I never thought of myself as having much in common with Spanish-speaking immigrants to the United States. I was born in Iowa, to parents of Western European ancestry, and I am a classic example of the monolingual American whose only exposure to another language came from a brief high school foreign-language class.
That is, until I met my current wife, who is from the Philippines and bilingual in Tagalog and English. Since then, I’ve been trying to learn Tagalog with very modest success.
When my wife became pregnant, I thought it would be a great opportunity to improve my new language skills. After all, our daughter would learn Tagalog (pronounced Ta-GAH-lug) beginning with the simplest words and phrases, and I could learn along with her as my wife spoke it to her. I would never master it as well as our daughter would, but it seemed like a great way to learn.
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