Taking the Plunge

I've always known that I should teach my kids Spanish. I really should.

See, when I was seven months old my family moved to Latin America. We spent two years in the Dominican Republic, five years in Puerto Rico, and then another two in Ecuador. My first words were in Spanish. I learned to read in Spanish before I learned to read in English. I even went to elementary school in Spanish. But then, when I was 9, we moved back to the United States. And for the next eight years I refused to speak it. At all. It's amazing how quickly you can lose a language when you don't use it for years. Especially when you learned as a child.

Places I've lived in Latin America

When I turned 17 my dad decided to revive my Spanish by sending me to Bolivia for my senior year of high school. When I arrived there I couldn't speak a lick. Well, except a few key phrases, intended to keep me from dying: "no entiendo," "quiero comer," and "donde esta el bano." (Which translate to: "I don't understand," I want to eat," and "where is the bathroom.")

Luckily, it's easier to learn a language the second time around - when I left Bolivia months later, I had completely recovered my Spanish. I even studied upper-division Spanish at BYU. My ability to speak was momentarily derailed during my Portuguese-speaking mission, but I got back on track by living in Chile for a few months and by teaching Spanish at the MTC.

My parents' home in Santiago, Chile.

Then I married Samuel. He speaks Spanish, too. We are practically morally bound to teach it to our kids! But it's HARD. We actually went through phase where we spoke Spanish at home and went to a Spanish Branch for church. But Seara was only 6 months old, and she obviously wasn't picking anything up, so we quit.

I keep making lists of the pros and cons of speaking Spanish to my kids, but they always look like this:

CONS
it will be hard
my accent is not perfect right now
it will be hard
my grammar could be better
it will be hard
my vocabulary could be broader
it will be hard
I can't express myself as easily in Spanish
it will be hard

PROS
My kids will speak Spanish!!

9-1. Cons always win.

But in the last few weeks Seara has suddenly showed a marked interest in Spanish. She keeps asking how to say things and she insists on praying in Spanish. I tried speaking Spanish to the kids for a few mornings and she immediately started calling Elijah "Elias" and Enoch "Enoque". Then, the other night, she woke up from a nightmare calling, "Mamá! Mamá!" and I knew.

It's time to take the plunge. I'm speaking Spanish to my kids.