At four and a half years old, Diego is definitely a bilingual child. Spanish is still his strongest language with a larger vocabulary but English is catching up at an amazing rate. He still only speaks Spanish with his father and I (something that I very much encourage) but he will switch to English or Spanish depending on the language preference of his playmates. He really has only one friend with whom he speaks Spanish. This little boy's parents do not speak English and his mother babysat for the boys while I worked. Now that his friend has entered school, I have noticed that they will sometimes speak to each other in English. This is usually when I will interrupt the conversation and ask a question in Spanish to get them back on track. It is critical to Diego's longterm language success to have many Spanish-speakers in his life.
Between Diego and Mateo, they almost always speak Spanish. I know that is it a little deceptive but if Diego says something to Mateo in English, I gently remind him that Mateo does not understand English and he must speak to him in Spanish. Diego is Mateo's hero and wants to do everything exactly like his big brother. If Mateo is going to be bilingual, it is imperative that his brother speaks to him in Spanish.
So what language does Diego speak while he is playing alone? Both. In the picture below, Diego had built two robots. One was speaking English and the other was speaking Spanish. At one point I heard one robot yell at the other, "Pero no hablo inglés!" (But I don't speak English.)
