As a child growing up in Hawaii, the melting pot of the Pacific, I grew up surrounded by a wide variety of ethnicities. My grandfather who was of Portuguese decent, made it a point of teaching me numbers, words & phrases in different languages. This is where my love of languages began.
The first thing he taught me of the five languages was my numbers from 1-10. All five were easy to learn because they all had the same vowel sounds. He started with Spanish and French because of their similarities. He then went on to Hawaiian and Samoan together which also had similarities between them. My mother being of Samoan, Tahitian, Irish and Scottish decent helped my Papa teach me Samoan. She wanted to make sure that I knew some of the Samoan language because her mother, my grandmother was fluent in Samoan but my mother only spoke a few words and phrases.
I later moved on to Japanese which was probably the most difficult language. The funny thing is, of all the languages, he never taught me his own, “Portuguese”.
The earliest I can remember was when I first starting learning at the age of five. I could be sitting on his lap in the living room, playing Do-re-mi on the piano, mowing the lawn next to him with my “Bubble Mower” or out in the backyard under the strawberry guava tree and he would stop what he was doing and say, “let me hear those numbers again. I would always stand so proud and get my 10 little fingers ready to recite the numbers in each language one by one.
I would start in Spanish……..
Uno, Dos, Tres, Cuatro, Cinco, Sies, Siete, Ocho, Nueve, Diez!Then French……..
Un, Deux, Trois, Quate, Cinq, Six, Sept, Huit, Neuf, Dix!
I would always be excited when it came to Hawaiian. It was the easiest and most favorite. The main reason it was easy and my favorite was because we would study them once a week in our Hawaiiana class, so I had a lot of practice.
Ekahi, Elua, Ekolu, Eha, Elima, Eono, Ehiku, Ewalu, Eiwa, Umi!
Samoan would follow immediately after because it was easy to remember. They sounded just like Hawaiian…….
Tasi, Lua, Tolu, Fa, Lima, Ono, Fitu, Valu, Iwa, Sefulu
I later learned Japanese which took me a while……
Ichi, Ni, San, Shi, Go, Roku, Shichi, Hachi, Kyu, Juu
It’s funny to think that Japanese was once my least favorite. It is the language I speak most next to English and is my current favorite.
Now at age 31, I have taught my son who is 7 years old, his numbers, words & phrases in Hawaiian and Japanese. I pray that he will develop the same love for languages & cultures so that he may enjoy them as well & pass it down to the future generations of our family.
Maybe you too will be inspired and teach your children other languages. There are many resources online for languages. Choose the languages that you wish to learn & teach your child. Just start with the numbers…. On Google, search “numbers in ______” and place whatever language you wish to learn in the blank. Also, if you need a free translator, you can log onto my favorite translator at Appliedlanguage.com. It is fast, simple & easy to use. Just click on the link below:
http://www.appliedlanguage.com/free_translation.shtml
