Speaking two languages is a huge asset in today’s ever more international world that we live in.

I grew up only speaking English and learned Spanish while living in Latin America. This means that I still struggle with many concepts of the Spanish language. Articles are probably what bother me the most.

Why do objects have a gender to begin with? The book is a book. It’s neither male nor female in my English-speaking brain.

Another challenge is that I speak more quickly than my brain can process all of those articles and what they connect to in the prior sentence or later on in the same sentence.

The girls have grown up speaking both but the longer we are here in the US the more evident has become that their English needs help. Their English many times seems like a translation from a Spanish sentence.

Almost like watching a telenovela, Spanish soap opera, in English. It just doesn’t all make sense.

If I have to go to work on Monday, I may say something like, “I don’t work until Monday.” However, a common variation at home has been, “I work until Monday.”

It doesn’t make sense in English I know, but how Spanish was spoken where we lived it did.

This can lead to many frustrating and unfilled promises. Not due to malice but to misunderstanding.

Our speaking patterns and structure can be confusing as we go back and forth in our many languages, but it also leads me to see that so many times our brains are one of our major problems.

My English-speaking brain also thinks many times in English.

Yes, I have gotten to the place where I can think in both languages.

Side note- most people that speak multiple languages have different tones for each language. I sound very different in English than Spanish. I would even argue that sometimes your personality can be different too.

Back to our brains.

Thinking in English means that I see things through a certain lens, and I understand things differently than others.

Being bilingual has opened my eyes to other ideas, other ways of thinking, and to see that the way my brain thinks by default isn’t the only way and that many times it’s not the best.

Not everyone needs to speak multiple languages, but I hope that by seeing the struggles of our languages and conversations at home helps you to see the world differently.