YOUR KIDS HAVE IT EASY!

Oh how I envy my children! It’s not just that they are growing up on a tropical coast where the concept of ice scrapers does not exist, or that they have all kinds of new gadgets like computers and calculators and VCRs, I mean DVDs. It’s not just that my son is growing up in a city with more beautiful women per square foot than anywhere else on the planet (and I suppose, conversely, with lots of handsome men for my daughter to choose from some day, not that I like to dwell on it so much). What I envy most: the kids are learning to read and write in Spanish. Imagine a language in which every vowel is only pronounced one way, and that way is also its name. If you look at a word in Spanish, you know immediately how it is pronounced. They even have accent marks to guide you if by chance an odd syllable is stressed. It is amazing how quickly kids catch on to spelling if there is logic and consistency. As for English, well, I don’t know whether to blame Chaucer or Webster or some twisted friars eating ergot, but it makes less sense than the address numbers they put on El Centro homes. As for looking at a word and guessing how it is pronounced, good luck. In English every vowel can be inflected a variety of ways, and there are so many exceptions to every rule that you might as well forget the rules and just memorize every single word. The most common, yet nameless, vowel sound in English is “uh”- the “a” in cereal, the “e” in mitten, the “i” in lentil, the “o” in symbol, the “u” in awful, and the “y” in ethyl. The second most common secret vowel sound is “rrrrrrrr”: the “a” in beggar, the “e” in monster, the “i” in fir, the “o” ardor, the “u” in burr and the “y” in martyr. Native Spanish speakers have one heck of a time accepting that no matter which vowel is used, it’s pronounced the same, “uh” or “rrrrr.” They’re so accustomed to correctly pronouncing each vowel distinctly, they just can’t bring themselves to slur them all together like you’re (yer) supposed to. Spanish can spoil you. They say that

Chinese/Japanese characters are very child friendly because they are actually stylized pictures which in some memorable way represent the concept they stand for, but it must make for one heck of a large alphabet (instead of Mozart’s Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, they might try setting their alphabet to the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach). French must be a nightmare to take dictation in, half the letters go unspoken (did you know that Renault rhymes with “go,” not “salt”?). Italians do half their talking with their hands, which must involve years of study. The Greeks and Russians are hopefully someday going to chuck the Cyrillic alphabet and join the rest of the world, and won’t that be fun for their students! (“As of tomorrow, class, all Ps will become Rs.”) Of all the world’s languages, surely Spanish must be the nicest (with the possible exception of Hawaiian). Unfortunately, there is a creeping insidious infiltration of the Spanish language going on in the form of: English words! I fled the madness up north seeking a haven where I could raise a brood of bairns who would never have to puzzle over words like “lymph” or “knighthood.” But it seems that everywhere you go, English, with all its demented spelling, is invading other languages and taking over the world. There’s no escaping it. Even so, kids these days have it easy. When I was their age, we didn’t have Spellcheck (whose squiggly red line informs me that “Spellcheck” is misspelled, as is “squiggly” -is that progress or what? It’s a great time to be alive!). Of course, sooner or later, the Bradycitos will have to face the music of the English language in all its intricate glory, but I think it’s good for them to get a good solid foundation in Spanish first, a confident grasp of phonetics (fun ‘eadaches). Let them revel in the delights of Spanish, reading aloud with confidence everything they see. Then, after they become bored with that routine, maybe the inconsistency of English spelling will be an irresistible challenge. eg@pacificpearl.com