Sh*t My Kids Say #5 – The Spanish Book
It’s no secret that Dora the Explorer has stolen a large chunk of the children’s television market. Part of the draw of the show for parents is that kids get a chance to dabble in a second language.
A three year old doesn’t understand that there are people who speak different languages and therefore doesn’t know the difference between English, French, Spanish and so on.
I recently brought my son to the Library to pick out some new books for circle time at the day care. I always let him pick out his own book too and he always selects a french book first.
I don’t know if the pictures are cooler in french or if it’s because they are the first books you pass by but he will always gravitate to the french section first.
I tried to explain to him a few weeks ago that, while Daddy does speak french, translating the book to English is a bit of a tough task and I asked him to select a book from the English section.
This is the conversation we had yesterday at the Library.
D: “Okay buddy, go ahead and pick out a book.”
L: “Okay Daddy!” **Looks for about 8 seconds** “Here’s a great book Daddy! It has a Boat!”
D: “Sure pal, whatever book you want”
L: **Sits at the table and opens it** “I think I need to find a different book Daddy.”
D: “Why? That one looks good and you love boats.”
L: “I think this one’s Spanish.”
D: “Nope, it’s in English. How do you even know what Spanish is?”
L: “Remember yesterday, you told me not to pick the Spanish books.” **Everything happened yesterday by the way**
D: “That was not yesterday, it was 2 weeks ago and I said don’t pick French books, not Spanish”
L: **Blank stare** “Okay Daddy. I’ll take this Spanish one with the boats!”
D: “Haha, okay pal.”
*****************************************************************************
I’d like to note that I am not against my kids learning another language, I just think it’s more important for them to master the one they are going to use on a day to day basis first.
Plus I hate translating things, LOL!
Cheers!!
Too funny! Why not read the books in French rather than translating?
He’s only 3 so it would just sound like jibberish to him, lol.
How do you say boat in French?
I wonder if French *would* sound like gibberish to him. My 3-year old regularly switches between English (her “main” language), Spanish, and Hebrew. She definitely knows the difference between the languages, by name, and doesn’t “mix” them.
The other day she told me she thought we should speak French. Alas, I don’t know French. But she seemed pretty confident that maybe someday we would learn it together.
So, my point–some kids DO know the difference between languages and can switch between them quite effortlessly.
I have no doubt he’d figure it out but he starts school in September and will be learning French his whole life so I figured I`d give him a break for now, lol.
lol very cute!
Thanks Jen, it is true, he can be cute at times, haha.
Julien went through a long phase of “yesterday”…..