Lucía Ringuelet
While lately I have been trying to be more flexible, I have always had a clear tendency towards a “monolithic” type of interaction, or “double monolingualism” (Rymes, 2014, p. 5). My family immigrated from Argentina to Canada when my brother was 15 years old and I 12. From the moment we arrived, both my brother and I refused to speak in a language other than Spanish in our home, with our parents and among ourselves. I believe this can sound odd, as it is usually the parents who adopt that stance, seeking to protect the development of the mother tongue. Instead, my mother wanted to practice French with us, but we refused. Code-switching was almost taboo a for us. We wanted to speak “proper” Spanish. To be honest, I am not sure where this strict distinction came from at such a young age. It was certainly more emotional than rational.
Today, as an adult and from a rational point of view, I can find good reasons for it. In fact, I am happy we did it that way. It allowed my brother and particularly I, being the youngest, to maintain a good mastery of our mother tongue. The avoidance of code-switching to mix French in our Spanish has lent us to practice a wider range of vocabulary in the latter language. When I go back to Argentina or I speak with other Hispanic individuals whose repertoire does not include French or English, I am much more confident in my abilities to express myself solely in Spanish.
Continue reading “Translating Journey Part 1 – Training your brain”