Earlier this week I was in my room, working on my computer, when I noticed a little boy sitting on my bed smiling at me. Although I wasn’t totally sure who he was, I quickly figured out he was our cleaning woman’s son who had been brought along for the day. In typical kid fashion, he began asking me a million questions: What are you doing? What’s that? Where are you from? Why do you talk funny? In a matter of minutes, I realized I wasn’t going to be able to shake this kid, so I went ahead and tried to answer his questions. He quickly figured out that Spanish is not my native language and he was thrilled to teach me new words and politely correct my pronunciation. After an hour, my new eight-year-old companion had taught me a dozen or so new words and how to pronounce my “O”s better.
As I’ve been working to learn Spanish these last few months, I have found that kids are incredibly good teachers. They are patient, talk slow, and generally like to share their language with you. I imagine for kids, who have adults teaching them things all day, it’s rather fun to be able to teach an adult something they don’t know.
Further, kids don’t feel the need to vary their language all the time. They will use the same phrase over and over again. The repetition is great for anyone trying to learn a language. Take for example my students at the school. I have heard the phrases “Saca mi punta,” and “Él me está molestando!” so many times that I will never forget how to ask to have my pencil sharpened or to express when someone is bothering me. Multiply hearing these same phrases all day over the course of six months and you’ll find you’ve learned a lot of Spanish without ever opening a book.
So my words of advice to anyone who is learning a new language – start with the kids! You’ll learn a ton and probably laugh quite a bit while you’re at it.
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Lauren, that is great advice! It also makes things more fun because, while an adult teacher might frown on your mistakes, kids will roll on the floor laughing. And while the teacher is focusing on imperatives and object pronouns, it’s the kids who drill “dámelo” into your head!