over the years. In my father's family, one of his sisters and his brother both married Filipino spouses. Although my dad struggles with languages, many members of his family speak English, Spanish and Tagalog with equal ease.

On all sides of my family, just about everyone has loved to travel. Londo's parents also love to travel and learn about other cultures, so there's definitely interest rom that side as well.

I can't wait until we are ready to travel to other countries with the Pumpkin and the Peanut. (What do you think? Is Peanut a good nickname for the boy?) I can't wait for them to understand and appreciate what other cultures and countries are like. I've already started introducing her to other languages and the idea of other cultures and countries. I've spoken to her some in Italian, read to her some Italian board books, sung nursery rhymes and songs in Italian and French, and played for her an Italian music and language CD for babies to toddlers. Our nanny is originally from Peru and teaches her some words and songs in Spanish. I must admit that TV has also helped, as she learns from Dora and Deigo, Ni Hao Kai Lan, and Toot and Puddle.

I've read that it is good to introduce other languages to children at a very young age. Not so that they can be child prodigies who are fluent in many languages. But for me at least, it's so that she hears the sounds of the other languages and becomes familiar with the idea of other languages. I was reading that often adults can't hear differences in the way some words are spoken in languages they haven't heard until they were adults. The ear loses the ability to distinguish certain sounds that it hasn't heard or needed to use before. So by introducing different languages and sounds to the Pumpkin at such a young age, she will hopefully have the ability to pick up languages later in life, if she so chooses.

She really seems to be enjoying and picking up on the other languages now. She seems to prefer the French "Frere Jacques" version to the "Are You Sleeping" English version. She also loves to sing a Spanish song the nanny taught her to the same tune. She cackles with glee and joins in a bit when I sing her the Italian song (I forget the name)about winter ending and May returning with the song of the coo coo--she loves the coo coo part.

Then one morning a few weeks, she was pretending to need help getting up while I was talking to the nanny before I left for work, and all of a sudden, we hear her go "ayúdeme" (Spanish for help me), which she obviously learned from Dora and Diego. The nanny and I just burst out laughing.

She also says "ni hao" (Chinese for hi) and "xie xie" (Chinese for thank you) to us, which she learned from Ni Hao Ki Lan. She knows some other Chinese and Spanish words for things like push and pull that she randomly throws out there. I need to keep working on Italian words, but I've kind of been slacking on that for a while. I used to tell her "nella bucca" when I wanted her to put her spoon/fork/food in her mouth instead of playing with it, and the Italian "bucca" for mouth sounds the same as the spanish.

As for English, my supergenius is exceeding in that communication for a 25 month old, so I'm not worried about any language delays or confusion due to introducing other languages.

Mostly, I just think it's fun to learn languages and have her learn them. And apparently, she thinks it's fun too!