As a mother of two children, Maria knows how important both her languages are. Maria was born in the United States to Cuban born parents. Her children heard mainly Spanish for the first four to five years of their lives just as Maria had. Both of their grandmothers, who took care of them during the day, spoke only Spanish. The rest of the family (Maria, their father, and their grandfathers) knew both Spanish and English, but found themselves speaking only Spanish at home. When her son started school, he knew very little English, but he learned quickly once he had the right incentive. It is amazing how easily a child can pick up new languages. They do not notice all of the differences in languages. They just know that this is how you say it in English (Spanish). Spanish is different from English in many ways including order of words, nouns with genders, and body language.
The order of words changes when a sentence is translated between English and Spanish. One main change is in adjectives. In English, we put the adjective before the noun as in hairbrush. In Spanish, the adjective follows the noun (cepillo para el cabello: literally- brush for the hair). Another difference is how words are combined in Spanish, (for example: dame). This single word combines the subject, verb, and indirect object. da = he, she, you give ; me = to me. Dame el perro = He gives the dog to me. Although it is different and takes some time to become use to it, Spanish has effectively cut the sentence from six words to three words.
In Spanish, most nouns are assigned a gender. In some cases, the assignment is almost obvious. (el torro = the bull is masculine; la vaca = the cow is feminine) However in other cases, it does not seem to have any reason. (la pluma = the pen is feminine; el lapiz = the pencil is masculine) When questioned about which nouns had which gender, Maria seemed to have never considered it. Gender is subconsciously fed to us everyday and unless we take the time to think about it, we may pass those same sexist ideas on to our children. We considered many words to see if one sex or the other was receiving more of the lower, less desirable nouns. We found some interesting things, including that most animals are masculine but the lizard, rat, and cockroach are all feminine. Overall, however, the nouns did not seem to be divided by appeal, although there did seem to be more masculine than feminine words.
Finally, the last major difference between Spanish and English is the body language. Maria admits that her body language has changed since she met her new husband. In English, people have been known to throw their arms around, yell, and talk fast when they are in an argument or agitated by something. In Spanish, the people get emotionally charged talking very loud, very fast, and looking excited during the course of a normal conversation. Some of them, Maria included, also can not stay still while they talk. Their arms fly through the air, they walk around, or wiggle their feet. In Maria's case, talking is idle time when she could be cleaning or something, so she will straighten everything and may even grab a rag and start dusting talking at full speed the entire time.
Although Spanish and English may be different in the way they are put together and expressed, language is the common thread that binds us together and helps us to understand each other's differences and similarities. Each of us adds to our own culture as well as to the cultures of those people with whom we interact. We are more alike than we will ever know.