Grammar and Tones

I recently bought my son a new book. It’s a book about a wolf and a sheep. The wolf invites the sheep for dinner – but the sheep is the dinner. Of course, it’s a children’s book for 3-year-olds, so the wolf soon realises that he actually likes the sheep and would rather eat vegetable soup together with the sheep.

My son picked the book himself in the bookstore. This is nothing special, but what is special is that the book is in Spanish, and my son doesn’t speak Spanish. Maybe he has overheard a few words on our many stays in Spain: playa (beach), churros con chocolate, zumo de naranja (orange juice).

I was reading the book to him in the bookstore in Spanish and my son listened to it full of excitement and looked at the pictures. He panicked a bit on the page when the wolf wanted to eat the sheep. On the next page the wolf realised that he actually liked the sheep and sent it away so he wouldn’t be tempted to eat it. My son got really afraid again when the sheep was out alone in the cold and wanted to go back to the wolf. A roller-coaster of emotions for a three-year-old.

It was fascinating to see how excited he was about the story, even though he had to guess out what happened based on the pictures and the few Spanish words he knew. By the end of the book, he could point out where the sheep and the wolf were when I asked him “donde está la ovejita?” and “donde está el lobo?“. This is how kids learn a language. He then wanted to buy the book, and I gave him my phone so he could pay for it at the checkout. Since then, he wants me to read it to him every day.

Now when we read it, he sometimes asks me questions in Spanish: “que es esto?” (what’s that?); “que es ‘frio’?” (what does ‘cold’ mean?). I try to respond in Spanish and explain him with body language and by pointing to the pictures. Sometimes he understands. Sometimes he doesn’t. When he really wants to know it, he says: “Papa, auf Deutsch sagen” – “daddy, say it in German”, and I tell him in German.

The fascinating thing is that my son is already trilingual: he speaks German, Chinese, and English, fluently. Or rather: as fluent as a typical 3-year-old speaks any language. But yet, he chose to read a Spanish book, too. I didn’t ask him to. He took the book out and asked me to read, and he didn’t mind that it’s in Spanish. For him, it is totally normal that people speak different languages, and that some languages you might understand quite well, some languages you might understand just a bit, and some language you might not understand at all. It is totally normal for him that there are words whose meaning you don’t know, and you have to figure out their meaning from looking at pictures, observing people, or by asking someone to translate or explain.

He recently went to his (and mine) favourite café and told the waiter: “cinco churros” (five churros). And he got 5 churros – three for me and two for him. He is learning his fourth language.