When I was pregnant, I received innumerable pieces of advice. A recurrent one was to speak to my child in Spanish so that she would be bilingual from the start. It didn’t happen. I missed one important part of the advice: you must create a relationship with your child in that language. Maybe it only happens to me, but once I establish a friendship with someone in one language, it is quite awkward to jump to another language, and my relationship with my daughter developed in the language of Shakespeare.

True, I spoke to her in Spanish as much as I could, but only sporadically as the rest of the family speaks English and it was a bit too much for me to change back and forth. I read to her in Spanish, translating all her children books, which doesn’t necessarily result in fun reading. At some point, I realized I had missed the window. While she will learn Spanish at school, I hope she also creates a lot of relationships in that language. I went to a French school and I was good at it. I had a great accent and passed the Baccalaureate. But without friends or family to practice with, it didn’t become an integral part of me the way that English has. And how not? Listening to my daughter recite “To be or not to be” with an English accent is delightful. I feel pride and love that filter through my whole being.

I have been trying to recover French for a while now. I changed my phone system to French, I read books, I speak to anyone who can bear the awkward pauses while I look for a word that only comes to my mind in another language. I sang along San Francisco today in front of my surprised daughter.  I think I should get to a class if only to hopefully meet someone who can be my friend in French. Any takers?

I guess the main barrier with language, at least for me, is to be palpably aware of the many mistakes I make, even if only in terms of accent. My daughter and hubby find some of them hilarious. That was why I avoided social situations in English when I arrived in the US and I guess that is why I hesitate so much in French these days. I must go over my self-consciousness and just focus on what I want to say. I am sensing a pattern here. Maybe life is just about persistently try to do what you want to do, despite your own insecurities. Is this something everybody goes through? Or mostly women?