Language Jealousy

For some reason I'm obsessed with languages. Probably not as much as dancing, but definitely obsessed nonetheless. When I was studying to become a linguist, I learned that children are linguistic geniuses.

<Begin Boring Lecture Snippet> As a child develops cognitively, their minds are very susceptible to linguistic information and they learn language at an amazing rate. After a certain age (usually puberty) the child hits a linguistic wall known to most linguists as "the critical age". At this point in a child's development it becomes much more difficult for a child to acquire language as a native speaker. </End Boring Lecture Snippet>

I was not brought up in a bi-lingual home so I only learned to speak English like a native speaker. Just after I hit the critical age, I started to learn another language (German) and then didn't start learning Spanish until after I was 20 years old. I can speak a lot more Spanish than German, but my German accent is WAY better than my Spanish accent. The older one gets, the harder it is to sound like a native speaker.

Reuben is Mark and Andrea's son who was born in the States but moved to Guatemala with his parents before his first birthday. Now he's five years old and is fluent in Spanish and English. To him, switching between the two languages is like breathing - he doesn't even have to think about it. That makes me jealous.

Yesterday I watched Ruben as he was playing with his toys and I told him that I was jealous of his language skills. He replied with, "I know."

About an hour later we all sat down to eat lunch at the kitchen table. Ruben volunteered to pray. We bowed our heads and Ruben began to pray in English. After saying, "Amen" everyone looked up to see Ruben still bowed. He immediately began the prayer over. This time in Spanish. Everyone quickly bowed their heads again.

At the conclusion of the Spanish prayer, Ruben looked up at me and with a prideful smile said, "Jealous?"

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