Me llamo go to the bathroom

I just finished my first trimester of language school. It’s amazing how much I’ve learned in 13 weeks. Though I have plenty to learn, I know just enough to get around and get my main point across. The highlight of my time studying was my last day of phonetics class where I was able to answer my teacher’s question about the Christmas story in Spanish. I got to see the light bulb go off in her head as she understood the visit of the wise men and Herod’s genocide for the first time. This is exactly why I’m learning Spanish!

Patrick is also picking up on Spanish and is learning and applying things very quickly. He just spends time with Gina and applies all the rules I’m learning in my grammar class. The other day when I told him to say “hasta luego” (see you later) to one of my girlfriends, Patrick “corrected me”…. “mom, it’s supposed to be hasata luega. She’s a girl.” I had to explain that luego is always the same, but he’s got the whole gender thing down.

Patrick has also learned the phrase “me llamo Patrico” (I call myself Patrick), but he uses it as his go to phrase for anything. Me llamo yogert, me llamo leche (milk), me llamo go to the bathroom. We've taught him  to use “quiero __(name the item)__ “ but we’re still working on it.

He’s starting to use a lot of spanglish, but he knows which words are from each language… “I have 2 now, and if I get another I’ll have tres. Mom, that’s 3 in Spanish.” “I would like some leche, por favor. That means milk!” It’s simply amazing to watch his sponge like brain soak it all in.

While Patrick is learning a ton of Spanish through immersion, he still has times where he’ll tell me… “no more Spanish please. Please say it in English.” I often feel that way too! Language learning is a process, and we learn the best when we’re having fun.

Here's an audio clip of Patrick running through a basic Spanish introduction. He wanted to record something after hearing me record my Spanish tongue twisters for my phonetics class...

Hasta luego!