One of the things that happen when you are raising bilingual children is that they interchange words from both languages. While that is normally fine it isn’t when they use a word that has multiple meanings and one of those meanings is a swear word. That is when you get the “What did they say?” look.
Recently that happen when the word pero was used the wrong way. Now pero in Spanish means but or dog. However as we all know what a female dog is occasionally called and pero (pera) can be used in that meaning as well. So when one of the kids said “pero” everyone in the room looked at me. I know what they were thinking “What is this woman teaching her kids?” I didn’t teach them to use the word in that manner. It was just something they picked up and not from me mind you.
They simply used the word the wrong way (or maybe the right way considering) and as children they didn’t think about what they were saying. In the end it was all fine but now I have to be sure to teach them to use the words the proper way because I would hate a word like to come in say church of all places. I can just see them calling someone that word and me just wanting to die.
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My girls love to be silly and find ways to introduce the word butt, or even better, butt crack, in conversation. They think it is hilarious. My oldest once said something really vile. It was totally innocent and she didn’t realize what she said, but it was awful just the same. I’ve really gotten strict about potty talk since then.
I did that as well when I was younger, butt and fart were the words I loved to use.
My son has not said anything too embarrassing yet. He is only four and he does say some funny things but nothing embarrassing. A few days before Christmas we were riding in the car and a guy in the car next to us was smoking a cigarette. My son said what does that man have a fire stick. It was so hilarious.
I bet it was funny
I guess I got lucky and my son never said anything in public that made me blush. But when he was young and all of the little kids were brought to the front of the church before sermon I definitely held my breath until they were dismissed!
I do that as well. My nephew once used the F word in public.
I feel your pain, coming from a bilingual family we have come across some of the same issues.
It can be crazy at moments
This is to funny. I have been there before. Only not with a different language. My son used to hang around a boy in preschool that had a mouth like a torn wheat sack. His parents said it was okay to talk like that because those words are in the dictionary. I don’t agree with that.
I don’t agree either. There are words that just shouldn’t come out of children’s mouths.
It’s interesting how different words can have different meanings. It also reminds me of Mandarin Chinese. The same word can have several different meanings, depending on the tone you use and the context in which you use it. In your story about “pero”, I knew exactly where it was going, because I happened to know that word and all of the potential meanings. Hopefully your kids will pick the right meaning of the right context. 🙂
We can hope.
I think its great your kids are bilingual.. they are kids and even if they didn’t say the word out of context people should accept that the child is learning.
My son is 2 and has a speech disorder, so we are still working on talking. No embarrassing words yet, although I am sure they will come! It’s just one of those events we will laugh about.
I lived/taught overseas and on my first day, my students kept saying “hamom” (sp?). I thought they were asking for their moms, but little did I know this meant bathroom in Arabic! Haha! Learned that rather quickly!
Hmm this is a very interesting thing I would have never thought about being a difficulty when learning another language. Thanks for sharing your experience!