“¿Aló?
Koekiemonster? ¿Cómo estás? In de was? Sí, goed. Tot gauw!”
One of my
daughters pretended to be talking on the phone with Cookie Monster. She had
just turned 2 years old a few days before. This was probably the first clear
example of her already acquired knowledge of both Spanish and Dutch, and her
ability to use both in the same sentence in a fluent way and without
hesitating. From that moment onwards, language skills have been developing at
an impressive pace, and both of my girls keep surprising me every day with new
acquired words and sentences, in both of their languages.
Language
development in early childhood is always something wonderful to witness. The
quick changes from baby sounds to first words to a toddler who speaks (and
understands!) more and more every day are quite impressive. But when there are
two or more languages involved, it is even more amazing to see how small
children adapt so easily to a multilingual environment and develop their
language skills in all involved languages at the same time.
