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The bilingual experienceI should have been bilingual (Spanish/English) from an early age, but I wasn't. All the conditions were there: a mother whose mother-tongue is Spanish but had learned English, and a father who speaks both. For various reasons Spanish was pushed aside and Mum made a point of speaking mainly English.There was always enough Spanish around for me to pick up a 'passive knowledge' of the language, meaning I could always understand everything, while not really being able to speak much.My Latin American relatives still remind me of my atrocious childhood pronunciation of 'pah-hah-reeto'. My hometown, Gibraltar, is a place where most people speak both languages but hardly anyone is truly bilingual. Some speak one well and the other not so well, and most speak both not so well. Many people find it hard to sustain a conversation, or even get to the end of a sentence, without switching to the other language. I had to re-learn Spanish as an adult, and when my son was born I resolved to aim for truly a bilingual upbringing. I read a couple of books on the subject which said that the ideal conditions are for both parents to speak and use both languages. In our case, I speak both but Mr C doesn't. The home language is therefore Spanish, as is the general environment, the DR. The mother tongue always has the main advantage, apparently. English being mine gives it enough counter-weight to balance the prevalence of Spanish elsewhere. I speak English to my son. Mr C speaks Spanish tohim. Mr C and I speak to each other in Spanish. In Spanish-speaking company I almost always use Spanish with him. We have some English-speaking friends as well as some bilingual ones. Again, we balanced out his exposure to Spanish by spending summers with my family in Gibraltar, where English prevails, but with enough Spanish around us for it to be retained. Chirimoyito went to a normal Spanish speaking pre-school, but for the last year has attended a bilingual school where he is the only truly bilingual child in his class. 6:10 PM - May. 29, 2005
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