First words: Which language will it be?
A slow start
"I planned to raise our first son to be bilingual from the day he was born, but at the time, my native Spanish-speaker husband was focused on learning English and my Spanish wasn't yet good enough; it wasn't working out as I had hoped. For the first year our son spoke only English but when we took a trip to El Salvador, surrounded by the Spanish language for the first time, he suddenly started using the word ‘agua’ for ‘water.’ Since then, he (and now his little brother) have become bilingual, but remembering that first word in Spanish still makes me smile." —Tracy López
Más leche
"Try as I might, my kids aren't fully bilingual yet. When they were little, I spoke Spanish a lot more though, and aside from mama and dada, I think one of my daughter's first words was 'yeche,' her version of 'leche.' I sure do miss those days!" —Monica Olivera
Leche otra vez
"Raising my kids to be bilingual was something that was going to happen in my household one way or another. I spoke Spanish to my oldest every minute of every day and my husband would speak to him in English. His first words were 'papa' and 'no.' Then he moved on to 'mama' weeks later. When he was about 11 months old, he blurted out the word 'leche' for milk. I remember it bringing tears to my eyes. The constant repetition of the words I grew up hearing started to pay off and we were on our way to raising our little guy bilingual." —Jessie Nuez
French and Spanish
"Ever since Enzo was born, I've spoken to him en español and his father has spoken to him in French. My mom, as Enzo's primary caretaker, and his babysitter, also spoke in Spanish to him, so as expected, Enzo picked up more Spanish than French, and his first word was 'agua.' Honestly, I do not remember what his first word in French was. Maybe it was 'encore' which means 'more.' I do remember that the first time I heard him code-switching was when he was asking for agua and he asked me 'Más agua' – when I responded 'Pídele a Papá', he went to his father and said 'Papá encore' and I was blown away. I will never forget that moment!" —Diana Limongi Gabriele
Spanglish in Tennessee
"My daughter's first word in Spanish was 'leche.' In fact, most of her words were in Spanish, which was a huge joy to me as I set out on the quest to raise a bilingual in the heart of Tennessee. It's funny, though, now at 10, she is not fully bilingual, she still uses her original Spanish words: leche, pelo, gato and throws them in right there in the middle of her sorta-twangy English. It works. I speak mostly Spanglish, anyway, and hey, at least her accent is pretty good." —Carrie Ferguson Weir
Más
"I love the age my son is at currently. At 18-months-old, Sebastian is 100 percent bilingual; whatever he knows in English, he also knows in Spanish. I'll never forget his first Spanish word, as it came right after 'mama' and 'dada' and before English words. Since we also expose the kids to sign language, I was excited when Sebastian started to use the sign for 'more' while saying 'maaa', which to me, of course, meant 'más.' It was so exciting! My little boy is speaking Spanish!" —Vanessa Martinez Bell
