What My Toddler Taught Me About Speaking Spanish (And Why It Changes Everything)
How watching my 3-year-old learn English helped me overcome my biggest barrier to speaking Spanish - and how it can help you too.
An Unexpected Teacher
In summer of 2024, I noticed something remarkable while watching my daughter - who was 3.5 and really starting to speak English more - starting to put together sentences and share more complete thoughts. What I noticed was that her English wasn’t perfect, but I still understood her.
Language Lessons From a Three-Year-Old
She would say ‘he’ when she meant ‘she’, and I still understood her.
She would say the wrong word, and I still understood her.
She would mispronounce a word, and I still understood her.
Not only this, but she did it all without self-consciousness.
Let that sink in for a moment.
If I didn’t understand her, I would ask her questions, encourage her to find a different way of saying it. I simply listened carefully and sought to understand her, without judgement. Obvious, right? She’s a little kid learning to speak English, of course her English isn’t perfect.
Then, the lightbulb moment hit:
💡 I speak Spanish about as well as she speaks English. Why am I so self-conscious about speaking it?
The Hidden Rules We Never Signed Up For
Outwardly, I believe speaking another languages is a superpower. But inwardly, something held me back from learning it.
Somewhere along the line, there became a idea that when an adult learns a new language, they should learn it 1) perfectly; and 2) quickly. Sure, people might say the opposite. But take a listen inside your body:
When you hear someone speaking poor English (or whatever your native language is), how do you notice yourself responding?
What do you feel when you try to speak a new language? Self-consciousness? Embarrassment? Shame? Pride?
If you’ve attempted to learn to speak Spanish before, how do you feel about the idea of starting again? Excited? Disheartened? Doubtful?
These internal sensations aren’t good or bad - they are simply information about conscious or subconscious attitudes you might have about language learning and being a beginner at something. Whatever you sense inside, it’s okay.
🎯 Your feelings about language learning aren't good or bad—they're information about your unconscious beliefs.
For me - as much as I wish this weren’t the case - I realized 1) my subconscious attitude was that someone is less intelligent if they were speaking poor English; 2) I felt incredibly self-conscious and embarrassed whenever I tried to speak Spanish; and 3) that I felt like I should have gotten it by now, that maybe I just wasn’t cut out to speak another language.
What's Actually Normal in Language Learning
To help you reorient your expectations about learning to speak a language, all of these things are normal when learning to speak another language:
You don’t know words. You forget words. You say the incorrect word. You make up words. You leave out words.
You mispronounce words. You don’t match nouns and adjectives. You don’t match verbs and adverbs. You don’t correctly conjugate verbs.
Sounds feel strange and weird coming out of your mouth. Your tongue and mouth gets tired. Your brain gets tired.
You pause when you try to recall something. Sometimes these pauses are long (and they FEEL even longer, haha).
You get asked to repeat yourself. You get confused looks from others. You get sympathy (or impatience) from others.
⚡️ Everything we consider a "mistake" in adult language learning is actually a normal part of the process—just ask any toddler.
The Permission Slip You've Been Waiting For
Here it is:
🌱 You have permission to learn Spanish like a toddler. To make mistakes. To speak imperfectly.
To learn gradually, naturally, and without shame.
Learning Spanish Alongside Your Kid: A Game-Changing Approach
When you notice yourself holding back, witnessing your kid learning English can be a powerful way to shift back into giving yourself permission to continue learning. For me, it’s worked more powerfully than any reassurance or logical argument.
So the next time you hear your child confidently mangling their native language while getting their point across perfectly well, remember: that's exactly what successful language learning looks like. And if it works for them, it can work for you too.
