I speak English and Spanish; this impacts my work with children who aren’t native English speakers.

Daily writing prompt

Which languages do you speak and how did that impact your life?

View all responses

I speak English and Spanish. My native language is U.S. English, with a moderate amount of exposure to Scottish and Irish accents. I’ve never really considered how my native language impacts my life. I have lived in the United States my entire life and statistically, very near to one hundred percent of the people in my community only speak U.S. English.

I’m only an intermediate Spanish speaker. I work with children, and having even modest fluency has made a profound difference when dealing with children who only speak Spanish or for whom English is a second language. The number of native Spanish-speaking children I encounter has increased over the past few school years. The ability to ask a child if he knows which school bus to ride or if he knows the name of the street where he lives has been a fantastic benefit.