Today I spoke to two of my cousins in different parts of the world... DC1 is a first cousin who lives in El Salvador. She is my age and like another sister to me. We had a nice chat to catch up on family news. Before I knew it, 45 minutes had elapsed. In San Salvador there is a two-hour difference from CA time, so we usually find each other at home on a weekend afternoon. I can't wait to see her in a few weeks when we travel to ES.
A few minutes after speaking to DC1, her brother, my DC2, called me from Geneva, where he has lived for the last 25 years. He and I had a nice long chat, too. It was 11:45 p.m. in Geneva and snowing very hard. I love updates on how DC2's children are doing in college. What a very talented group they are. It is impressive that my DC2's three children are fluent in English (their mother is American), French (the language of Geneva), German (the other prominent language in Switzerland), and Spanish (my cousin's first language). He is also multilingual, like most of the Swiss.
Did I mention that both of my calls were free? This is why I love using
Free Phone Calls
November 29th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
November 30th, 2008 at 01:15 am 1228007747
Dh's aunt is fluent in spanish and Mandarin (? I assume), since she lived so long in South America and Hong Kong. OF course she has no children. But I have a friend who is Indian and fluent in Italian, so her nephew was learning the Indian language and Italian, as well as english, as a toddler. IT always amazed me how how he didn't get all those languages confused. They seem to figure it out. I am always fascinated by people who can speak many languages.
My sons are s'posed to be fluent in spanish by the time they finish 5th grade, through school. I am a bit skeptical. But I guess when you learn young it makes it easier, so I do hope it gives them some edge. Since it's not an immersion program I don't particularly expect them to be fluent. They only have spanish class like an hour a week. Maybe it's more intense at the higher grades.
November 30th, 2008 at 01:33 am 1228008833
November 30th, 2008 at 02:39 am 1228012751
November 30th, 2008 at 04:19 am 1228018744