A blog about things I've read to my son, sometimes until I'm sick of them and have been driven to hide them! Children's book reviews, etc.
Friday, March 14, 2014
El Pez Arco Iris Colores/Rainbowfish Colors AKA: Reading in Spanish When You Don't Speak It
My husband is Latino. Born and raised in East Los Angeles in an area dominated by Spanish speakers. I'm mostly of European decent, and was raised in an area of Orange County that had a lot of Spanish speakers. My son is a little bit of a lot of stuff. My husband doesn't speak Spanish. His parents didn't either because of the stigma associated with Spanish speaking. I've started and either failed or dropped Spanish class a few times. We'd like to raise our son to be bilingual, but we're at a pretty big disadvantage.
I was recently at a friends home, who I'm pretty sure speaks Spanish. She's Latina, smidge of an accent. My in law's have accents too though, and speak just a few words of Spanish. My son brought me a book that was in all Spanish. It was from Disney Pixar Incredibles. So I read it.
Now, I know from school and exposure how Spanish is supposed to sound. I can read it phonetically and get the gist of what is going on. I can read it aloud with some success. There were some giant words in that book though! My tongue was tripping over itself, and it's kind of embarrassing trying to read Spanish in front of (and to, as my friends 5 year old daughter was hunkered in with my son for the story) native Spanish speakers. After a few times of reading the book and continually tripping over the words, I just started doing observation exercises with my friends daughter. My friend offered to let me take the book to practice, but I declined.
We have bilingual books at home. Partly to try to expose my son to other languages, but also because I'm going to school to be a preschool teacher, and we're taught to incorporate other cultures and languages. I think we currently have about 20 bilingual books, and they are read on occasion. I mostly read the books that my son brings me, but I will occasionally pull one out with intent.
This brings me to "El Pez Arco Iris Colores/Rainbowfish Colors". My son brought me this book to read. Oddly enough, the last two books he's brought me have been about colors. So,I read El Pez Arco Iris Colores/Rainbowfish Colors. I always read both languages, even if I struggle. Luckily the hardest word in the book is anaranjado, the Spanish word for orange. And I can pronounce the other words in the book with reasonable success. I may be rolling my R's too much, but at least I can roll them, right? That's what I'm going with.
Then, of course, he asks me to read the book over and over. And over. We read the book about 5 times last night,and about as many times today at least. The more times I read it, the more I trip over my tongue. On the bright side, I know that an octopus in Spanish is "el pulpo". We're both learning!
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