Which language do I speak?

Spanglish, Spantian, or Crolish?



I'm not an expert on linguistics and I hope I'm not doing more damage than good by introducing all 3 languages at once (Spanish, Croatian and English) but I have heard that babies are like sponges, they will absorb everything.

I did some research about multilingualism and I found a fascinating website, Spanglishbaby ,"the place to ask and get personal advice and honest answers to all those conflicting opinions out there about raising bilingual kids." Here I found a link to Simona Montanari , an expert on early multilingual development, and this is what she had to say about teaching your child more than one language " ...decades of research have shown that children’s brains have all the capacities necessary to cope with and fully master two or more languages if they are given the opportunity to hear and practice these languages on an everyday basis. The idea of confusion in bilingual children is really a myth, an old belief prevalent in monolingual countries that has almost become political."

So hey maybe I'm doing something right? With the exception of my Spanglish!

We are just combining all 3 languages in hopes that as she gets older she will know the difference. For now we are using words that are easier for her to pronounce, for example Elephant is too long, instead we say slon. Of course as she gets older I will speak to her only in Spanish, my Hubby in Croatian and she will have exposure to English in school.


Just to give you an idea of my daily conversations with Beli (22 months old), it goes something like this:


Me: Good Morning Beli.

Beli: Goo-Moneen Mama.

Me: Dile good morning a Daddy.....(tell Daddy good morning)

Beli:Goo-Moneen Daddy.

Me: Como durmio my muneca?....(how did my doll sleep?)

Beli: Mama dai ruka!...............(Mama give me your hand!)

Me: Dojee Beli wait for Mama.....(Come here Beli, wait for Mama)

Me:Dame los shoes.....................(Give me the shoes)

Beli: Dai shoes Mama.................(Give you the shoes Mama)

Me: Quieres pintar en el book?.........(Do you want to color on the book?)

Beli: Book? dai colors Mama! ...........(Book?, give colors Mama!)

Me: Mira!..mali pas..............................(Look, a small dog)

She really amazes me because when I ask her in Spanish to tell me the body parts she answers in Croatian! I think it's because Spanish is the minority language and Croatian the majority( at least for now that we are living here). I'm not too worried about teaching her English, although she does get the exposure from hearing Hubby and I speak. How about you, do you mix languages at home or use one of these methods OPOL, T &P or mL&H?

A French-Croatian Lemon Cake

This past Saturday we had lunch at my husband's parents home and I wanted to prepare a dessert for them and I remembered I had a recipe from my friend Nelly. She prepared it for our class a few weeks ago and was kind enough to share her French yogurt cake recipe.

After I took it out of the oven I sprinkled some vanilla sugar for decor.

I call this my first French-Croatian home-made lemon yogurt cake (what a mouthful of a name right?)

It turned out fantastic: moist and not too sweet (I was worried with 3 cups of sugar!) plus I was able to use my hand-picked lemons! The lemon zest gave it a kick. My family enjoyed it with a cup of coffee but you can also enjoy it with a warm cup of tea, or a glass of milk.

And just like my friend, I too will share the recipe with you.

1 cup yogurt (plain or vanilla flavored)

3 eggs

1 cup oil (I used sunflower oil because corn oil is not available here, although I could have used olive oil but that would not have gone well with this cake)

3 cups sugar

1 teaspoonful vanilla extract

4 cups flour

1& 1/2 teaspoonful of baking powder

1 teaspoonful of rum-aroma

grated lemon zest (1 large lemon)

1 packet of vanilla sugar (A Croatian product, but you can easily substitute and mix your own) or you can omit it from the recipe.

Sift the flour and baking powder(to make the mix more fluffy) into one bowl. In another bowl, whisk all the other ingredients then combine the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and slowly mix, then pour into a greased loaf pan and bake for 50 minutes at 350 Degrees. Time of baking may vary depending the type of oven you have. I'll advice that you set a timer at 40 minutes and then check to see if it's done (insert a toothpick in the center, if it's clear then it's done otherwise you need to bake it a bit longer).

Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.