Alexander is speaking Spanish, after only 10 weeks in Chile. It is astonishing for us to see. He is understanding so much. Even when he’s just overhearing conversation, we find out later he knew what we were talking about. And he is actually saying sentences in Spanish. The first we heard was a few weeks ago when he told a little Chilean friend, “Hay muchas hacetunas en Arica” (There are lots of olives in Arica). Then, the other day, he said “Bajate de la mesa,” which he says his teacher always says, which is funny since it means “Get off the table!” We were expecting him to learn some Spanish, of course, but we are still shocked. The really cool thing is that he is not shy and is confident to try communicating, which I think comes from being around so many Spanish-only speakers.
Jacob, as we expected, has also taken huge leaps in his Spanish. He’s basically fluent. His writing and speaking is really great and he understands literally everything. The main thing Jacob has had to learn here is cursive.
