Katy bounced into the kitchen one hot afternoon in late August and exclaimed, "I want to make lemonade! I want to make lemonade! I know how!" I had several freshly picked lemons on hand, so I told her we could certainly make lemonade. But first I asked her, "Where did you learn to make lemonade?" Katy told me she learned on Daniel Tiger and proceeded to tell me how to make lemonade: squeeze some lemons, mix the lemon juice with water and sugar, and then pour the lemonade over ice.
All of this conversation took place in Spanish because this is the primary language I speak with Katy in the house. However, Katy watches Daniel Tiger in English because the Spanish episodes are very difficult to find in the United States.
Katy patiently watched me squeeze the lemons, all the while conversing with me in Spanish about how lemonade will cool you on a hot day, about the hot weather outside, and about how many lemons were left. After juicing all the lemons, I told Katy (in Spanish) that we needed to boil some water to dissolve the sugar. Katy looked at me very confused. I explained (still in Spanish) that if we combine the sugar with cold water, it won't mix well and will fall to the bottom of our pitcher. Katy paused as if she was thinking and then replied (in Spanish), "When you make lemonade in English, you don't have to do mix the sugar with hot water."
Katy's observation about how to make lemonade in English and Spanish was based on the fact that in Daniel Tiger, which she watches in English, Daniel Tiger does not dissolve his sugar in a small amount of hot water. When we made lemonade while conversing in Spanish, however, we did dissolve our sugar in hot water. Thus, her conclusion was that the recipe for lemonade was different in English and Spanish.
Everyone told me young, bilingual children will confuse their two languages, but confusion about how to complete tasks in different languages was certainly not what I expected.
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