Max is Creating a New Version of Spanglish

Max is Creating a New Version of Spanglish

1:29 PM Living in 2 Languages 0 Comments

We like to think we hung our Christmas Decorations early, but in Costa Rica, Ticos begin Christmas as early as October since Halloween and Thanksgiving are not really celebrated here. So the day after Halloween, we took down the ghouls and fake cobwebs, left the lights up and added all the Christmas decorations. Within 1 week, the whole street followed suit. We are all in the spirit and we have not even really thought about Thanksgiving or whether or not we will celebrate. The only question we have heard is, "Daddy, are jew gonna cook a turkey in the new smokehouse?" Matt looked at me with perplexity before replying to our 5 year old bilingual son, "No, son, we're not Jews, we are Catholics." Max did not understand the sarcasm, but I could not help but LMAO. We are so proud of Max for speaking so much Spanish in our new home, but we are constantly giving him pronunciation lessons in English. We also realize the importance of only speaking English in the house since he is immersed in Spanish within his school and in the neighborhood. We are not the only gringos in the neighborhood, but we are speaking Spanish the majority of the days in order to communicate with our neighbors, Max's teacher and the parents of all his friends. His Texan/Spanglish/Tico accent is already leaning towards the Spanish side, so looks like we have our work cut out for us. Hopefully my mom will bring some new books for us to read each night when she visits this Christmas, since I think that will be our best recourse for imprinting our native language.  Pura Vida!