Fun Night!

Reed got off early tonight so we had a quick dinner and then walked to the neighborhood park. The weather was perfect and there was another family there right as we walked up. This family had two cute little girls, and none of them spoke very much English at all. Carson doesn't fully grasp that people are speaking other languages, at least initially, and when she was talking to him at rapid-fire pace he thought she was just making funny noises and began saying "Blahblah blah!! blah blah! do da!!" back to her. I didn't want them to be offended and think he was making fun of her, so I started trying to translate. Boy, it is so much harder to translate in real life than it is in a classroom! But I got the gist of things and the mom came up and began interpreting as best she could for her daughter as well. They ended up really enjoying their playtime and were copying each other's phrases "Ven conmigo!!" and "Come with me!" and I took the opportunity to learn a few new words. Sombra (sp) means shadow...and we couldn't quite figure out if there was a word in Spanish for the game of "Tag"...all she kept repeating was jugar (to play), corre (run) and toca (touch??)...but all in all, I think we did really well. We even said at the end of the night "Quieres jugar conmigo un otro dia?" which hopefully means something along the lines of maybe we can play again another day, because they smiled and said yes. We said "Adios!" And they all yelled "Byebye!!"

very cute cross-cultural action, indeed. :) it also made me realise I REALLY need to brush up on the spanish and help the boys learn it before they get into school. it is SO prevalent around here, I don't want them to be behind...anyone have any suggestions? Kala, I'm looking at you, here...