Baby’s First Words En Español

When raising a bilingual or multilingual child, it's always interesting to see which language the child chooses for his first word, and the things that come out of your bilingual baby's mouth can be sweetly predictable or hilariously unexpected. Here are the experiences of 10 mothers raising bilingual children, and the amazing moment their babies spoke their first words.

"For my husband and me, there wasn't even one minute in which we doubted whether we wanted our children to be bilingual or not. Since the day they were born, we have spoken to them in Spanish. My son's first words were mamá, papá and agua. It was very funny! He loved drinking water in his sippy cup and loved the pool and taking baths, but we never expected that. My daughter first said papá, then mamá and then 'che' – which meant 'leche' (milk). To this day, my daughter would rather drink milk than water, while her older brother prefers water." —Jeannette Kaplun

"I planned to raise our first son to be bilingual from the day he was born, but at the time, my native Spanish-speaker husband was focused on learning English and my Spanish wasn't yet good enough; it wasn't working out as I had hoped. For the first year our son spoke only English but when we took a trip to El Salvador, surrounded by the Spanish language for the first time, he suddenly started using the word ‘agua’ for ‘water.’ Since then, he (and now his little brother) have become bilingual, but remembering that first word in Spanish still makes me smile." —Tracy López

"Try as I might, my kids aren't fully bilingual yet. When they were little, I spoke Spanish a lot more though, and aside from mama and dada, I think one of my daughter's first words was 'yeche,' her version of 'leche.' I sure do miss those days!" —Monica Olivera

"Raising my kids to be bilingual was something that was going to happen in my household one way or another. I spoke Spanish to my oldest every minute of every day and my husband would speak to him in English. His first words were 'papa' and 'no.' Then he moved on to 'mama' weeks later. When he was about 11 months old, he blurted out the word 'leche' for milk. I remember it bringing tears to my eyes. The constant repetition of the words I grew up hearing started to pay off and we were on our way to raising our little guy bilingual." —Jessie Nuez

"Ever since Enzo was born, I've spoken to him en español and his father has spoken to him in French. My mom, as Enzo's primary caretaker, and his babysitter, also spoke in Spanish to him, so as expected, Enzo picked up more Spanish than French, and his first word was 'agua.' Honestly, I do not remember what his first word in French was. Maybe it was 'encore' which means 'more.' I do remember that the first time I heard him code-switching was when he was asking for agua and he asked me 'Más agua' – when I responded 'Pídele a Papá', he went to his father and said 'Papá encore' and I was blown away. I will never forget that moment!" —Diana Limongi Gabriele

"My daughter's first word in Spanish was 'leche.' In fact, most of her words were in Spanish, which was a huge joy to me as I set out on the quest to raise a bilingual in the heart of Tennessee. It's funny, though, now at 10, she is not fully bilingual, she still uses her original Spanish words: leche, pelo, gato and throws them in right there in the middle of her sorta-twangy English. It works. I speak mostly Spanglish, anyway, and hey, at least her accent is pretty good." —Carrie Ferguson Weir

"I love the age my son is at currently. At 18-months-old, Sebastian is 100 percent bilingual; whatever he knows in English, he also knows in Spanish. I'll never forget his first Spanish word, as it came right after 'mama' and 'dada' and before English words. Since we also expose the kids to sign language, I was excited when Sebastian started to use the sign for 'more' while saying 'maaa', which to me, of course, meant 'más.' It was so exciting! My little boy is speaking Spanish!" —Vanessa Martinez Bell

"While visiting El Salvador (my country of origin) we encountered a military event and my son was fascinated by the helicopters. Of course, I pointed at one and said 'he-li-cop-te-ro.' I might have repeated it 2 or 3 more times and then forgot about it. A couple of hours later we saw another helicopter flying by, and he said 'toquiro!' I was so surprised he had kind of remembered such a difficult word to pronounce. To this day, at our house 'helicopter' is pronounced 'toquiro'." —Claudia Mayorga del Cid

"I assumed the boys would learn Spanish the same way I did but Victorio, my youngest, took a liking to Chinese. When I told my Dominican husband, he responded, 'Mira coño! We are not Chinese!' I found it hilarious that he would always say this when something didn't fly right with him. I never realized my toddler would be listening in. One day, my husband asked Victorio something and Victorio responded in Chinese. Papi wasn't happy with the language in which he responded, but Victorio refused to answer in Spanish. Finally, frustrated with his father pressuring him, he said, 'Mira c*ño! I don't want to speak Spanish! I like Chinese better!' —Eileen Carter-Campos

"I was blessed to have my mom living with us while my son was very young and credit her for his being able to understand Spanish. To this day, I remember having to drag him away from her room every night when she watched her telenovelas and on Saturdays during 'Casos de la Vida Real.' As much as he was exposed to Spanish, though, he rarely spoke it, which is why I chuckled when asked to remember his first Spanish word: pelusa. At the time that he said, it was like hearing my mom complain about the dust bunnies." —Ezzy Guerrero-Languzzi