My DD is now bilingual!

[raisin3cookies]

My 12 yo DD just recently came home from a Spanish exchange, and is now fluent in two languages. I am sitting here, listening to her chatting on the phone with her Spanish mama, and how fluidly she moves from Spanish to English (calling out to her brother, etc). It's wild.

I took Spanish as a youngling, but never reached that level of fluency; DD has said she will be my teacher! I am loving listening to her chattering away, and am excited for our next family holiday to Spain. :)

Are you bilingual, or do you have bilingual children? Will this feeling of awe go away at all? (she thinks it's "awesome" that she's better than me at something!)

That is awesome. Well done her!
My dh is and I'm planning on taking a course secretly to surprise him and his family the next time they lapse into Italian!

That's a fantastic idea!

DH and DD are fluent Italian and English. I understand a lot, speak a good bit so don't feel left out. They switch languages a lot and fluidly.

Sounds fun to listen to. :)

How long was the exchange for?

My kids are all bilingual, but I'm English and DH is German and we've lived in Germany, in an area without other expats, since the eldest was a tiny toddler, so it happened automatically. The younger two sometimes slip up on English word order and only the oldest is fully bi-literate (they are in the German state education system) so its always a work in progress to keep their English level with their German.

Its very impressive your DD achieved functional bi-lingualism just on an exchange! Was it a long one? DH is bilingual and spent 6 months in America on an exchange at 13, after having studied at school for 2 years but also self taught due to an obsession with computers and all computer stuff being in English back then! The exchange is probably what flicked the switch though.

I am rubbish at languages, though I function day to day in German now I must sound like a right uneducated fool and it holds me back :( I really envy those with a gift for languages!