02 December, 2011

A Playground of Languages

As an au pair, I take my two little slugs to the park every day. Some days just to sit and have our merienda, and some days to play. On Mondays and Wednesdays we can spend an hour and a half there, until it gets dark! The park is situated in between about 3 different elementary schools. I know this because there are about 3 different types of uniforms frolicking around on the swings, slides and sand.

My favorite thing about the park, is that every day, I can hear at least 4 different languages being spoken, sometimes more!

Of course there is Spanish spoken by all, but then I can also hear English spoken by moi, and by a wonderful family I met from Miami who now lives here in Madrid and the twins go to Vio's school. Some days I catch some people speaking German, but they never stick around too long. Around 5:15 everyday two little girls come running to the park speaking French with their mother. And recently, there has been a new little spaniard showing up with her au pair... from CHINA!

So on any given day, these children playing at the park are exposed to their mother tongue, English, French, Chinese and maybe even a hint of German! What lucky kids!

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