Adventures in Spanish

Dora the Explorer and I have been teaching Cailey Spanish the past couple of months, and while we are still working on the pronunciation on several phrases I am quite pleased with how much she remembers. Also I think it's hilarious when Spanish phrases come out at the supermarket at an almost shouting volume. If anything, we are entertainment for our fellow shoppers right?
Some phrases that she says on a fairly regular basis are:
Grapido instead of rapido
Pecado instead of cuidado- be careful
Espera-command to wait
Largo- long
Corto-short
Santa instead of salta-command to jump
Amadillo instead of Amarillo- yellow

There's more, but I have one's she says most often down.  It is especially funny when she says grapido to have me push the shopping cart fast. We have gotten quite a few odd looks with that one lol.  She is getting better with her pronunciation and she is picking up more words all the time. I don't have any plans to teach her Russian right now. I don't want to confuse her, that's why I waited so long to start teaching Spanish. I wanted her to get English down well before we start adding Spanish to the mix. I just feel like trying to keep multiple foreign languages straight is difficult, well it is for me anyway. I know it is pretty standard to speak at least four languages in Europe. On a good a day I am barely able to do three. To my European friends, you have my respect and admiration.  When I was in college I had a Russian class right after a Spanish class, oh boy that was confusing! Part of the class assignments was to get up and teach for a few minutes in the foreign language. I often accidentally used Russian words in my Spanish class and vice-a-versa. I feel like trying to study multiple languages is like doing brain push-ups!
In fact those that speak a foreign language have a delay of the onset of Alzheimer's by an average of 5 years. Also, according to the New York Times, speaking a foreign language forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles. Bilinguals, for instance, seem to be more adept than monolinguals at solving certain kinds of mental puzzles. Here is the link to the article if you would like to read more on the subject.  There is also the added benefit of being better at your native language as well. So here's hoping that teaching her (and Jason when he is ready) Spanish will not only give her the advantage of knowing a second language, but it will help math and English come easier to her as well. Drop and give me 20 brain push-ups Cailey. :)