My Kids Used Their Languages Around the World—Here’s What I Learned

 If you’ve ever wondered what it actually looks like when kids use a second language abroad, you’re about to hear it because I wanna show you what’s possible for your family.

 I’m Adelaide from TalkBox.Mom, where we help families to start talking in a foreign language the very same day you start the program.

 This year our family traveled across Asia, Europe, and Mexico. And our boys, along with us, used Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, Spanish, and more.

 Not perfectly in every language, but confidently enough to connect with people wherever we went.

 In this video, I’m sharing the seven most valuable lessons from seven countries, and the one moment from our travels this year that changed the way I see fluency forever.

 If you’re ready for it, hit that like button, subscribe and let’s go.

 The first country is Taiwan. Chinese was a part of our intro to Asian languages where we practiced from the first box in each language and part of the second box.

 I wish we had time to go further, but I held us back quite a bit.

 I was terrified to practice Chinese, but I kept showing up with the Consistency Crew.

 So even though I was scared, I would pick my phrase, I would practice, I would use the phrase, and I started to make progress,  even though I kept asking myself, am I even making a difference? Will I remember anything?

 Well, the first morning that we woke up in Taiwan, we went down to the hotel breakfast.

 We booked the hotel on points, so the breakfast was included, and it was the most beautiful breakfast I have ever seen at a hotel.

 They had a whole dumpling section of fresh dumplings. They had a whole egg section. Of course the fruit, but it was like a fruit island. It was so nice. They had all these different meats.

 They had American style breakfasts that I told my kids, don’t eat those ones. It was incredible.

 My 11-year-old went up to the ramen buffet and when he looked at the chef, he immediately said, “wǒ xiǎng-yào,” pointed to the ramen he wanted and said, “xiè-xie.”

I didn’t get to hear this, but he came back over and told me this happened and said that the guy in line asked him how long he had been speaking Chinese for.

 My son told him just a month, and the guy looked at him really confused.

 So my son said, mom, is that right? Is that how long we practiced? And I said, yes, it is.

 Nolan had a huge rush of confidence, which had us using even more Chinese while we were in Taiwan.

 So lesson number one is you’re further ahead if you start, especially with TalkBox.Mom because you pass up years of trying to speak another language.

 Country number two is Korea.

 This was very fun. At cafes in Korea we were told, I think this is true,  that anybody can go to a cafe and you can even bring your own food and just hang out. It’s more community building.

 So we went into a cafe our first morning there and there was a woman who was opening walnuts and she asked my son to sit down next to him, which we had learned sit down in Korean, and so he immediately listened and sat down.

 She opened a walnut for him. He ate it. We had learned to say yummy. So he said it was yummy, and she just kept chatting with him and opening walnuts, and he let me know it wasn’t yummy. He was just being nice.

 But the Korean people are so friendly.

 When we were out on the street walking and saying hi to people, they were so excited that we were speaking their language.

 I even told my kids, we have this rule that if you can order it another language, you can have it.

 And when we were out at a market, my son saw a moving octopus that he had seen in a YouTube video where they cook it really fast and you eat it while it’s moving.

 And he wanted to order it and he pointed at it and he said, “joo-seh-yo.”

 And the lady immediately pulled it out and started cutting it up. And I was like, how did we get here?

 So lesson number two is people love when you try.

 Country number three is Japan. We had so much fun using our Japanese.

 For part of our trip, we went to Disneyland. And when we were standing in line, my 11-year-old and I decided to play a trick on our 14-year-old.

 We told him, “Hey, you never learned how to say hi to girls your age.”

 So we jumped in our Phrasebook with our TalkBox.Mom companion app, and we played the phrase for him.

“ Kawaiine!”

 And as girls passed him in line, he kept waving and saying “Kawaiine!” and they would giggle and laugh and then he was like, what is going on here?

 So he looked at my phone and he saw that the phrase means, “You’re so cute.”

 He was a really good sport about it.

 Later, my 11-year-old really wanted to take a picture with two girls who dressed up and matched each other, and so I told him, just ask them, people ask you for photos all the time. So he did.

 He asked them. He took a picture with these girls, they’re probably 16, 17. And when the photo was over, he looked at the ladies and he said, “Kawaiine!” and they were laughing so hard. I don’t think they’ll ever forget that compliment.

 And there was also a group of older Japanese women who thought it was so cute we could hear them giggling and repeating. So cute.

 There was also a phrase that we used in Japan that we practiced before that I didn’t even know we would end up using.

 It was to ask for a fork. This was from our kitchen label cards, and we used it at every restaurant  because my dad could not eat with the chopsticks.

 We brought my parents on the trip because we got points tickets for them and the hotels were on points.  So the more the merrier, right?

 The last thing I wanna share from Japan is something silly that I did.

 I heard someone say the word “reshīto” about a receipt and I thought, “Wow, I could use that word.”

 And so I was at a pharmacy like place and  they had the receipt and then I wanted to ask for it, and I confidently said, “reshīto tabetai,” and they both looked at me and. Went like that,  and I thought, oh, my word. I just said, “ I want to eat my receipt.”

 I didn’t want to say that. I put my hands in an X. I couldn’t even think of how to say no in Japanese.  I was thinking Korean “ah-nee-yo,” and then all of a sudden it finally came to me.

“Reshīto kudasai.”

 And they handed me the receipt. I don’t think they will ever forget that.

 But lesson number three that I want you to pull from all of this is you don’t need to be perfect. You just need to be brave.

 Country number four is Spain. This was a relief after Asia. We were back in our comfort zone. Spain felt like coming home to one of our family’s core languages.

 The boys use Spanish constantly, not because we told them to, but because they wanted to.

 That’s the magic of real life fluency.

 Our kids were sitting at the first restaurant and they realized, wow, this is really easy for us to order here and communicate.

 My oldest protested this language for more than a decade, and he loves that he can speak Spanish now. So lesson number four is keep going forward. Just keep going.

 The fifth country is the United Kingdom.

You might be thinking that I speak English, but I couldn’t understand these people. I needed subtitles.

 We walked by Buckingham Palace and then we went to the Ruben Hotel for tea time and I was so excited and I had no idea what the person checking us in was saying.

 I just kept staring at him and he just kept repeating it and I didn’t ask my family for help.

 And afterwards they’re like, “Why didn’t you just tell us you didn’t know what he was saying? We could have helped you.”

 So lesson number five is tell people when you don’t understand, even if it’s a language that you speak. This helps a lot.

 I have very confidently pretended that I know what was being said in other languages, and it has gotten me into trouble in the past.

 I have learned that I make a lot more progress when I just say, I don’t know what is going on.

 Country Number six is Mexico. We went to Mexico to test drive an immersion experience for Fluency Families.

 We had cooking classes where the kids were speaking Spanish as they cooked. They were speaking Spanish as they did arts and crafts.

 My kids even signed up for a photography class and I was a chaperone in it.  I don’t know anywhere here that would let a 12-year-old and a 16-year-old in a dark room and work on film cameras. But in Mexico, it was an absolute yes.

 While I was chaperoning, the photographer was talking about light and how light worked in Spanish, and I just had this huge moment where I realized, wow, we learned how to say these things.

 Starting with turn on the light. Turn off the lights. And as we added that to our life, it started to build fluency to now the point where we can understand things being said in other contexts and start learning in the language. This was very cool.

So lesson number six is once you can talk at home, you can grow anywhere. 

 Country number seven is Greece. Hector and I even snuck away for a trip to Greece with another couple. A reminder that parents deserve adventure too.

 We don’t have Greek yet, but with TalkBox.Mom, I know exactly what to learn first to hit the ground running and “thank you” was shocking.

 I know from experience this year that if I say it’s hard ( Chinese), or think it has to be perfect, I won’t move forward.

 So I told myself I can, it’s just sounds, I just keep on trying.

 And now I can say “Efcharistó” to thank the waiter, thank the driver, thank anyone who I want to thank in Greek.

 So lesson number seven is tell yourself you can.

 And now the moment from our travels this year that changed the way I see fluency forever.

 Fluency is when the language falls out of your mouth easily and accurately. No translating. This means that when you hear something, you don’t need to translate it into English to get the meaning.

 You understand it easily and accurately. You say it easily and accurately.

 When we were in Japan, we were going to the Peter Pan ride line in fantasy land, and a mom was standing with her daughter facing us her daughter was very pouty.

 And the mom told her, “Matte. Matte.”

 I understood her perfectly. My mind went back to our brown wood dining room table where we practiced the same phrase by having each other wait after we said the phrase.

 At the time, I was just hoping that I could remember anything in Japanese, because everything was so foreign to me.

 It’s not a Latin based language, and I only started with the words futon and arigato, Mr. Roboto.

 But this woman, I could understand her easily and accurately because of the little steps we took at home.

 It was like I grew up hearing it. And I could see into her world.

 And here’s the part most parents don’t realize.

 These moments abroad only happen because of the tiny, ordinary moments we practiced at home.

 Moments where I wasn’t even sure if we were making enough progress to make a dent.

 If what you’re practicing feels small, know that it’s one brick that’s building your Fluency Family home.

 Don’t take that one brick for granted. I use this small phrase in very serious, important situations like when we were in a taxi and the English speakers, my dad and my husband and I were arguing if we get out here or where the bullet train is, and I asked the driver, “Matte. Matte,” and he told me. So we waited and we got out at the right spot.

 Later on a train platform, we weren’t sure if this was our train. And we asked the guy and he was pointing to the sign and I said, “Matte.” And he said, “Matte.”  So we waited and we got the right train.

 One small phrase will build your confidence to lay brick after brick with new phrases. Then you’ll look back as a family and think, “Wow, look what we built together.”

 Looking back for us, this year wasn’t really about travel. It was about who our boys became, who we became as a family, the confidence we gained, the courage we showed, the way our family grew closer through shared language.

 If you’d like our Fluency Family Roadmap PDF, click here.

 If you’re already a Fluency Family, we’ve got something fun in store for you, including sharing how almost all this travel was free. Just taxes and fees.

 After more than a decade of using points, we’ve saved over half a million on flights and hotels.

 It’s helped us give our boys the world, and we’d love for you to give your family the world as well.