Learning Language, especially a second language

A number of years ago while travelling in El Salvador I had the privilege of sharing a meal with a bilingual family. The little boy, who I think was only two or three, spoke both Spanish and English fluently, with a preference for Spanish. He spoke Spanish to his parents, but when initiating conversation with myself and my friend spoke in English. It was clearly obvious that he understood who knew which languages. I was surprised that such a young child could differentiate between the two languages so well.

My parents grew up Amish and can speak Pennsylvania Dutch fluently. My father really wanted all of us children to learn to speak it well, but my parents also wanted us to be fluent in English. Because of this my parents, though they spoke Pennsylvania Dutch to each other, chose to speak mostly English to us children. Since we were homeschooled if they would have chosen to speak PA Dutch to us all the time, that would have become our primary language. When I was 7-8 my Dad realized that though we could understand Pa Dutch, we didn’t know how to speak it and he decided that we would speak only Pennsylvania Dutch at the table. I was past the sensitive period for language learning and hated being at a loss for words and stumbling around sounding stupid. I was my father’s worst student.

Though my father wanted us to learn the language, he realized it was most important for us to know English. Not so, my grandparents, they would have rather that we were poor English speakers than not converse easily in Pennsylvania Dutch. I remember answering my Grandparents in English when they spoke to me in Pennsylvania Dutch. Sometimes I would start out answering in Pa Dutch and then switch to English when I couldn’t remember a word, or couldn’t get the words in the right order.

Twice i had little breakthrough periods where I began to think in Pa Dutch. The first time was as a teenager, I and some of my siblings took up the challenge to speak only Pa Dutch for several days, the second was when I took a job at an Amish store where I answered the phone and took orders, many of the callers were Amish and were used to speaking Pa Dutch. I started using it more and till the third week of immersion in the language I realized that I was beginning to think in it. Unfortunately my life was rather stressful at the time and I reverted back to English, because I just didn’t have the energy to expend in struggling to communicate.

I’m thankful that my father tried so hard to teach us Pa Dutch. I wish he would have understood about the sensitive period. He waited to begin instruction for me and most of my siblings till we were 7-10 years old. Though i can understand Pa Dutch, I struggle to speak it.